“Joal” is Jose T. Almonte, the soft-spoken, high-minded military man who likes grand ideas and once navigated the corridors of power as an adviser/guru to the powerful and the ambitious. He is sometimes referred to as the “thinking soldier,” a description that fits General Almonte precisely because it implies that such a phenomenon may be … Read more

Those who criticize President Benigno Aquino III for his handling of the Mamasapano incident accuse him of insensitivity and incompetence. These are vague charges, but they have a resonance that no president must ignore. I think they have to do less with personal virtue or functional ability, but more with what people seek most in … Read more

One of the questions our politicians kept asking the representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front at the legislative hearings on the Mamasapano incident was: Why were you harboring international terrorists in the communities under your control? That question, to be fair, should have been asked of the heads of the different local government units—from … Read more

In the wake of the unfortunate Jan. 25 encounter between government forces and elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, questions are now being asked about the MILF’s trustworthiness as a peace partner. Forty-four police commandos on a mission to arrest two highly wanted international terrorists were killed in that encounter. The Philippine National Police-Special … Read more

Out of the at least eight separate inquiries aimed at finding the truth behind the Jan. 25 Mamasapano incident, one or two should be able to tell us what “really” happened. That is our hope. Unfortunately, truth is not something that is out there, waiting to be discovered. Truth is rather something we make, something … Read more

“Justice!” was the collective call of the families and comrades of the 44 Philippine National Police-Special Action Force commandos who were slain in that lopsided encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao, last Jan. 25. This is not the kind of cry that is commonly heard from the ranks of policemen and soldiers whose job, unlike that of … Read more

Sunday’s bloody incident in Maguindanao will probably become one of the most serious stumbling blocks to the attainment of enduring peace in Mindanao, and it definitely won’t be the last. The sources are many. There are power struggles within the Muslim community that will not miraculously disappear even with the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic … Read more

The religiosity of the Filipino is legendary, and this was repeatedly affirmed during the recent visit to the country of Pope Francis. There are accounts of food caterers putting aside as keepsakes the plates, cups and glasses, knives, forks and spoons, and table napkins that he used when he took his meals. That is quite … Read more

It is a phrase straight out of the center-periphery idiom of Latin American “dependencia” thinking. Concepts like “ideological colonization” freely flow from the speeches of the Argentine Pope Francis, particularly when he speaks in Spanish. They mirror the realities of political oppression and the emancipatory struggles that have shaped the consciousness of an entire generation … Read more

“Peripheries” means “outskirts” or “margins,” and it appears quite often in Pope Francis’ distinctively Latin American vocabulary. It stood out, for instance, in the brief intervention he made at the preconclave congregation in which the assembled cardinals discussed the situation of the Church and its urgent tasks. To appreciate how Francis uses the term is … Read more