BEIJING — As I said last week, although the theme of the 7th Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) is “Social and Ecological Justice,” there was no escaping the current global financial crisis that began in the posh financial enclaves of the world and in the brains of its overpaid architects in expensive suits.
And so even with [...]

BEIJING — Here we are together again, this time in Beijing, for the Asia-Europe Peoples’ Forum 7 (AEPF7). This is a follow-up to AEPF6 in Helsinki in 2006.
The last time I was in Beijing was 24 years ago. In 1984 our group was hosted by the Chinese government and we were toured around several major [...]

MY heart broke because I couldn’t be present at the Oct. 3 fund-raising event for Oscar D. Francisco (Oca to his friends), but I told myself that I would do my part to help him. The affair was held at Bantayog ng mga Bayani (Monument of Heroes).
Oca’s name is not about to be etched on [...]

IT WAS A BIG but not a glitzy, showy affair. Definitely not for the loud society pages but more for the art critics maybe. From the invitation to the event, the book, the food and drinks to the renderings in sculpture and painting, and most of all, the music — everything suggested muted elegance. Perhaps [...]

“My knife is my wife,” Dr. Jose “Ting” Tiongco told me 12 years ago. “My fascination with surgery has been total I have forgotten to get married.”
Ting is a brilliant surgeon, one of the passionate doctors who blazed a trail in healthcare cooperatives in Davao and later in the rest of the Philippines. Twelve years [...]

I INVITED myself to the factory. The company does not need media exposure or publicity. It doesn’t sell its products here. In fact, the owner requested that there would be no mention of his name (let’s call him “Mr. K”), the company’s name, the brand names, etc. It was I who was interested to know [...]

SEOUL—When you give something a name, you empower it. And so, they’ve given it a name—knowledge economy or knowledge-based economy. In layman’s terms, knowledge economy (KE) means using knowledge to create wealth. Wealth isn’t a bad word if it means quality life, not just for a few, but for all.
Representatives from six countries—Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, [...]

ONE of the 2008 Ramon Magsaysay Award recipients I was able to interview recently was Ahmad Syafii Maarif of Indonesia. He received the award in the Peace and International Understanding category.
The banner headline last Monday was “Fighting continues as Ramadan begins.” Just below it was my article with the title “Terrorists hijack God, says RM [...]

OVER these past many years, I have been privileged to meet, get to know and write about some of the great men and women of Asia (or GMWA, as we have come to call them).
“Great Men and Women of Asia” is also the title of five volumes of easy-reading books (there’s more to come) that [...]

I WAS in Davao City last week for the soft opening of the Heritage Museum of the Pamulaan Center of Indigenous People’s Education and to attend the opening of the 2nd National Conference of Indigenous Peoples Higher Education in the Philippines.
While the members of the University of Southeastern Philippines’ Pangkat Silayan Theater Collective, gloriously clad [...]