Points of View & Perspectives

December, 2016

  • 11 December

    Duterte should give MMDA’s Orbos a rest

    Last Friday, motorists were fuming as a new traffic scheme being implemented by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) along Edsa and Annapolis Street in Green­hills, San Juan City, caused virtual paralysis in the country’s main road artery.

  • 11 December

    On the Blessed Mother and breastfeeding

    I once took for granted that all mothers breastfeed— among Filipinos especial­ly, who doesn’t? Yet, with Pasko in our minds as early as September, I’ve hardly thought of the Blessed Mother nursing the Baby Jesus; have you ever? Like me, I’m sure you haven’t, so much so that seeing her openly feeding the Baby in a fresco at the Basilica …

  • 4 December

    The opportunity costs of a political scandal

    We were asked by at least three respected gentlemen to identify the economic losses of the ongoing investigations into the illegal-drugs trade that seemed to have spread wildly and had interwoven itself deep into the fabric of the government bureaucracy. Indeed, public concern is high and feverish to the point of pandemic alarm and utter nauseating disgust. Congressmen, living up …

  • 4 December

    Duterte’s Christmas present for Yolanda victims

    When President Duterte visited Tacloban City several weeks ago during the third-anniversary rites for Supertyphoon Yolanda, he gave a directive to government officials overseeing the rehabilitation efforts in the typhoon-devastated areas to hasten the transfer of the victims to their permanent resettlement sites before Christmas. 

  • 4 December

    No one looks, no one stares

    Hair brushed back from an ideal profile, summer sheer whites draped on well-proportioned shoulders, slim pants fitted to skim her straight back, she positions herself a bit off McDonald’s entrance on a plant box on Granville Street, and as if from a view deck aims her sight in the distance—apparently the cross street, where pedestrians cued by traffic lights either …

November, 2016

  • 27 November

    High productivity from lower taxes

    For most economists we respect, it’s what works. It is embodied in the Laffer Curve – a graphic model central to most Libertarian economics often advocated by politicians vying for a popular mandate based on change.

  • 27 November

    Piggybacking on ERC woes

    In the midst of chaos, some see danger. Many others see opportunity.

  • 27 November

    It’s easy to spot us

    Like an exclusive club, some of us compose take-charge crews that include preparing the altar for Mass, arranging the flowers, watering plants in the grotto, cleaning altar crevices and polishing the brass cande­labras. Filipinos also comprise the cathedral’s multiple Le­gion of Mary presidia. As well, in my parish, a Filipina had been president of the Cath­olic Women’s League while another …

  • 20 November

    Apples and durian

    One of the most commonly superficial, if not crassly stupid analyses going around, is the hip-shooting blanket comparison between two very different presidents (one is a president-elect) from two very different constituencies confronting two profoundly different agenda – all these made mostly by the mainstream media and cavalierly imagined by the intellectually challenged.

  • 20 November

    De Lima spiel an outright insult to the Filipina

    We can only commiserate with the beleaguered Sen. Leila De Lima. In an apparent and unrelenting public-relations effort to win over public sympathy, she may have buried herself deeper in the scandal she faces.