BERLIN. Sunday mornings, like everywhere else, are slow days in Berlin. The city that stayed up all Saturday till four in the morning is just beginning to stir. But my guide is punctual as usual. And so at eight in the morning of an overcast Sunday, we make our way to the outskirts of this … Read more
BERLIN. Filipinos and Germans are a study in contrast. The Germans are trying to forget that they are a nation; we are trying to remember that we are. Events — like the collapse of communism — conspire to remind them of their national identity. Migration, the hope of many Filipinos, devalues nationality. “I am a … Read more
According to the United Nations, a person 18 years of age or younger is a child. By this definition, Cheche Atizado, the 16-year-old boy with whom Sarah Jane Salazar has admitted having sexual relations, could be a victim of child exploitation. But who will file the case? And to what end? The public knows Sarah … Read more
There is one place at least in the country where 11-year-old girls are not being groomed to become “guest relations officers” or GROs for DOMs and pedophiles. It’s softball they are being bred for, and the place is called Pulungmasle, a farming village in the periphery of the town of Guagua, province of Pampanga. Hardly … Read more
A long time ago, people who cleared the land and made it productive regarded themselves as its stewards if not its owners. Then, government came and declared all land that has not been properly titled as public domain. Thus, overnight, with the exception of a few who knew the rudiments of land registration, the natives … Read more
Twenty four years ago, Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and proceeded to govern the country without accountability – except, maybe, to history. Today, we remember that sad episode in our national lives as a metaphor for everything that is corrupt, abusive, and predatory in politics. The story could have been different. Martial law could have … Read more
The creation of the SPCPD or the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development may be described as the last attempt of the state to formally integrate Moroland into the Filipino nation. If it succeeds, those Moro checkpoints — which designate the boundaries of contested territory and which stand as the last emblems of Moro … Read more
In her speech at the Ateneo University recently, former president Cory Aquino enumerated what she believed to be the qualities of an ideal leader for our times. She said that he or she “must have a sense of right and wrong, of morality and justice, and a sense of kinship with all of our people.” … Read more
The first thing that my daughter wrote to her sisters while visiting Mexico early this year was how many Edu Manzano and Dayanara Torres look-alikes she had seen everywhere. Even the taxi-driver looked like Aga Muhlach, she gushed. And a woman behind the counter at a shopping mall could have been Charlene Gonzalez. The young … Read more
ABS-CBN’s The Inside Story showed an episode on Filipino dog eaters last Tuesday which left me wondering exactly why watching it became for my family such an offensive experience. My children, typically liberal and modern, are not normally squeamish about these things. But this time they were screaming. The camera shows a light brown native … Read more