Friday May 18th 2012

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“Tipping Points”

“Tipping Points”

“Point of no return”. That’s how defense lawyers  tag  Chief  Justice Renato Corona’s decision, on Day 36 of his impeachment  trial, to appear before the court. Senator-judge Francis “Chiz” Escudero  says it’s  a ‘make or break move”.   Others   prefer the  classic   “tipping point.”   Malcolm Gladwell  titled his  best  selling  book (  Little Brown / 2000 ) that way..Ideas to behavior “spread like viruses do” and  shove institutions to the [...]

War and peace

War and peace

IS peace elusive these days? I refer more to peace of mind more than anything else, though we can not discount the fact that we can get the sensation that peace is also slippery in the social, political, ideological and even religious spheres. We just have to look around to see that some trouble and disturbance are erupting in many parts of the world, and even in our own country, our own province, town or city, and even in our places of work and in our homes. Of course, we know that even [...]

Ordering back the tides

Ordering back the tides

“Trees fail to flower,” Aetas huddled at the Bataan mountain top meeting.  told  Fr. Shay Cullen.  “Bees are disappearing.  Storms blow away our nipa huts as never before.” With  Preda  Foundation  coworkers, the  priest  toiled  up  the two hour steep  trail  on horseback. PREDA buys  Aeta  wild mangoes at double  what lowland  hawkers  offer and markets them abroad.”            Half   a world  away, University of Bern experiments  span two [...]

Go easy with opinions

Go easy with opinions

I HAVE just finished reading a book about Pope Benedict XVI. I prefer not to mention the title nor the author. I just want to highlight the need to go easy with opinions, because while they will always have some grain of truth, they most likely don’t have it all. The book was written by a journalist covering the Vatican beat. There’s some understandable hype used in promoting the book which should be taken with a grain of salt. I understand that being a journalist, the author tends to [...]

“The Lady is not for turning”

“The Lady is not for turning”

“Never grow a  wishbone  where  your  backbone should be,”  Columnist  Dorothy Parker  would rib  friends in New York’s  lower East Side..  And backbone is what Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales always had. Explain  within 72 hours the  $10 million stashed  in two dollar accounts at Philippine Savings Bank, Morales asked impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona: Five Bank of the PI peso deposits appear  “grossly disproportionate” to income.  As Supreme Court [...]

Internet hit and run

Internet hit and run

Friction over Scarborough Shoals,  between the Philippines and China ,   have erupted into hacking  clashes  on Internet. Chinese hackers of  the “Silic Group” , bragged  the Philippine Institute of Development Studies and Bulacan provincial government websites were  in the cross-hairs of their next hacking  foray. Bulacan has a has a time-lock security feature Malacañang on Monday said websites of the Official Gazette, the Presidential Museum and Library website were targets [...]

Bread of life

Bread of life

“I MYSELF am the bread of life. No one who comes to me shall ever be hungry, no one who believes in me shall thirst again.” (Jn 6,35) We need to enliven our belief that in Christ we have everything, we have what is truly and ultimately needed by us. Many of our needs are passing, are of a temporal nature. It is Christ who we truly and ultimately need. And he gives himself so completely to us as to make himself bread to be eaten by us. Although he is like air since we can not truly [...]

Reckless Spillover

Reckless Spillover

Kalapati mababang lipad translates loosely into rooftop skimming pigeons. It is Pinoy shorthand for harlot. “The axiom resonated at the Philippine Press Institute’s conference Monday. “Attempts at self-regulation are failing”, Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility’s Luis Teodoro warned. Media's ethical lapses court heavy handed government interference. This threat emerges in spillover from August 2010 coverage of eight Hong Kong tourists and a hostage taker killed at Luneta [...]

Continuing conversion

Continuing conversion

WE have to understand that conversion is a continuing affair for all of us in this life. We can never say, if we have to follow by what our Christian faith tells us, that we are good enough as to need conversion no more. We are all sinners, St. John said. And even the just man, as the Bible said, falls seven times in a day. Besides, it is this sense of continuing conversion that would really ensure us that whatever we do, whatever would happen to us, including our failures and defeats, [...]

Unsettled “IOU”

Unsettled “IOU”

“Media  Accountability  and  Public  Engagement” is the theme  that   76 newspapers  will discuss at  Philippine Press Institute’s annual  meeting starting Monday. Harsh facts underpin those glowing captions. President  Benigno Aquino  will  key note this two day meeting. Earlier,  he  quit  waflling  and  endorsed  the Freedom of Information bill  That  should  buff  up his  bona-fides.. Discussions  will  then hopscotch  from an “Asian Media Barometer” [...]

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