In his public appearances here and abroad, President Duterte has been using a form of speech that may be likened to a dialect. He is not talking the way most heads of state talk. Too often, he has employed taboo language not usually heard in public discourse. That is why his official spokespersons—people designated to … Read more

We don’t know if Philippine National Police Director General Ronald dela Rosa realizes it. But no other event since the Duterte administration came to power has dealt a greater blow to the credibility of the police in the war on drugs than the treacherous killing last Sunday of anticrime crusader Zenaida Luz in Oriental Mindoro. … Read more

Languages all over the world contain expressions that are implicitly avoided in polite conversation, says Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. But people use them anyway, sometimes in the most unexpected situations. There they do their work, intensifying emotion and eliciting unwanted reactions beyond their listeners’ control. In his exemplary book, “The stuff of thought: Language as … Read more

In the morning of Aug. 23, 2010, as then President Benigno Aquino III began his 55th day in office, a dismissed Manila policeman in uniform took control of a tourist bus filled with visitors from Hong Kong.  Holding the terrified passengers at gunpoint at a parking bay in Luneta Park, Rolando Mendoza claimed he had … Read more

Thrown into the larger social world outside the comfort zone of family, friends, and local community, we are torn, in Steven Pinker’s words, “between the desire to fit in and the desire to be unique” (Pinker, “The Stuff of Thought,” 2007). Nowhere is this more observable than when a new head of state enters the … Read more

Showing at some local cinemas since last week—and I hope it’s not pulled out soon for lack of viewers—is the historical movie “Ang Hapis at Himagsik ni Hermano Puli.” Competently directed by Gil Portes and with Aljur Abrenica in the lead role, the film depicts the “agony and fury” of Apolinario de la Cruz (aka … Read more

When President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte met Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo at the recent Asean Summit in Laos, they evidently took an instant liking for one another. Sharing a reputation for decisiveness, both basked in the same populist adulation that has become the hallmark of weak democracies. But, more than this, they projected the same … Read more

In everyday life, we tend to assign less weight to oral speech than to the written word.  The spoken is presumed to be “ephemeral,” liable to be misheard, reinterpreted, or denied.  The written word, in contrast, is thought to be “indelible,” its meaning cast in stone. But, the literary scholar Roland Barthes, in his classic … Read more

There’s one topic on which President Duterte has admitted censoring his normally uninhibited language: China. “I’m sure, as your President,” he told his audience the other day at the inauguration of the new Davao International Container Port, “I would not lead you to trouble, or I would not cause you shame. There will be a … Read more

ULAANBAATAR—Invited to participate in a forum in Mongolia this last week of August, I instantly said yes, motivated mainly by a wish to experience what it is like to stand on the main capital square of this vast landlocked Asian country, sometimes called the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky.  Known for its cloudless skies, … Read more