We beg to differ.
First it was President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III and his Porsche, now it is Butuan Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos and the other “Mitsubishops,” proud owners of their Pajeros, considered to be luxury sport utility vehicles (SUVs) in a country with a measly 31 motor vehicles per 1000 people (compared to 273 per 1000 for…
Read More “Flashy cars and brand-new SUVs in car-crazy Philippines” »
A statement issued last week by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on the matter of some of its members using taxpayers’ funds to buy luxury sport utility vehicles (SUVs) for use in their “field work,” made it quite categorical: “Our conscience is clear.” But of course it is. This is a statement…
Read More “Mitsubishops: the CBCP conveniently absolves its own and remains above the Law” »
The end of the Harry Potter series of movies with the world premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 leaves the stars of the wildly successful franchise wondering what they will be doing next. According to its most revered star Emma Watson, her ten-year career playing Hermione Granger in the Potter films…
Read More “What’s next for Emma Watson as Harry Potter ends” »
United States space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday, the 7th of July 2011 at 1129 local time (1529 GMT; 1629 BST) for the final flight of the shuttle program. This ends another chapter in an era that began in 1961 for the US when the first American, Alan Shepard Jr,…
Filipinos do not know what they want. In 1986, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos took to the streets to rally against the late strongman, former President Ferdinand Marcos. The three-day protest eventually led to the ousting of the so-called “dictator” and alleged human rights violator. Twenty five years later, Filipinos from the Mindanao region of…
Seems like the whole Media fiesta that is raging around the the Duterte’s of Davao City, specifically on-leave Mayor Sara’s fists and the Duterte father-and-son fingers is opening up old raw emotions about the subjugation of Mindanao to the 100-year-old elephant in the room — the legacy of colonial rule, Imperial Manila. Many Davao folk…
Read More “Should Mindanao secede from what could be turning into a failed state?” »
The longer I write about Philippine society and its politics, the more convinced I get that the country’s state of law and order is a joke. Take Davao City for instance. All this time I thought that the city was a model for what following the “rule of law” could do. It turns out, to…
One wonders now what really motivates Roman Catholic Bishops’ taking certain positions on various matters of the state. Take the issue of Reproductive Health (RH) — an issue where the Church takes a strong anti-modernity stand on. The ends to which the Church took the “debate” and the pitch to which it took its temper…