We beg to differ.
When friends from the House of Representatives invited me over for a dinner of crispy fried pig face (they call it Kapalmuks) at Pepeton’s on Panay Avenue, I didn’t hesitate to say YES. First, it has been a long while since I saw these friends of mine face to face and second, discussing politics with…
Read More “Martin Romualdez Trump Alan Peter Cayetano’s bid for House Speaker” »
A trade war between the United States and China presents a wealth of opportunity to the Philippines — if, of course, Filipinos are up to the challenge of seizing them. Up for grabs is a bonanza for suppliers of goods and services that the US is set to cut China out of if this “war”…
Read More “The Philippines needs to gear up to exploit the US-China “trade war”!” »
Among the names put forward for House Speaker, it seems the most prominent ones are those of Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez and former Foreign Secretary now Taguig Representative Alan Peter Cayetano. The question that most people will be wrestling with till June 30 or the start of the 18th Congress is, who will win the…
Read More “House Speaker of the Philippines, Romualdez, Cayetano, or Velasco?” »
It is the 21st Century. Yet the most iconic symbol of the Philippines remains the jeepney. Once hailed a triumph of “Filipino ingenuity”, it now persists as a stark reminder of a failure to develop engineering excellence at a time when engineering excellence is an even more important foundation upon which global competitiveness could be…
In Christian belief, it’s often taught that we are our brother’s keeper. After the story of Cain murdering Abel, the usual commentary is that Cain murdered because he did not think of being his brother’s keeper. So we must be our brother’s keeper because we are responsible for each other, and so we must help…
The word “bakla” is a derogatory term. When I was in grade school in an all-boys school, we called school mates who exhibited effeminate behaviour bakla. However, though we liberally threw the term around in the school yard, the notion of being a male person who is sexually-attracted to another male person was completely alien…
Read More ““Bakla” does not have anything to do with sexual orientation” »
There are two key things Americans learned from the unexpected victory of Donald Trump in 2016: (1) traditional pre-election polling is no longer reliable and (2) Google search activity provides better insight into voter preferences than social media engagement. That these lessons were mainly learned in hindsight accounts for much of the shock everyone felt…
Back to business as usual after Elections 2019. Like the end of the Christmas season, it is a letdown to realise that all the festivities have come to an end. The question, is are all the “issues” brought to the fore over more than a year of election fever which ended this month relevant when…
