PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House We join Roman Catholics around the world in praying for the safety of Pope Francis who boarded his plane for Iraq last Friday, indeed a historic but dangerous journey in the midst of the raging global pandemic and the recurrent violence in...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay Seniors officials of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) appeared before media a day after the widely reported shootout between policemen and anti-drug agents to confess the obvious – they...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III was quoted last week as saying that “aside from our health-care workers, we will prioritize vaccinating our economic front-line workforce.” Sec. Dominguez, who heads President Rodrigo Duterte’s...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House As of this writing, 600,000 doses of Sinovac’s COVID-19 vaccines donated by China are scheduled to arrive in Manila today, as announced by Malacañang a few days ago. With the availability of the vaccines, our government can already kick...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay Most observers have attributed the unprecedented rise in hunger and poverty to the administration’s monumental failure to respond quickly to the threat of COVID-19 and its reliance on strict lockdowns that grounded the economy for months....
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina Even though tomorrow’s commemoration of the 1986 People Power Revolution might be subdued as what has been happening these past few years, it’s my firm belief that never shall the EDSA spirit be lost on Filipinos. Indeed, no matter how that...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House (Remarks delivered at the Special Video Conference of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties Women’s Wing, February 24, 2021, Wednesday.) Iconic women leaders in global politics In recent years, many iconic women...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay For most economic experts, the Philippines has yet to break out of the phenomenon known as “jobless growth.” If there were jobs created from the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) boom, for example, these were jobs in urban areas...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar The next key step in our battle to fight the COVID-19 pandemic is to ensure that the vaccines can be administered to our people in the safest and fastest way possible. This is very important so that we can reduce infections and deaths due to...
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina Here’s good news that largely went unnoticed: President Duterte has okayed the expansion of the Bulacan Industrial City where a new pharmaceutical manufacturing zone is set to rise. Sen. Francis Tolentino, who was my online guest last Sunday in my...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House The “Four Way Test,” of what we Rotarians think, say, or do in the Rotary Creed include the following: First: “Is it the Truth?” Second: “Is it Fair to All Concerned?” Third: “Will it build Goodwill and Better Friendship?”...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar I read an interesting interview with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates over the weekend. A couple of years ago he was asked about work-life balance and this was what he had to say then: "For my particular way of being, it is true that I did not...
