By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Criticizing those in government — and he might as well have been referring to certain sectors of the media too — who have been campaigning against the passage of the Bangsamoro Basic Law, President Benigno S.C. Aquino III, described them as “enemies of peace” in his speech…
Category: Vantage Point
The Anti-Edsa call for war
VANTAGE POINT By Luis V. Teodoro Businessworld Exactly a month after the January 25 Mamasapano clash in Maguindanao, the usual rites marked the 29th anniversary of EDSA 1, the civilian-military mutiny that overthrew the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 fourteen years after that despot seized power by placing the entire country under martial law. During this…
The coup against EDSA
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Only by coincidence are reports of a brewing coup plot circulating on the eve of the 29th anniversary of the EDSA 1 People Power uprising. The usual suspects behind coup attempts may find it convenient to link their conspiracy to the overthrow of the Marcos regime in…
Mamasapano’s other casualties
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld If truth is the first casualty of the Mamasapano incident, the peace agreement between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Philippine government is fast emerging as the second. Thanks to the likes of JV Ejercito, Alan Peter Cayetano, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and their like- minded…
Bangsamoro after Mamasapano: Don’t muddy the issues of war and peace
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Some broadcast news reports were calling it “a massacre” hardly after the last shots had been fired. Not to be outdone, their colleagues in print said it was “a slaughter.” In the days that followed, the Philippine news media were engaged in a race for scoops, in…
Government can’t hide poverty, but not for lack of trying
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld If, as Jordan Belfort (the real life anti-hero of the Martin Scorsese film The Wolf of Wall Street) declares, there is no nobility in poverty, neither is there any justification in hiding it. And we have it from an authoritative source — from no less than Corazon…
The Pope and climate change
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Most observers are likely to agree that the visit of Pope Francis has reinvigorated the faith of the millions of Catholics in the only predominantly Christian country in Asia. But that visit was also an expression and in furtherance of the Pope’s commitment to the defense of…
Why some are not Charlie Hebdo
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Many Filipinos heard it from clerics bristling over tour guide Carlos Celdran’s holding aloft a streamer with the word “Damaso” on it during a mass at the Manila Cathedral. They’ve also heard it from politicians who file libel suits against journalists for supposedly defaming them by exposing…
The Pope from the Third World
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Let’s get the usual “separation-of-church-and-state” argument out of the way first. Securing the Pope, whoever he may be, is a State responsibility and no one in his right mind should be arguing against it. No one should begrudge the Catholic faithful among the citizenry the opportunity to…
Marketing Mr. Palengke
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Wealth and the lack of it have always been and will continue to be issues in Philippine politics, for as long as too many people are poor and have almost nothing while a handful of families have everything, including, so it seems, air-conditioned stables and pens for…
More ‘super’ typhoons mean more media responsibility
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld No one can blame practically all Filipinos, not only the residents of Tacloban City and other areas in the Visayas, for being so traumatized by the devastation caused by typhoon Yolanda on Nov. 8 last year that they’ve since been watching every weather disturbance with dread that…