September 23, 1972, was a Saturday. But at St. Theresa’s College Quezon City (STCQC), we were at school to make up for unplanned holidays owed to typhoons and mass protests. The lesson we got was unplanned, too. Scrawled on the blackboards were the words “Martial law has been declared.” Proclamation…
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New York City, Sept. 11, 2001, 8:51 a.m. The usually urbane voice of WNYC’s news anchor rang with rare urgency. A plane had flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The roof of our Brooklyn apartment building looked out at Lower Manhattan, just across the East River.…
Leave a CommentThe Catholic debate over fertility regulation is now so muddled that even the bishops seem to have become confused. The day after President Aquino declared in his State of the Nation Address that his administration would promote responsible parenthood, Archbishop Ramon Arguelles of Lipa was reported to have said: “We…
Leave a CommentToday’s complex and competitive markets offer many opportunities for innovation. Two Sundays ago, the Inquirer’s Talk of the Town featured ways to produce consumer products from three coconut byproducts—candies and desserts with coco sugar, buko juice and sports drink from coconut water, and various food preparations using coconut oil. Such…
Leave a CommentAfter Tropical Storm “Ondoy” wreaked havoc in Metro Manila in 2009, the poor living along its rivers and waterways have to endure anxiety over government’s repeated calls for the relocation of all informal settlements on these so-called danger zones. Authorities say the settlements are “blocking” the natural flow of water…
Leave a CommentOne warm evening in Lent, at Mass at Our Lady of X in my favorite blue sundress, I was roused from devout drowsiness when the priest—my favorite canon lawyer—uttered the words “dress code.” The dress code for Catholic Masses may have been on his mind because the Inquirer recently reported…
Leave a Comment“So there are also squatters in Korea?” an urban poor mother and leader sitting beside me quipped in Filipino while looking at photos of so-called “vinyl houses” being flashed on the screen. (Some 4,900 families evicted from various places in Seoul occupy vacant spaces without permission and build shelters made…
Leave a CommentIt takes more than presidential will and money to make a propoor initiative succeed. Apart from having an efficient and honest implementing bureaucracy that understands the purpose of the reform, innovation is a major ingredient of success. Without it, implementing institutions are bound to magnify what is wrong with the…
Leave a CommentGiddiness is not a mood one associates with the clergy. But my sacerdotal spies tell me the mood in some religious communities was positively giddy when Gaudencio Cardinal Rosales, Roman Catholic archbishop of Manila, declared that the Vatican had named as his successor Bishop Luis Antonio Tagle of Imus. Enthusiasm…
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Why I shall spoil my ballot
Yes, I am still an American citizen, waiting these many years for permanent-resident status as a step toward Philippine citizenship. I follow American political developments, although not as closely as those of my adopted country. Yes, I have a ballot for the upcoming US presidential election, and I shall send…