We often think of the criminal justice system as a way by which society protects the well-being of its members against those who might do them harm. But what about those accused of wrongdoing? Should the criminal justice system also safeguard their well-being and protect them from being harmed? Among…
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Guiding his readers on how to find hope amid the deep crisis the world has been facing because of the pandemic, Pope Francis, in his book “Let Us Dream,” gives a vision of what needs to change beyond the individual: “God asks us to dare to create something new. We…
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In Myanmar a fragile decade of democracy has suddenly been snuffed out by a military coup. The country’s elected leaders were taken away in military vans in the dead of night, and slapped with flimsy charges that do not even begin to obscure the blatant power struggle at play. Water…
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Despite getting only 5 percent of its proposed P77-billion budget for 2021, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD), as Secretary Eduardo del Rosario wrote in his column in the Property section of this paper (1/30/21), is “more than ready to face the challenges of 2021 head on.”…
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Development organizations and practitioners have long acknowledged the benefits of inclusive and participatory processes in the planning and execution of development projects. including those funded by the government. The Philippines has a well-established and long-running program under the DSWD that embodies the principles of bottom-up development through an approach called…
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Who asked for a white sand beach in Manila Bay? Definitely not the 15,000 or so families languishing in poverty, hunger, and joblessness in Baseco, the biggest coastal informal settlement in Manila. Of course, the truckloads of crushed dolomite boulders that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) allowed…
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I recently came across a news article about the country’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) which read, “CARP did more harm than good to farm sector, says economist.” The program, the article said, caused the fragmentation of agricultural lands and the eventual disempowerment of farmers who could not sustain the…
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I was deeply shaken by the recent torture and death of Randall “Randy” Echanis, chair of Anakpawis and tireless advocate for the poor and landless. When the first reports emerged, I thought it was strange that his killing departed from the usual modus operandi of hired assassins, with which we…
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It was with a sense of horror that I read the headline a while ago: US buys nearly all global stock of coronavirus drug remdesivir. “President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorized therapeutic for COVID-19,” the US health and human services…
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What if all we know about drugs is wrong?
Have you ever had your deep-seated assumptions challenged? Realized that something you believed to be true all your life was somehow mistaken? If you’ve ever experienced that, you’ll know it may come with emotions like denial, guilt, or anger as we come to terms with the loss of something we…