Category Archives: Editorial

Inspired and Itinerant Ideologue

Marcelo Martin was a small frame man with squarest jaw, bristly hair, bog forehead, bushy hair and of average height.  His constant work under the sun tanned his skin is like a leather.  He had large uneven stained teeth due to smoking.  Shortly before the outbreak of the Pacific war and during the Occupation, Marcing, as he was… Read More »

The Merry month of May

By: Rudy Viernes   May is the merriest and most colorful month of the year in the Philippines. It is a month of fiestas, processions, Flores de Mayo, Santacruzan, Virgin Mary…and mangoes, too! In most little towns and villages the annual fiesta is an anticipated event held in May.  Most part of the year the barrio perks up… Read More »

HOSPICIO DE SAN JOSE IN MANILA APPEALS TO YOUR BIG HEARTS

By Rudy M. Viernes Novato, California        The Hospicio de San Jose in Manila is a Catholic charitable institution, managed since 1865 by the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul.   It is the foster home of orphans, children and adolescents abandoned or surrendered by their parents due to poverty.  Some of these children have special needs.  There… Read More »

The three S’s of good leadership

On May 10, the Filipino people will troop to the polls to elect the man who would succeed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and who would be tasked with straightening up the mess that his predecessor had put the country into. Tough challenges await the winner, perhaps as tough, if not tougher than what the late President Cory Aquino had… Read More »

The Agra ruling: Deeper than alibis

Although we had expected a whitewash of the cases against the Ampatuans of Maguindanao because of the family’s close “friendship” to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the decision of Acting Justice Secretary Alberto Agra to drop murder charges against ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan and his cousin Akmad Ampatuan  — even before the court could hear all testimonies and receive all… Read More »

Desperate situation, desperate measure

Sen. Manny Villar and his party mates at the Nacionalista Party must be very desperate. Indeed, with less than a month to go before the elections, desperation would understandably set in when you still trail by double digit percentage points in surveys after spending millions of pesos peddling lies in full page advertisements and radio-TV commercials.                  … Read More »

MEA CULPA, MEA MAXIMA CULPA

After four decades, the Vatican has absolved the Beatles, calling their pop songs “ beautiful  melodies “ ending years of acrimonious relationship between the famous British pop group who made musical history in the 1960s and the Catholic church, a report from the L’Observatore, the official newspaper of the Rome-based tiny city-state said. The Vatican had called the… Read More »

Mang Atong, the Perennial Loser

  “The public loves a winner” could never be so applicable in the chronicling of events.  In battles, the names of the winners were emblazoned in gold and marbles markers.  In crime cases, the police officer who solved the case would get the accolades.  In political contests, the names of winners were in the headlines of newspapers.  … Read More »

GMA’s DISGRACEFUL APPOINTMENTS

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”                                                                                                                                          —  George Santayana   CHICAGO (JGLi) – The midnight appointments and that of the Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court being contemplated by outgoing President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) must surely be causing her father, President Diosdado Macapagal, to… Read More »