“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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Drawing 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…
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In 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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As expected, none of the reelectionist senators who voted for the approval of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law included it in their list of accomplishments that they now boast about in their campaign ads. Who would want to be associated with a law that is partly…
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The bishops have been in the spotlight as the latest targets of Duterte’s calls for violence. We have to admire the way some of them have consistently called out abuses and cried out for justice for the voiceless ones among their flock. Little wonder they were among those chosen as…
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The questions ‘endo’ raises for us
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…