FINDING ANSWERS Filipinos woke up on Monday, National Heroes Day, to the awesome news that our modern-day hero and tennis star Alexandra “Alex” Eala clinched a remarkable first-round victory at the 2025 US Open in New York. It was more than just a victory. It was history being made: the...
OF TREES AND FOREST Cash, as in physical notes and coins, has apparently been dethroned. According to the 2024 Status of Digital Payments in the Philippines report released by the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the share of online payments in monthly retail transactions has risen to 57.4...
Filipino De La Salle Brother Armin Luistro, FSC, has been appointed by Pope Leo XIV as one of the newest members of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Catholic Bishops ' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) announced on Wednesday, June 25....
Once a military general who pursued rebels in Mindanao with a gun, Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. is now on a different mission, convincing insurgents to lay down their arms and return to mainstream society using the power of words. Galvez – who heads the Office of the...
PEACE-MAKER It was in the beautiful city of Sankt Augustin, Germany in 1998 when we addressed a forum organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (Foundation), which is affiliated with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), where we first espoused the idea of an “Asian Dialogue” and which would...
A total of 2,772 former rebels from different parts of the country have filed amnesty applications with the National Amnesty Commission (NAC) through the local amnesty boards (LABs), government data showed Friday, May 23. The NAC reported that 1,858 former members of the Communist Party of the...
The so-called “Duterte bloc” has yet to choose who would be their bet for the next Senate president. Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa confirmed this on Tuesday, May 20 saying the have yet to come up with a final decision since some of them are still abroad. The members of the Senate...
The ongoing trade dispute between the United States (US) and China could benefit manufacturing hotspots in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, provided the government implements sweeping reforms to align trade and investment policies with industrial strategies. In a virtual forum hosted by the...
OF TREES AND FOREST Cynthia Villar, my wife, mother to our three wonderful children, is running for the lone congressional seat of our beloved city of Las Piñas. And frankly, I cannot think of anyone who has the experience, dedication, and fervor to do the job for the people of Las Piñas....
FINDING ANSWERS As the world mourned the passing of Pope Francis on Easter Monday last week and as tributes poured in, there was no doubt how much he was loved – a love so profound for the grandfatherly figure who had comforted the weary and lifted the downtrodden. He was especially loved...
PEACE-MAKER As our modest way of honoring the memory of Pope Francis, we are reprinting part of our column dated March 17, 2021, ‘Pope Francis’ journey in Iraq; the 1990 earthquake in Pangasinan and pioneering in the Middle East’: “We join Roman Catholics around the world in praying...
OF TREES AND FOREST (Part 1) What’s in a name? It’s amazing how, sometimes, one’s given name is truly a reflection of one’s personality. Cynthia (woman from Cynthus) is apparently one of the nicknames of the Greek goddess Artemis, who together with her twin brother Apollo was born on...
