Like many government employees with fixed incomes and meager savings, my wife Karina and I have worried about not being able to help our children when they start searching for a permanent home of their own. Our situation is not very different from that of lower-middle-class employees in the private sector who hope to own … Read more

In a democracy, the religion, or lack of it, of Supreme Court justices (or any judge, for that matter) is expected to carry no weight in the discharge of their official functions. What the public cares about is that their decisions are founded on a sound appreciation of the facts and of the applicable laws. … Read more

Recently,  I listened to a friend recount his “stem cell treatment” at a medical spa in Europe.  The treatment costs about P1 million.  The clinic where it is done has lately been attracting hundreds of Filipinos in search of the modern version of the proverbial fountain of youth. “You’re fetched from the airport by a … Read more

Can Ateneo de Manila University call itself a Catholic school and function as a university at the same time? A question like this may strike Filipinos as somewhat strange, considering that many of our venerable universities are Catholic institutions. Yet, it is bound to arise when the ideas of professors in such institutions clash with … Read more

In 2000 the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation chose Naga City Mayor Jesse M. Robredo as its awardee for government service.  The award citation summed up the reason for giving him the award thus: “In electing Jesse Robredo to receive the 2000 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Government Service, the board of trustees recognizes his giving credence … Read more

As soon as I pressed the power button, the Windows logo appeared on the laptop’s screen with the familiar assurance: “Starting Windows.” But nothing else happened after that. For the first time in its brief mechanical life, my barely one-year-old computer failed to say hello. It was as if it found itself in a daze, … Read more

Human beings are not rats. And one need not be a pauper to know that it is not fun to live under bridges, inside drainage pipes, or along estero.  According to government estimates, at least 125,000 Filipino families in Metro Manila live in such conditions. These families make up about 90 percent of the city … Read more

Lahar, a Javanese word for mudflow, entered the vocabulary and consciousness of Filipinos only in 1991, soon after the eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Geologists appropriated the term and have been using it since the early 1900s to refer, not to mudflow, but, in the words of Dr. Kelvin Rodolfo, to “rapidly flowing mixtures of rock … Read more

From the many that are mass-distributed and forwarded via the Internet, one e-mail landed in my inbox which referred to the torrential rains that fell on much of western Luzon and the Visayas in the past few days as God’s way of telling us that we are making a horrible mistake in pushing for the … Read more

A lot of people may have all the money in the world, and still feel they don’t have enough. Every asset they acquire serves as a prod to gain more. They become slaves to their possessions. Others have very much less in comparison, and yet they think it’s more than what they need. Their wants … Read more