OF TREES AND FOREST (Part 1 of 2) Former Senate President Manny Villar When my son, Mark, accepted the offer of then newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte to be part of his Cabinet, some people expressed doubts. Social media was abound with malicious and baseless accusations. When Mark resigned...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar Why do people run for public office? What motivates people to devote themselves to 60 or 90 days of grueling campaign, cruel and unfair attacks on one’s character, loss of financial resources, and, in some instances, put their lives on the...
Of Trees and Forest Former Senate President Manny Villar In my column last week, I talked about several innovations we introduced in order to adapt to the changing retail experience brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. From self-checkout kiosks that minimize physical contact between staff and...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar Ginni Rometty, the first woman to lead IBM, once said, “The only way you survive is you continuously transform into something else. It’s this idea of continuous transformation that makes you an innovation company”. This idea could not...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar It’s not rocket science. Multiple studies have confirmed it. It is the playbook recommended by experts, including the World Health Organization (WHO), to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s the strategy employed by countries that managed...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar Getting a college education has always been a life goal, even a status symbol for Filipinos. Having a college diploma—that big, laminated piece of paper hanging in your living room—is considered by many as one of the indicators of...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar It’s a grim number. There were 22,366 new COVID-19 infections last August 29, 2021. That’s a record-high number for the country. The rate of those people who received positive results from the more than 71,000 tests was 27.5 percent....
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar The government of Afghanistan, which the United States helped put up and supported for 20 years, has collapsed. The US has made the decision to withdraw from the country they invaded in 2001 as a response to the horrific 9/11 attacks on the...
Of Trees and Forest Former Senate President Manny Villar Government will soon decide whether to extend the current Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) beyond August 20. There have been suggestions from some quarters to extend the strict lockdown to the end of the month. There was even some chatter...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar We have been in some form of quarantine since March 15, 2020. I cannot remember all the acronyms (GCQ, ECQ, MECQ) assigned to the different levels of restrictions because they have mutated so much just like the COVID-19 variants. And starting...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar I have nothing but admiration and respect for our Filipino athletes competing in the Tokyo Olympics. In my book, they are the epitome of hard work and perseverance. As we go to press, we have already won our first gold medal courtesy of the...
OF TREES AND FOREST Former Senate President Manny Villar We seem to be caught in an unending Groundhog Day-like cycle of surges and lockdowns. We would experience a surge in new daily COVID-19 cases — similar to the one that hit us around March and April this year when daily cases reached a high...
