Sec. MarkVillar and his daughter Emma performs "Can't Help Falling In Love." Public Works and Highway Secretary Mark Villar posted on Facebook a video of him playing “Can’t Help Falling In Love” by Elvis Presley with his saxophone while his daughter Emma sings the song. It was a...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House News reports have it that the question/debate surrounding the actual height of Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, has finally been resolved. It is 8,848.86 meters or 29,032 feet, the Nepali government announced a few days ago. We...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay Government officials should learn to speak with one voice. This is a basic communication principle that should have been in place nine months ago, when government, after much reluctance, acknowledged the existence of a health crisis. The number...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar We are all waiting for that magic formula, the vaccine that would finally put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed and infected millions, disrupted our lives, halted our economies, and made our world come to a halt. The...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House The killing last of week of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in the country’s capital Tehran has added fuel to the fire of tensions in the already precarious situation in the Middle East. We hope Iran, Israel, which is...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar Nelson Mandela, revolutionary, political leader, and former president of South Africa, once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” And I absolutely agree. I think that education is our most...
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina The one and only way to economic recovery for the Philippines is through government spending. This basic truth was pointed out by Marikina Rep. Stella Luz A. Quimbo, one of the most brilliant minds in Congress, who guested in my Teleradyo program Sagot...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay The secretary of justice, asked to comment about the resurgence of extra-judicial killings with lawyers as victims, admitted having difficulty in investigating and prosecuting the killers and the masterminds. He described the killings as...
PEACE-MAKER Jose de Venecia Jr. Former Speaker of the House In February, 2010, in Seoul, we proposed to then Foreign Minister Yu MyungHwan the establishment in Manila of a Philippines-South Korea University, following our much earlier discussions with then Korean Ambassador in Manila, HE Choi...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar It’s going to be a different holiday season this year. Countries around the world are grappling with a dilemma of whether to relax pandemic restrictions to allow people to celebrate the holidays. On one hand, there is fear that relaxing...
GOVERNANCE MATTERS Former Vice President Jejomar Binay A threat to withhold funding for the University of the Philippines (UP) has been made apparently in response to a call for an “academic strike.” It appears irrelevant that the call was originally made not by UP by its affluent neighbor...
FINDING ANSWERS Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina There’s both good and bad news concerning the much-awaited vaccine that is widely seen as humanity’s only way out of this crippling coronavirus pandemic. But let’s discuss the good news first. It’s certainly an “incredible milestone for...