THE way the spate of public opinion polls on the forthcoming elections have been tarred and feathered in mainstream and social media should alarm the research companies that have been…

I can’t help comparing the clash of farmer-activists and PNP and government authorities in Kidapawan, North Cotabato with the oft-told anecdote about the three priests, a Dominican, a Franciscan and…

FOLLOWING the March 22 bombings in Brussels, Belgium, spokesmen of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines immediately issued official statements to the effect that there…

RUDY Rosal lived in the squatters’ area across the creek from our house in Paranaque when I hired him as a driver. But he had lofty dreams for himself and…

IT helps to visit my favorite watering hole in Daly City. I pick up insights from folks who can still see the forest from the trees, with respect to the…

WHY all the hassle over the two social security numbers (SSN) allegedly used by Sen. Grace Poe when she was living in the US? In the Philippines, there must be…

WHILE doing research at the Library of Congress in Washington DC on the presence of natives of Las Islas Filipinas in Louisiana in the 1700s, I chanced upon a compilation…

WHAT was billed as a debate among the candidates in the May presidential elections turned out to be a race against the clock for each speaker and an occasional exchange…

THE recent BusinessWorld (BW)-Social Weather Station (SWS) presidential preference survey, conducted from February 5 to 7, tells us that Vice President Jejomar Binay is ahead of the pack with a…

THE recent BusinessWorld (BW)-Social Weather Station (SWS) presidential preference survey, conducted from February 5 to 7, tells us that Vice President Jejomar Binay is ahead of the pack with a…

ACCORDING to the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) the incidence of poverty in the Philippines in 2014 was 25.8 percent. This includes individuals earning less than P1,755 a month or a…

DAVAO mayor and presidential hopeful Rodrigo Duterte has announced that part of his platform of government is the extermination of criminals and corrupt public officials within six months from assuming…

THE problem confronting Senator Grace Poe had its antecedents in certain provisions of the Dual Citizenship Law, RA 9225, that Filipino-Americans objected to, even as we lobbied hard for its…

A RECENT public opinion poll conducted for Manila Standard by research specialist Junie Laylo indicates that “corruption” is considered “the most important problem of the country,” rating 31%, or more than twice…

MY dear friend, Sluggo Rigor, editor and publisher of FilAm Bulletin in Seattle, reacted to one of my columns, “May Angal: Circa 2016,” which was about the callousness and insensitivity…

Since English is the most widely spoken language in the world, it should come as no surprise that there are so many ways to learn about grammar. There are many…

I WOULD like to apologize to everyone I have called an idiot for believing that Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte deserves to be president of the Philippines in spite of…

“THE success of Donald Trump has so defied the conventional wisdom of political punditry that a new genre of analysis has come into being. Call it Trumpology. It consists of…

IN April 2010, towards the end of the term of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, I wrote a biting piece entitled, “May Angal???”  I wrote it out of sheer frustration over the…

PRESIDENT Benigno S. Aquino III has been excoriated for his handling of the festering conflict with China over the Spratlys. From losing trading revenues to being pulverized in a shooting…

THE APEC summit, for which the Aquino government was willing to create horrible incoveniences and economic losses for the country, concluded amidst self-congratulatory applause and back-patting by its organizers. The…

REMEMBER our boyhood days when a bully would place a chip on his shoulder and dare anyone to knock it off? If someone did, the bully had to fight the…

I HAVE just read, with extreme fascination, a discussion paper published by Norberto B. Gonzales, secretary of national defense and national security adviser under former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. It has…

“GREG, how true!” This was the comment of a friend from Seattle upon reading my piece, “Insights from a small town politician,” particularly the part about the need for “mobilization” (a…

ON my recent visit to the Philippines, I found myself sharing a case of beer with the vice-mayor of a small provincial town, along with some of his ward leaders….

WE probably won’t live long enough to see it, but there could yet be a feature film on Philippine politics, in the tradition that has apparently been established by the…

I HAD a chance to watch the movie Heneral Luna with my wife and family members and I was truly impressed with the crowd that it pulled. The lines at SM BF…

IN the face of the anarchy in the streets of Metro Manila, the paralysis that follows every heavy downpour, and the inability – nay, the unwillingness – of local officials…

THANKFULLY, the protest rallies of the Iglesia ni Cristo at EDSA have been called off. INC’s leaders have declared that they have reached an “agreement” with the government – without…

THERE’S this joke about a little boy anxious to see his expectant mother give birth. She explains that it will take several months for the baby to come out. The…