MANILA A recent fire in a factory in Valenzuela City in Metro Manila killed more than 70 people. Tragedies like that will continue to blight the nation as long as government monitoring of work conditions in our factories remains lax. The bigger tragedy is that these are avoidable and therefore need not happen. But they do. And with frightening… Read More »
CHICAGO (JGL) – In team sports as in basketball or in football, if the ball captain or the quarterback is injured, another player or backup quarterback can always step up and the game continues to be played. But in individual sport like boxing or cycling, if the boxer or cyclist suffers severe cramps (pulikat), the boxer can ask… Read More »
The latest survey on presidential candidate preferences has left the door open for more candidates to join the race and for political parties to review alliances with other groups. Just a year earlier, it appeared that Vice President Jejomar Binay was a shoo-in to become the next president. But after a well-orchestrated and obviously successful demolition job, this… Read More »
MANILA The Filipino people’s exultation over the reprieve of Mary Jane Veloso from death by firing squad in Indonesia was brief. Ironically, it was cut short by her own family. Veloso was convicted of drug trafficking in Indonesia and sentenced to die. Before her scheduled execution in early May, her family visited her to say goodbye. She got… Read More »
CHICAGO (JGL) – When Manny Pacquiao made a post-fight comment, saying, “I thought I won the fight,” he must be thinking in the back of his mind that “if only my shoulder were not hurting, I could have won the fight.” But he kept his injured condition to himself. But if it was true that his shoulder injury worsened… Read More »
MANILA How do the children of government officials suspected or convicted of stealing the people’s money feel about their accused parent(s)? Often children of public officials on the dock for corruption sit behind their accused parent during court hearings or at congressional inquiries to show support and solidarity for their elder. But how do they really feel? Are… Read More »
It was featured on television several days ago that children in school are being taught how to handle money. Grade five kids made presentations on such grown-up topics as “Which is better for you- buy a house or rent an apartment?” or “What to buy or not to buy when you are in the mall.” I thought this… Read More »
THE United States escalated in the past week its rhetoric over the rapid reclamation being undertaken by China on Mischief Reef (Panganiban Reef) and a few other reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, with US President Barack Obama capping the new word offensive by expressing concern over the Chinese’ bullying tactics. “Where we get concerned with… Read More »
MANILA Sen. Bongbong Marcos makes the ludicrous claim that if his father Ferdinand hadn’t been deposed in 1986, we would now be another Singapore, prosperous and orderly. Many of us sneered at the young Marcos’ chutzpah, knowing that that possibility had long been made impossible by events. There was no way that turning the Philippines into another Singapore… Read More »
CHICAGO (JGL) – China’s aggressive reclamation of some of the choicest islands and islets in the Philippine Western Sea (South China Sea) that are within the territory of the Philippines will test the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951 between the United States and the Philippines if it has a teeth or if it is a mere scrap of… Read More »