FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina With the surge in COVID-19 cases overwhelming the healthcare system and filling hospitals to maximum capacity, many are fearful for their families, especially those with high-risk members who can be infected and can quickly deteriorate or even die...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House Three days from now, on April 21, we will preside at the meeting of the 39-member standing committee of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), which we will do so from our respective homes or offices in different...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar I applaud the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte to allow the private sector to import COVID-19 vaccines “at will”. “No matter the price or how many they want to import, that is fine with me,” the President was quoted as saying...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay Last week, I was asked to speak before a webinar sponsored by the UP Portia Alumnae Association on my experiences as a human rights lawyer during martial law. As many of you know, I began my career as a lawyer in the 1960s, trading the comforts...
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina What can Filipinos do to help government and boost the morale of our leaders to continually and aggressively defend our country’s rights in the West Philippine Sea? This was the question I asked retired Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio, the...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House Since the onslaught of the Coronavirus pandemic in our country early last year, we have lost relatives, old friends, and former colleagues in the House of Representatives either due to COVID-19 or to other causes. We earlier mentioned in...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay On Good Friday came the shocking news from the Department of Health (DOH) that the number of active COVID-19 cases for the day totalled 15,310. Many experts had predicted this would happen sooner than later, but its announcement on Good Friday...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar The numbers are disheartening. Last April 2 the country logged a total of 15,310 new COVID-19 cases (3,790 of which were backlogs). The following day the number of new cases was 12,576 which brought our active cases to a staggering 165,715....
Finding Answers Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina Desperate times call for desperate measures. And the worsening public health crisis has intensified the desperation felt by many Filipinos. Thus, leaders of the country's top business and industry groups, including doctors’ and other professional...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House In a move to halt the skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 in France, President Emmanuel Macron reimposed a (third) lockdown, throughout the country for at least a month. As of March 31, there have been some 4.56 million confirmed cases of...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay Over the weekend, the government placed Metro Manila and four adjacent provinces, what the Inter-Agency Task Force (IATF) refers to as NCR Plus, under Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) status - a softer, benign term for a hard lockdown –...
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina “To experience Lent with love means caring for those who suffer or feel abandoned and fearful because of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pope Francis said in his Lenten message for 2021. As we take time to deepen our Christian faith with our Holy Week...
