The first month of 2020 has been a trying one, beginning with raging bush fires in Australia, the assassination of a top Iranian military commander by a US drone strike, the eruption of Taal volcano, the spread of the novel coronavirus, and, on the last day of the month, Britain’s…
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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…
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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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President Duterte’s recent veto of the security of tenure bill, which dashed the hopes of thousands of contractual employees, was disappointing but not entirely surprising. After all, this controversial issue has dogged the nation for decades despite the pledges of past administrations to tackle it. While the President has been…
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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…
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I 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…
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I 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…
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On 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…
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The 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…
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Break the othering
“At sino ang aking kapwa?” (And who is my neighbor?) The title-question of the recent Philippine Conference on New Evangelization (PCNE) VII encapsulates the local Church’s call for “Dialogue Towards Harmony,” as the Church dedicates this year to the Year of Ecumenism, Interreligious Dialogue, and Indigenous Peoples (IPs). In the…