“Can we not have justice with compassion?” This was asked by the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) in a statement it issued on the death and burial of a three-month-old baby who was separated from her mother Reina Mae Nasino, just a month after she gave birth to her on July 1 while under...
With traffic in Metro Manila fast returning to pre-pandemic congestion, there was welcome news last Tuesday – the 18-kilometer Metro Manila Skyway Stage 3 was finally completed after almost four years of construction work at a cost of P44.8 billion. The elevated expressway connects the two major...
One development arising from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is the huge drop in industrial activity around the world, as factories shut down, millions of cars stayed off the roads, and people stayed home in lockdowns ordered by governments to help stop the spread of the virus. This year, the...
We should have the national appropriation bill approved by the House of Representatives before Friday when the Special Session of the House of Representatives ends. The House finally settled all issues related to the speakership last Tuesday on the first day of the Special Session called by...
The Philippines has thousands of islands from the Batanes group in the north to the Tawi-Tawi group in the south. Most people are familiar with the bigger islands – Luzon, Mindoro, Panay, Negros, Samar, and Mindanao. But there are thousands of other islands – 7,641 at the last official count,...
Today, Tuesday, October 13, the Congress of the Philippines has been called into special session by President Duterte with one express purpose – to approve the National Appropriation Bill for 2021. The President took this unprecedented step of calling for a special session at this time of the...
The world is watching the interplay of moves and events in the United States as it moves closer to its presidential election on November 3, only three weeks away. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Tokyo, Japan, last Tuesday to meet with officials of Japan, Australia, and India, America’s...
The government is closely watching developments on two fronts in the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. One is the number of infections and deaths, the direct impact of the coronavirus on the people. The other is the economic impact of the pandemic — the big losses in national development and on the...
News from the House of Representatives has been dominated lately by the dispute between Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and Rep. Lord Allan Velasco. The proposed P4.506-trillion national budget was being discussed section by section in the House this week, with plans to approve it by October 14, after...
The country’s biggest mass gathering – the annual Traslacion of the Black Nazarene from the Luneta Park to its shrine, the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo — is still three months away, January 9, 2021, but Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso has started...
Nations around the world have begun to plan for the acquisition of vaccines with which they hope to stop the spread of COVID-19 in their lands. Of 175 proposed vaccines listed by the World Health Organization (WHO), 33 are said to be in their final human trials and two or three in the United...
Last July 6, 2019, President Duterte announced the result of his mediation on the speakership dispute in the House of Representatives. He stressed that he only stepped in because the members of the new 18th Congress could not reach an agreement by themselves and they asked him to help as leader of...
