PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has “vowed,” say media reports, to get the killers of Fr. Fausto Tentorio even if they should turn out to be members of the paramilitary groups he, Aquino, has refused to dismantle. The call has been made often for the dismantling of paramilitary groups, among them the Civilian Volunteer Organizations (CVOs) [...]
Archive for the ‘Vantage Point’ Category
Reign of assassins
Posted in Vantage Point on October 21, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Self-inflicted
Posted in Vantage Point on October 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
THE DESTRUCTION of the country’s institutions is proceeding apace. But it’s not the “enemies of the state” who’re subverting them; it’s the very institutions themselves, including those mandated to protect the state, that are doing it. “A bulwark of liberty.” “The protector of Philippine patrimony.” “ The guardian of civil rights and the rule of [...]
No fear
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Abigail Valte, Edwin Lacierda, Noynoy Aquino, student movement on October 7, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
IN a remark that has since been condemned not only by the protesting students but also by engaged academics, thinking journalists and even half- asleep politicians, Deputy Presidential Spokesperson Abigail Valte ventured the opinion that students should “concentrate on their studies rather than [walk] out of their classrooms to protest supposed budget cuts for their [...]
Cowards and SOBs
Posted in Vantage Point on September 23, 2011 | 3 Comments »
THE “American official” President Benigno Aquino III quoted in his speech at the University of Fordham in New York as complaining that “the problem with the Philippines is that it has 40 million cowards and one SOB (son of a bitch) ” was most probably the outspoken US Senator J. William Fulbright, who chaired the [...]
A dangerous place
Posted in Vantage Point on September 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
IT’S a mantra in the US and much of Western media: 9-11, or the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, “changed the world.” The planet has never been in as great disorder as today, with war and even total annihilation a constant threat, famine afflicting millions in Africa, an economic crisis threatening [...]
The sixth estate
Posted in Vantage Point on September 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
SPEAKING AT a forum on the press and the media, former University of the Philippines president Jose V. Abueva said there were actually five Estates, or powers, in the Philippines. If the press is the Fourth Estate, the Catholic Church would be the fifth. Abueva did not mention what the other three Estates in contemporary [...]
“SP” remembered
Posted in Vantage Point on September 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
THE University of the Philippines has been celebrating since May this year the birth centennial of one of its greatest presidents. The celebrations, which have included lectures, symposia, photo exhibits and publications on Salvador P. Lopez, who was UP President from 1969 to 1975, will end in October. “SP” to his staff in the department [...]
Not your ideal police force
Posted in Vantage Point on August 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
PRESIDENT Benigno Aquino III has refused to apologize to the relatives of the eight Hongkong tourists killed during the hostage- taking incident at Manila’s Rizal Park on August 23, 2010. Declaring in a speech during the first anniversary of that incident that the Philippine government regretted it, but that it was not right for the [...]
Hold your breath
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged smoking on August 19, 2011 | 2 Comments »
WHAT “grave injustice and irreparable injury” would anyone suffer if prevented from smoking in public, or from inhaling the smoke from a burning cigarette and the smoke smokers exhale? Judge Carlos Valenzuela of Branch 213 of the Mandaluyong Regional Trial Court didn’t, and probably can’t, say. But he used that argument anyway to issue a [...]
