Shattered bamboo reeds
By Juan MercadoDo not look at the heavens through a bamboo reed.” Can this Japanese proverb help us sift through the May 13 elections’ mixed bag? Nobody loses an election here. Those trashed insist they were cheated.
Do not look at the heavens through a bamboo reed.” Can this Japanese proverb help us sift through the May 13 elections’ mixed bag? Nobody loses an election here. Those trashed insist they were cheated.
The Catholic bishops of Bacolod and Lipa were shell-shocked by the election results. Earlier, they shoved candidates, who supported the reproductive health bill, into a “Team Patay”. Through ads and sample ballots, they urged repudiation. Juan Edgardo Angara, Alan Peter Cayetano, Loren Legarda and Francis Escudero, however, coasted into slots 2,3,4 and 7, reported Inquirer’s [...]
“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war — or before an election.” Otto von Bismarck’s adage unreels with a vengeance in the May 13 elections homestretch.
“Whenever I take up a newspaper, I seem to see ghosts floating between the lines.” Norweigian poet Henrik Ibsen’s remark came to mind on reading reports that former police Senior Supt. Cezar Mancao scrammed from his National Bureau og Investigation cell. How? By “using his own key.”
Contrast is a compelling tutor. Compare the track records of talks for peace by Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Both were intractable insurgencies. In Sultan Kudarat, MILF, World Bank and UN signed Fasttrac or Facility for Advisory Support for Transition Capacities. Based in Cotabato City, this three year [...]
You can’t dull hunger by painting rice cakes,” says an Asian proverb. It explains the controversy sparked by the National Statistics Coordination Board’s (NSCB) latest poverty data. Out of every 100 Filipinos, 29 scrounge below poverty lines set at a bare P9,385 yearly. That’s “virtually unchanged” from levels prevailing in 2006, then 2009, NSCB [...]
Hopes for calmer times under this year’s new management?” Economist earlier tacked that keep-your-fingers-crossed title on a “leader” for a 2013 Association of South-East Asian Nations summit. Were those “hopes” partly achieved Wednesday and Thursday in Brunei?
As the May 13 elections campaign careens into the home stretch, many candidates get strident. There are 18,053 posts up for grabs—almost quadruple the number of office seekers.
In just over a month, after a surprise election in 28 hours to the of Chair of Peter, Pope Francis jolted people with initial reforms. These were mainly by example. Are we in for more surprises?
Suddenly, it is twilight. A stoop matches our gray hair and bifocals. They say we’re the elderly folk we used to zip past unheeding. Where did those years go? No more bolting out of bed mornings, writes Conchita Razon in “The Fear of Aging.” ( Inquirer/April 14 ) The process is now protracted: from [...]
That’s shorthand for daily 30-minute “time-outs” that Metropolitan Manila Development Authority authorized on Monday. Blistered by the sun, traffic cops to street sweepers may dash for the shade in shifts.
“Follow the smell of money.” Investigative reporter Amitabha Chowdhury worked by that rule in his “Ananda Bazar Patrika” exposes of murky contracts in India. Chowdhury won the 1961 Magsaysay Award for Journalism.
Do economics textbooks ask the right questions?” two Cambridge University dons debated in autumn 1953. Can they muster tangible measures for the desperately poor? Their chat led to the crafting of what we know today as the Human Development Index.
