Holding title to property is the greatest source of economic and social inequality. Holding no title of any kind, whether to property or to social or academic standing, is a sure indication of being on the fringes, a ticket to poverty. Being king or emperor, or general or president, or doctor or attorney or engineer—titles...
Tag: opinion
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Norma Rae, Sister Stella L, and newspaper union organizing under martial law
They said it couldn’t be done. It was martial law, after all, and among many freedoms suppressed by Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s repressive regime (1965-1986) was the right to organize a legitimate union. Strikes were banned, and only government-friendly unions were recognized. But a hardy group of journalists at the Journal group of publications (Times Journal,...
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Detention, ‘town arrest’ under martial law
It was a comfortless humid night in July 1974 in Zamboanga City when agents of the National Intelligence Security Agency (Nisa) arrested me. I was then a philosophy undergraduate student and an activist at the University of the Philippines Diliman. I was visiting my mother’s hometown to attend the funeral of my maternal grandmother, Isabel...
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Opposition to the Maharlika Investment Fund continues
Last May 31, with lightning speed, the Senate passed the controversial Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF) bill in a plenary session that ran until 2 a.m. Until the end, critical lawmakers’ questions were unanswered and their concerns unaddressed. Because the House of Representatives subsequently accepted the Senate version in its entirety, the bill was no longer...
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When Arroyo’s ‘favorite companion’ picked up the dinner tab in New York
The Philippine power structure continues to highlight intriguing peaks and valleys, and attentive observers are recalling long-ago details after Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ’s “demotion” from her lofty post as senior deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. Time was when Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, now speaker of the chamber, was deemed a “favorite...
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Edca and our center of gravity
Uncle Sam is literally back. Through our Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Edca), the United States has access to a number of our military bases. Unlike before, when the former US bases on Philippine soil were exclusively America’s, now America has the run of some of our military facilities in Cagayan, Isabela and Palawan. Also, while...
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In the trenches of the law
“See you in the trenches,” the human rights lawyer and law professor Ted Te said at the tail end of a brief online post addressed to the passers of the 2022 bar examination, whose names were released by the Supreme Court last April 14. Te’s message evoked in the attentive observer, not the glamorous, de...
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Accountability and transparency issues hound UP Board of Regents
The University of the Philippines Board of Regents (BOR) is to convene on April 27 for its monthly meeting at Quezon Hall, the base of the university’s administrative offices and the scene of protests over the BOR’s selection on April 3 of Edgardo Carlo L. Vistan II as UP Diliman chancellor. The meeting takes place...
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Southeast Asia’s economic perils
The easing of pandemic restrictions and the opening up of economies saw Southeast Asia’s growth for 2022 being calculated by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at a higher 5.5% from an earlier estimate of 5.1% “on stronger-than-expected domestic consumption, exports and services, particularly tourism.” Downplaying the Philippines’ seemingly impressive 2022 growth of 7.6%, economist JC...
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Wealth tax now: an argument by numbers
In August 2022, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) revealed that the poverty incidence rose to 18.1% in 2021 from 16.7% in 2018. Completely understandable, our technocrats said: After all, we all bore the brunt of the pandemic-driven recession. Philippine gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 9.5% from 2020 to 2021, the worst since 1947. Of...