If there is a cultural phenomenon that perhaps perfectly encapsulates the complexity of the Filipino religious psyche, it must be the devotion to the Black Nazarene.  Every year, on a day like this, Jan. 9, almost a million Filipinos from all walks of life participate in the frenzied procession of the statue of the Black … Read more

December 30 is marked as Rizal Day everywhere in the country. But in the small town of Betis in Pampanga, where I grew up, this special day is also celebrated as the feast day of St. James the Apostle (Santiago Apostol). There was a time when the annual procession of the town’s religious icons at … Read more

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund illegal, lawmakers from both houses of Congress have asked what will happen to their scholars whose education is being financed by pork barrel funds. The same lament has been aired with regard to patients whose medical needs are also being paid … Read more

There was a time when, as a young man traveling to different countries for the first time, I took photos of every building, statue, or landscape that caught my eye, hoping to share these with family and friends when I got home. I realized many years later that this habit was keeping me from enjoying … Read more

The other day, ABS-CBN.com carried an amusing report about unusual names that were spotted among the list of successful examinees in the recent UP College Admissions Test. People at first thought the names Sincerely Yours ’98 Pascual, Cyber 1A22 Cruz, and Cressida B3 Reyes were computer errors. But there is no error in these names: … Read more

Asked to explain and reverse the steep increase in electricity rates, Malacañang was quick to say this is an issue beyond the control of the President. Indeed it is. This falls under the jurisdiction of one of the regulatory boards specifically mandated by law to administer public utilities. Such boards are autonomous within their jurisdictions, … Read more

As one who has avidly followed the twists and turns of past efforts at forging peace with the Bangsamoro, I can only marvel at the diligence, care, and patience that the present negotiators from the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have shown in crafting a document that can be accepted by their respective … Read more

One can only ask, in horrific disbelief, what kind of person would fire a gun at a vehicle after a fleeting altercation with its driver over the former’s blinding headlights? Authorities are still looking for the driver of a white SUV who, last Dec. 6, fired three shots at another vehicle as he passed it … Read more

When one looks at pictures of the devastation wrought by Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” it is easy to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the rehabilitation work that is required to make the affected cities and towns livable again. The sheer planning and logistical problems it implies so boggle the mind that we are led to focus … Read more

Nelson Mandela lived so long that he outlasted all his contemporaries. One of them, Walter Sisulu, his friend, mentor, and comrade in the African National Congress who himself spent 26 years in jail, worried that his own frail health might not allow him to be present at his friend’s funeral to deliver his eulogy. So … Read more