Planning for future contingencies has never been any administration’s strong suit, despite the constant threat of natural and man-made disasters against the people of this country. It is not uniquely characteristic of the Duterte regime.
Filipino psychiatrists have not been remiss in alerting the public and the government to the looming if not already existing mental health problem and have reported a notable increase in the number of consultations during the pandemic. But neither the citizenry nor the Duterte regime seems to regard it with any sense of urgency.
…[h]e presented no coherent plan of action to address them on the basis of a fact-based analysis of the last six months’ experience and the lessons learned from it. Neither did he say anything about addressing such major concerns of healthcare workers as the inadequacies of healthcare system equipment and facilities, the critical shortfall in the number of nurses, doctors, and other medical frontliners, and most hospitals’ being full to the rafters with COVID-19 patients.
As ardently observed as Christmas in these Catholic isles, Lent was all of four months ago, but ABS-CBN broadcaster and former Philippine Vice-President Noli De Castro recently described what his network is currently going through as a “calvary.” De Castro was responding to the most recent episode in the ABS-CBN Via Dolorosa: a plot being…
An oligarchy is governed by a few families and individuals. While wealth is indeed among its members’ more obvious attributes, wealth alone does not make an oligarch. The capacity to influence or control government and governance does. An oligarch is therefore someone who, by virtue of birth, wealth, religious affiliation, or control over the coercive…
As in many other countries reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 contagion, a wave of pessimism, fear, and hopelessness is sweeping vast sectors of the population of the United States of America. With over three million afflicted and the death toll rising to some 136,000 during the week of July 8 to 15, the…
More than 9 million students in both private and public schools had enrolled online for schoolyear 2020-2021 as the month of June ended. The resumption of K-12 classes is scheduled for Aug. 24 this year, hence the Department of Education’s (DepEd) reserving the entire month of June for registration, and later extending it till July.…
The United States marks on July 4 its 244th year of independence. But is it a “failing” or even “failed” state? At least two distinguished US authors think so. Derided as a Western concoction to justify intervention in the affairs of other countries, the theory of failed and failing states has defied both popular as…
Instead of the extrajudicial killings and human rights violations that have surged in unprecedented numbers during their troubling watch, the minions of the Duterte regime are condemning activism as if it were a heinous crime whose perpetrators deserve the death penalty they so eagerly want to restore. They’re not explicitly saying it, but anyone with…
Plans are afoot to bring back the long dead Anti-Subversion Act that became LAW 62 years ago. The military, the police and the Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG) are asking Congress to do just that on the argument that its re-enactment — it was repealed in 1992 during the Fidel V. Ramos presidency…
Every tyranny has used fear and hate to take power and to keep it. Coercion and the use of force have never been enough. A gun can only kill, but fear can make entire nations tremble, and hate lead them into committing the worst of crimes. Adolf Hitler used anti-Jewish sentiments to stoke German fears…