By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld President Benigno Simeon Aquino III is leaving for several European countries this Sunday, Sept. 14, during which he’s expected to enhance those countries’ support for the Philippine position in its dispute with China over the West Philippine Sea. Having just submitted to Congress the draft of the…
Category: Vantage Point
Beyond the fear of losing Mideast jobs
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld About the Middle East and Libya many Filipinos have one fear, and that’s the loss of their jobs as the region and that country fall apart, besieged by the violence of contending sectarian groups and the so-called Islamic State (ISIS). That, together with paeans to their bravery,…
Critics being negative about negativity is a positive thing
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Benigno Aquino III has done it before: lamented the “negativity” of his critics as well as that of the Philippine press and media. “Negativity” and “negativism” have been an even more noticeable part of his public vocabulary in recent times, together with their supposed opposites, “optimism” and…
Seduced by a dangerous dance of Cha-cha
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld About Benigno Aquino III’s declaration in a TV5 interview that he would “listen to his bosses,” we can either (1) assume that it was his demure way of saying that he will indeed seek a second term, or (2) dismiss it as merely an attempt to allay…
The Palparan fallacy
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Promoted to major general by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Jovito Palparan echoed in 2009 her declaration that she wanted Republic Act 1700, the Anti-Subversion Act, “revived,” although the proper word should have been “exhumed,” RA 1700 having been long dead. Then-President Fidel Ramos signed Republic Act…
The National Police’s grammar of deception
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld If eight out of 145 crimes have been solved, and in most cases no thanks to you, should you be crowing about it? Eight out of 145 is about 3% of the total cases of journalists and media workers killed in this country, but the Philippine National…
What Aquino didn’t say …said it all
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Among the supposed accomplishments he crowed about were the decline in the crime rate and the improved peace and order situation — claims that are at least as outlandish as the allegation that economic growth and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) have benefitted the poor. On the…
Bad leadership leads to ruin, take it from Mabini
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld The peasant-born Apolinario Mabini, whose 150th birth anniversary passed last Wednesday with few being even aware of it, was one of the two greatest intellectuals produced by the reform and revolutionary periods in Philippine history. Mabini, who by dint of hard work became a lawyer by the…
Not exactly evil, not exactly genius
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Former Senator Joker Arroyo, who was his mother’s executive secretary, called him an “evil genius” for his supposedly creative use of Article 39 of the 1987 Administrative Code of the Philippines to justify the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), in the process marking the first time that Benigno…
Fraternities will thrive in feudal Philippines
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Philippine fraternities or Greek letter societies are the local versions of similar organizations in the United States, in the universities and colleges of which fraternities (men-only organizations), sororities (societies that accept only women) and mixed-gender groups are recognized, except in those institutions where they are explicitly banned.…
Forget Nobel, and the Mendicancy Prize goes to….
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Malacañang sources say the administration isn’t lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize for Benigno Aquino III, and we should take them at their word. But if they are indeed lobbying for it, and today being Mendicancy — sorry, “Philippine-American Friendship” — Day, they should enlist United States…