TWO of the recent military casualties in the conflict in Mindanao were from Iloilo City. Marine Cpl. Angelo Abeto who died in Basilan in an encounter with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), comes from a remote portion of barangay Airport in Mandurriao District, a grandson of a barangay captain in Iloilo City.
I met […]

WE shouldn’t worry too much over the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’(BSP) report saying the inflation rate reached 12.2 percent in July. We seem to have exaggerated the seriousness of this development when it described the figure as the highest in 14 years.
Sure, 12.2 percent is high, especially when we recall that our average inflation […]

IT perplexes me why critical media, as well as critics of the President, are now injecting new issues in connection with Senate Resolution 10, signed by 16 senators, calling for a constitutional shift to a federal form of government.
These critics are now attributing motives against the President just because she has considered supporting the […]

SINCE I started this series of columns on the need for a comprehensive and long-term renaissance program for agriculture, I have discussed several components of a grand strategy to implement that program, namely, conducting an inventory of agricultural resources, corporate farming, agricultural education and revisiting the carabao.
These are just a few possible components of the […]

THERE are disturbing reports that some Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) elements, obviously taking advantage of the impasse created by the aborted signing of the “ancestral domain” memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain, or MOA-AD, in Kuala Lumpur, have started to grab properties of Christians in Cotabato, where, as of this writing, military intelligence […]

TO ME, it’s funny that the survey conducted by one of the leading survey groups in the country came out with a story that said the people are satisfied with the programs and projects of President Arroyo, but they dislike the President herself.
I find this strange, if not altogether incredible, because if the people themselves […]

THE August 1 issue of a major broadsheet had an item about government hospitals keeping some P8 million worth of expired medicine.
The story, which centered on Department of Health (DOH)-Central Visayas, also said that the expired medicine was part of a procurement which was allegedly overpriced by some P15.5 million. Maybe the Court of Appeals […]

EXTRAORDINARY events such as the global fuel and food crises have prompted governments to take high-profile, costly measures in a near-panic or panic mode.
In the process, it is not unusual for those who are quick to declare the release of billions of pesos for this or that emergency measure to forget about less costly, longer-lasting […]

IT seems that Department of Health (DOH) regional director for Region 6, Dr. Lydia Depra Ramos, rides again. She has been trumpeting that she is “untouchable” and was reported to have brazenly purchased millions of pesos worth of sterilizing and disinfecting solutions which were described as “state-of-the-art” in an attempt to justify the overprice of […]

IN TIMES of crisis, true friends, good Samaritans and people whose humanity shine like a beacon light for all to emulate come forth and manifest their genuine concern for their fellowmen, without fanfare, without publicity.
Such big-hearted men have come forth to extend much-needed assistance to the victims of Typhoon Frank and the devastating flood that […]