Points of View & Perspectives

December, 2016

  • 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.

  • 20 November

    We had pledged that we’d stay 25 forever

    Years later, at a healthy food corner at Harrison Plaza, she materialized unexpected—strands of orangey blond on the same crisp haircut, the same rail-thin frame. Rather astonished, and lit up by her toothy smile, I had cringed, nonetheless, at her night make-up in the noonday glare with whitish goo on her lids, as well, tight garish pants and shirt, which …

  • 13 November

    The better trading partner

    When Rodrigo R. Duterte first flew off the han­dle with his un­mitigating tempestuous and temperamental tirades against the United States, these had all began in the public’s eye during the presidential cam­paign where he accused the Americans of undue interfer­ence in a sovereign political exercise, commenting as they did on a statement spawned in at least two rallies. Claim­ing entitlement …

  • 13 November

    An SC justice’s dangerous tendency

    For the record, we would like to say that we have much respect for Supreme Court As­sociate Justice Marvic Leonen. After all, he is one the young­est ever to be named to the High Court.