OF TREES AND FOREST The changes around us are simply dizzying. We have restaurants using robots to serve food. We can now pay with our smart phones instead of physical, tangible money. Some supermarkets, including ours, have automated check-out counters. I just read about the wonderful...
FINDING ANSWERS The worldwide audience was fascinated last Saturday with all the symbolism, glitter, and pageantry dating back to medieval times at the coronation of King Charles III. In this age of live streaming and social media, it certainly was a spectacle dubbed once-in-a-generation. Just like...
PEACE-MAKER Cambodia makes history as it hosts for the first time the 2023 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, which is currently being held in capital Phnom Penh from May 5 to 17. It was supposed to host the games in 1963 but did not push through due to the political situation in the country at the time....
OF TREES AND FOREST What accounts for the ups and downs of popular support for democracy? One would think that if a country has a strong democratic culture then preference toward democracy would at least be stable and consistent. Just for comparison, the Social Weather Stations pointed out that in...
FINDING ANSWERS It’s definitely an idea whose time has come. The need for Filipino students to be taught about the significance of our exclusive economic zone (EEZ), officially known as the West Philippine Sea (WPS), and the 2016 Arbitral Award that invalidated China’s 9-dash line claim over...
PEACE-MAKER Today, Dagupeños, together with thousands of local and foreign tourists, flock to Dagupan City’s central business district for the grilling of thousands of Bangus (milkfish), which is the highpoint of our city’s Bangus Festival. The festival is a yearly food and culture celebration...
OF TREES AND FOREST *(Part 1)* The 2022 Fourth Quarter Social Weather Survey conducted by the Social Weather Stations revealed some very interesting information about Philippine democracy and how people view democracy. Let me go through the results first before offering my insights. The survey,...
A government task force helped reintegrate 37,413 former rebels (FRs) and former violent extremists (FVEs) back to mainstream society since 2016, it was bared on Monday, April 24. (Department of National Defense [DND] Undersecretary Angelito De Leon (left), chairperson of the Task Force Balikatan...
FINDING ANSWERS RA 7277, officially known as the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, became law in 1992 during my first term as senator. The law we crafted to improve the total well-being of Persons with Disability (PWD) defined disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially...
*Former Senator Panfilo Lacson (Arnold Quizol)* Former Senator Panfilo Lacson, who for many months we saw and heard every day in various forms of media until after the May 2022 elections, went farming, running, biking, and breathing the fresh air – doing things that did not interest social...
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) provided food assistance to former rebels affiliated with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), National People’s Army (NPA), and National Democratic Front (NDFP) from different urban poor communities in Metro Manila and nearby...
PEACE-MAKER We join our cousin Gretchen de Venecia del Rosario and her family in mourning the passing of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario. As our country’s top diplomat during the President Benigno Aquino III administration, Albert first captured the Filipino people’s...
