At the House of Representatives’ deliberations on the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) last Aug. 30, legislators questioned Secretary Manuel Bonoan on why record flooding continues to be a problem despite P1.2 trillion having been spent by the department on flood control projects since 2009. Pinpointed were the Pasig...
Category: Opinion
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Fight back
Why are we not yet fighting back against China in the West Philippine Sea? Despite the numbing regularity with which Philippine vessels are rammed, blocked, water-cannoned, shot at with flares, and the corresponding injury, deprivation and harassment suffered by our service personnel, as well as damage and theft of our government property and natural resources,...
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Seismic shift for the Vice President
On Aug. 30, even as social media was still abuzz and aghast at Vice President Sara Duterte’s startling behavior at the budget deliberations in the House of Representatives, she was reported as leading her office’s nationwide distribution of bags under its “Pagbabago” (Change) program. The photograph that accompanied the Philippine News Agency report, taken at...
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How do you solve a problem like Sara Duterte?
She is a PR person’s nightmare at the very least. I can imagine her handlers in a state of wild confusion as they try to do some damage control every time Vice President Sara Duterte utters anything remotely resembling a coherent sentence. She is remembered as the barumbada (sadly, I can’t find a word in English to...
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Sure, let’s discuss so-called ‘grade inflation’
A week after the commencement exercises of the University of the Philippines, an article in Rappler by UP faculty member and proud summa cum laude graduate JC Punongbayan titled “Let’s discuss grade inflation in the Philippines” made the rounds in social media. It eventually reached my own Facebook feed because my newly graduated former students, many...
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Alex Lacson and Rotary District 3810: A tension of viewpoints on patriotism
“I’m fighting for the truth,” he said, and the other countered: “We’re all fighting for the truth.” A meaningful tension of viewpoints hummed throughout the discourse that followed guest speaker Alex Lacson’s talk, titled “Patriotism and a Silent National Crisis,” during the Rotary Club of Manila Bay’s (RCMB) second membership meeting held last Aug. 15...
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Perseverance and passion for challenges met and to confront
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the commencement address delivered by the author at the recognition rites of the Asian Center and the TriCollege Philippine Studies Program of the University of the Philippines Diliman last July 28. She was vice president for academic affairs in 2017-2023 at UP, where she was a professor of sociology. She...
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Scholars should be activists, and vice versa
“All scholars should be activists, and all activists should be scholars” was Professor Emeritus Eduardo Tadem’s sharp response to Joe Quintero, a young geographer from York University who posed a simple yet provocative question that I paraphrase thus: “How did our activism influence our scholarship?” The question was raised in the panel on “Post-Pandemic Southeast...
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Surviving burnouts as a UP student and cadet officer
Being a student of the University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman is one thing; being a volunteer worker is another. In my case, being both doubled my emotional stress points and drew me into cyclical burnouts. Thankfully, this hasn’t prevented me from getting good grades or being pulled away from my work with the ROTC....
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We need to decolonize our understanding of teenage motherhood
There is a long umbilical cord that connects the contemporary framing of teenage motherhood in the Philippines and the country’s colonial experience. Teenage motherhood is currently framed as a developmental problem due to its impact on health and education, which are vital aspects of a country’s human capital. According to the narrative, teenage motherhood is...