In the not-too-distant past, when a Filipino senator invoked personal privilege in order to speak, the Senate set aside the business of the day in anticipation of hearing someone of the caliber of Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo Tañada, Jose W. Diokno, or Jovito R. Salonga fill the chamber with stirring words of wisdom, patriotism, and … Read more

In most legal complaints filed in the courts, we may encounter the phrase “contrary to law” at the end of a summation of the facts. We can imagine these three words peppering the plunder charges that the Ombudsman has filed against the three senators and their chiefs of staff, the heads of the implementing agencies … Read more

The belief that events are being willfully manipulated by clever individuals to shape the way the public experiences them tends to flourish during times of confusion.  The form it usually takes is the conspiracy theory. One such moment is the crisis spawned by revelations of the widespread fraud that has attended the disbursement of the … Read more

A conversation I had the other day with Toto, a 21-year-old high school graduate who could not find a job, got me to think about the nature of today’s basic education and our young people’s attitude toward work, as compared to that of my generation. By the time I finished high school, I knew how … Read more

The defense of Janet Lim Napoles is that while she may be guilty of facilitating the diversion of public funds, she was not the mastermind. She says that the payment of commissions or kickbacks in government projects is not her invention. That’s a plausible line, but it will not get Napoles off the hook. Indeed, … Read more

Imagine an individual who starts a small business supplying helmets and other necessities to the military, using the contacts made possible by her being a military spouse. In the course of her dealings, she develops valuable connections in the rest of government. She quickly grasps the rules of procurement, discovers the informal organization behind every … Read more

I cringe whenever I hear people say that lists of names, documents, receipts, photographs, etc. speak for themselves. What they are claiming, in effect, is that there is only one way of looking at these records, that the meanings they convey are the same for everyone, and that if you can’t see them the same … Read more

We live in one world, but we see the world in many different ways. Confusion results when we fail to distinguish these different ways of seeing, as when we try to make them consistent with one another, or to reduce them to a presumed common essence—like truth, for example. Instead of asking which one is … Read more

Will the ongoing investigation of the large-scale diversion of lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) to private pockets have any significant effect on the 2016 elections and on Philippine politics in general? This is a complex question. The answer, I think, greatly depends on the level of importance Filipino voters assign to the personal integrity … Read more

Even without seeing the names in the so-called “Napoles list,” we may assume that the number of implicated lawmakers is so incredibly large as to support the conclusion that, in this country, corruption has become the normal behavior and honest public service the exception. But, if corruption is illegal, how can it become normal? There … Read more