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Diplomacy. The word, according to its definition describes the “art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. It usually refers to international diplomacy, the conduct of international relations through the intercession of professional diplomats with regard to issues of peace making, trade, war, economics, culture, environment and human rights“. The...
During former President Gloria Arroyo’s (GMA) term, we referred to Overseas Foreign Workers (OFW) as our “Bagong Bayani” or “Our new heroes.” Earlier in the year, some economists gave OFWs credit for boosting growth in the economy due to their “higher remittances” the country received from the millions of Filipinos working abroad. The question...
It is difficult to take seriously a man who once likened President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III to the Lord of the Rings character Aragorn. Conrado de Quiros has an extensive track record of articulating a taste for seeing nebulous airy-fairy processes trumping the more real black-and-white due processes that lend stability to most democratic...
As I was reading about the suicide of former Secretary and retired General Angelo Reyes, my curiosity led me to little snippets of the history of military coup attempts in the Philippines. As I dug further on, a few names kept popping up and a pattern slowly revealed itself. It is a fact that...
Some recent events in Egypt and Tunisia illustrate the whole trouble with street mobs supposedly calling for “reform” – that in a situation described more by anarchy than any sort of clear higher purpose, it becomes difficult to sort the devils from the angels. Reports of looters vandalising ancient Egyptian artifacts and of Tunisian...
The past events have shown just how unstable a country the Philippines is. With most unstable systems, even a slight relaxing of vital control functions results in a rapid unraveling or degeneration of its structure. In the last several months, the relatively robust administrative regime of Malacañang under former President Gloria Arroyo had become...
When someone hasn’t lived a simple life, he wouldn’t have a clue what simple living means. Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie tried living a simple life in front of the camera. The two rich gals had a ball making fun of how ordinary people live their ordinary lives. But it was for a television...
According to the latest Social Weather Stations “survey”, 93 percent of a 1,200 person sample of Filipinos look forward to the Year 2011 with “hope”. This is supposedly an improvement over the 89 percent found to be hopeful in a similar survey last year. True to form, the SWS’s partners in crime in Malacanang...
What a year it has been! 2010 is the year I and many other like-minded people will never forget. As a Filipino, I never thought it was still possible to learn many new things about the culture I was born into. Indeed, every now and then, the things I discover about us never ceases...
We should be careful about how we assure ourselves of the righteousness of the “side” we take in the world order. Today’s scoundrels may be tomorrow’s saints; today’s heroes, tomorrow’s goats; and today’s winners possibly tomorrow’s losers. Raul Pangalangan of the Inquirer.net makes his judgment on the position the Philippines takes on the China...
