In their recent book, “How Democracies Die,” Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt write about how democracies deteriorate into authoritarianism. Although their concern in the book is how US democracy is now imploding, the authors share decades of research on democracies worldwide. Ziblatt is an expert in European…
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“Are we youth ready?” This was the striking question posed to the participants of the Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE) VI: Filipino Youth Walking with Jesus, held recently. The conference was about finding new ways of evangelizing and reaching out to today’s youth, following the Synod of Bishops on…
Comments closedI recently obliged myself to respond to a request to support an online petition directed at the Office of the President and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It was a call to cancel the permit of a large mining company that has been extracting gold and copper from…
Comments closedI am a pilgrim. Along with friends from the Christian Life Community of the Philippines and with guidance from P. Josep Lluís Iriberri, SJ, I recently walked a hundred kilometers to do the Camino Ignaciano in 10 days. Following the footsteps of St. Ignatius of Loyola, we walked around the…
Comments closedOn Feb. 14, 2019, President Duterte signed into law Republic Act No. 11201 creating the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development. The new law did not create much buzz, as it did not substantially alter the powers, policies and programs of the government agencies charged with responding to the…
Comments closedThe increasing divisiveness of our politics has been thrown into sharp relief this election season. Aside from the constant mudslinging of politicians, it seems so difficult now for people of different political stripes to have real, meaningful conversations with each other, whether in public or private. This is part of…
Comments closedDrawing on the thought of Belgian Cardinal Joseph Cardijn, Pope John XXIII, in his 1961 encyclical Mater et Magistra, proffers a process of reading and responding to what he would later call in Pacem in Terris as “signs of the times” in light of the principles of Catholic social teaching…
Comments closedIn February, President Duterte signed into law Republic Act No. 11203 or the Rice Tariffication Act, replacing limiting rice imports with levying tariffs based on Philippine commitments to the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement (Atiga) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). The law aims to provide an affordable and sufficient…
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Victims of fire and social neglect
Market 3, a densely populated community on a small block of land inside the Navotas Fish Port, is no stranger to tragedies, like the fire that swept through the homes of more than 700 families before the day broke on Oct. 18. When I visited the area to hand to…