by Chad Terhune SAN FRANCISCO — Stepping into the land of the Trump resistance, Seema Verma flatly rejected California’s pursuit of single-payer health care as unworkable and dismissed the Affordable Care Act as too flawed to ever succeed. Speaking Wednesday at the Commonwealth Club here, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services…
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has yet again outdone himself in the past week in sowing contradictions, conspiracy theories and chaos in the United States. It’s a gift that keeps on giving to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who according to the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies, aims to sow chaos and discord among the people of the…
Part II of II Series “It is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery “The Filipino kundiman [part of OPM] is the voice of yearning love in song, plaintive in its lyrical heartbeat and yet transcendent through melodic expressiveness. The kundiman…
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has been touting about how successful his summit with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland was this week, saying on Twitter: ”So many people at the higher ends of intelligence loved my press conference performance in Helsinki.” Trump must be referring to a third of Americans (32 percent) — mostly his…
READING from a script, President Donald Trump attempted to clean up the mess he created during the joint press conference with Russia President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, July 16. This follows intense criticism from Republicans, Democrats, and our allies in the international community when Trump said he believed Putin’s denial over the…
(Part I of II series) “The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it’s having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.” – Paul Bowles, The Spider’s House In two series,…
Baguio City is one of the genuine tourism treasures of the Philippines. But for those of us who haven’t been to the City of Pines for years (especially those living overseas), the horror stories told about Baguio are enough to discourage any plans to make a trip. The only attraction left unspoiled, according to the…
STATESMANSHIP seems to be an alien word in the Trump universe. His trip to Europe to meet with our allies and world leaders has yet again embarrassed most Americans, except, of course, his loyal fan base. He went to the NATO summit and acted “pa-macho” and treated the leaders of our allied countries like a…
PRESIDENT Donald Trump has just appointed a second Supreme Court Nominee on the second year of his presidency after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement in June. Less than three months before the consequential midterm elections that may swing the balance of power in Congress, Trump immediately nominated conservative Brett Kavanaugh, 53, on Monday, July…
INDEPENDENCE DAY has taken a different feeling this year for many Americans, and recent polls have revealed just how much the presidency of Donald Trump has eroded the extreme pride we collectively feel about our country and our democracy. According to the latest Gallup poll released last Monday, July 2, fewer U.S. adults are extremely…
“Love is who you are. When you don’t live according to love, you are outside of being. You’re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity.”- Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico,…
“Journalists like all Americans should be free of the fear of being violently attacked while doing their jobs,” President Donald Trump said on Friday, June 29, a day after Jarrod Ramos opened fire in the Capital Gazette newsroom in Annapolis, Maryland and killed five individuals. The incident occurred on Thursday, June 28, which is considered…
“The Oprah Winfrey Show” on Channel 7, KABC was the last television show I developed an attachment for, which lasted 25 years. On her shows, she had a way of looking at her guests’ eyes, to which she would describe “lighting up,” when she would bring up something dear to their hearts or in tears,…
IF you are a parent like I am, would you do everything humanely possible to bring your children out of danger, famine, threats, oppression — just like what the Europeans did when they sought refuge and asylum and settled in the land of the American Indians that we now call the United States of America?…
The deaths of celebrities Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade have once again put the spotlight on the issue of suicide, and many people wonder how people as famous, talented, rich as them could have taken their own lives. We could all talk about it in the medical, philosophical or spiritual or emotional realms, but we…
I NEVER thought that one day would come when the leader of the Free World, the bastion of democracy, the defender of human rights would attack the allies of the United States, only to sing praises and advocate for the cause of the very countries that attack the United States’ democratic values, institutions and processes….
FILIPINOS all over the world are talking about the controversial video that shows Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte playfully kissing the lips of an overseas Filipina worker, who is reportedly married, in front of a cheering crowd of kababayans when he delivered a speech on stage in Seoul, South Korea. Even legitimate international media organization reported…
LAST MIDWEEK, I shared with you through this column about the eye-opening experience I had when I attended the San Mateo Community College graduation here in Northern California. My own daughter Katrina was among the graduates as she decided to take this route before going to California State University to complete her bachelor’s degree without…
MY DAUGHTER Katrina just graduated with an Associate’s degree in political science from San Mateo Community College here in California, and will be transferring to California State University in the fall to continue pursuing a bachelor’s degree. This was a choice she made as she wanted to be personally invested in her education and in…
The wedding of Prince Harry and bi-racial TV star, Meghan Markle, is a milestone in race relations as significant as the assumption of the U.S. presidency by half Black Barack Obama. The White supremacists who continue to cling to the fantasy nurtured by Adolf Hitler, fanned by American neo-Nazis and abetted by President Donald Trump…
TEN KILLED. Nine high school students and one teacher were murdered, while 10 remain injured as of press time at Santa Fe High School in Texas on the morning of Friday, May 20, after a gunman opened fire. This comes just a little more than three months after the Valentine’s Day school massacre in Parkland,…
CHIEF JUSTICE Maria Lourdes Sereno was removed from the Philippine Supreme Court through an 8-6 vote by the justices on May 11, 2018, for what they conclude is her failure to file her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALNs) when she was appointed by President Rodrigo Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III. Sereno denied…
U.S. NEWS organizations have carried the news about the ouster of Maria Lourdes Aranal-Sereno as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The NEW YORK TIMES reported to its global readers: “The Philippines’ highest court on Friday forced out its chief justice, removing a fierce critic of President Rodrigo Duterte and his brutal war against drugs, which…
No, this is not a new movie version of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic, All Quiet on the Western Front. It is an unsolicited suggestion for a movie on the dramatic rescue of abused overseas Filipino workers in Kuwait, in case the Department of Foreign Affairs wants to produce it and make a touchy diplomatic situation worse. Of course, I’m…
MAY DAY. May 1 is International Workers’ Day, a day when many countries around the world commemorate the working class of their nation. The “obrero” or workers and their supporters took to the streets to fight for workers’ rights, better working conditions and equitable pay. In the United States, this year’s commemoration is especially significant…
GOOD NEWS for qualified young undocumented immigrants: On Tuesday, April 24, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates called the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program “virtually unexplained” and therefore “unlawful.” This will effectively resume the DACA program after President Donald Trump tried to shut down the Obama-era initiative…
There is a clear focused movement in inter-Korean and U.S.-North Korean talks, prior to formal difficult negotiations among the heads of government, that hopefully could lead to eventual peace in the Korean Peninsula, long awaited by Asia and the global community. The news in the last few days is that CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who…
BORACAY — consistently ranked as one of the best islands and beaches in the world, as it has been voted to the top many times by travelers worldwide. For me, Boracay is personal. This tropical paradise has been so much a part of my family’s history. That is why the news that Boracay will be…
CALIFORNIA, home to the biggest Filipino population in America, is divided, and so are kababayans in the Golden State, when it comes to the “sanctuary state” policy enacted into law by Governor Jerry Brown last year. The poll published by UC Berkeley’s progressive-leaning Haas Institute on Wednesday, April 18, revealed the paradox that while 70…
After most of our God-centered thoughts during the last Holy Week, we felt there is need today for new initiatives for peace, renewal, and development in our country, and what immediately comes to mind is to revive our old proposal for a “Government of National Unity.” The other choice of other more extreme advisers is…
