By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat Perspective Typhoons Ondoy, Pedring, Sendong, Pablo, two freak monsoon rains, and now Yolanda have resulted in too much disaster, too many lives lost, too many houses and infrastructure destroyed, and too much suffering. The unfortunate thing is this would not be the last. According to an Associated Press report, which was…
Category: Commentary
Disaster watch
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld To the disasters that have struck the Philippines this year, the latest being typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan), the Philippine media have responded not only with regular, often by-the-hour reports, but also with the background material needed to enable their audiences to better understand why disasters happen…
Fr. Jose ‘Joe’ P. Dizon activist priest (1948-2013)
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld “Sandigan ang masa; paglingkuran ang sambayanan.” (Rely on the masses; serve the people.) These words of Fr. Jose “Joe” P. Dizon at the celebration of his 40th year as a priest (for the most part assigned to the diocese of Imus, Cavite) sums up his life-long mantra as an…
Enough of the special treatment for Napoles
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective The much-awaited testimony of Janet Lim-Napoles, suspected conduit in the pork barrel scam involving at least P10 billion ($232.5 million), before the Senate began today November 7. The Philippine National Police reportedly spent P150,000 ( $3.5 thousand) for her security. The government sent two lawyers from the Public Attorney’s Office…
Arroyo, Aquino and the Left
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com 1. Did the Left support Gloria Arroyo in 2001 and 2004? The Left was part of Edsa Dos uprising and support for Arroyo was incidental since she was at that time the Vice President who stood to benefit from Estrada’s ouster. In 2004, the Left didn’t openly endorse any presidential…
His loyal ‘opposition’
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada is one of three senators of the Republic — the two others are former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile and Ramon Revilla Jr. — being investigated by the ombudsman for possible complicity in the vast conspiracy to defraud the Filipino people through the theft…
Sanctimonious
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat Perspective Social media was bustling yesterday as soon as Malacañang requested broadcast media networks for airtime between 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. so that President Benigno Aquino III could address the Filipino people. The anticipation further intensified when the president’s address was moved one to two hours later. Rarely do presidents interrupt…
Pope Francis
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo Streetwise | BusinessWorld A gust of fresh air is sweeping through the centuries-old, grandiose but encrusted and musty environs of Vatican City with the arrival of a new Pope elected just seven months ago. Pope Francis, or the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is the new Bishop of Rome. He establishes several…
His own man
By LUIS V. TEODORO Vantage Point | BusinessWorld The claim that it’s not Benigno Aquino III who really wants to keep the pork barrel system intact, either by renaming it or by insisting that discretionary funds are not part of it, is straight out of the Marcos period. Then it was Imelda Marcos who was…
Erring big US banks settle cases through fines
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star Coincidental with the cliff-hanging negotiations in Washington, which ended on October 17 with the Obama administration defeating the House of Representatives in their standoff on funding the federal government and raising its borrowing limit, was another deal-making that settled the legal and regulatory woes…
Spy agencies’ accountability
By Satur C. Ocampo At Ground Level | The Philippine Star This week two dramatic events, both with worldwide implications, played out in the capitals of the United States and the United Kingdom. In Washington, the issue was how to resolve the standoff between the Obama administration and the House of Representatives over 1) federal…