I have lived in Manila long enough to accept that traffic is part of the deal. Gridlock is the price of living here, and every driver has quietly agreed that the trip home takes twice as long as it should. What I cannot accept is the feeling, stronger every year, that our enforcers are more…

Impeachment’s Missing Variable On July 8, at the Senate impeachment court, Senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano asked NBI witness John Mark Calilung a question that sounded more like a math class than a courtroom. In math, you can’t skip the “if” and jump straight to the “then.” Cayetano applied exactly that rule, asking, in Filipino, whether…

Every June, the rains come, the streets flood, and everyone acts surprised. Billions of pesos were supposedly spent on flood control. Where did the water go, and where did the money go? These are fair questions. But here is a question nobody likes to ask: why do the same voices stay silent when whistleblowers end…

Growing up Catholic, you learn a simple picture: the priest is the shepherd, and the shepherd’s job is to keep the wolves from the flock. Watching some of them this year, I no longer recognize the picture. I am angry, and I am ashamed to say so about men I was taught to call Father….

I prayed this morning, as I do every morning. God did not mention that men in robes would be lecturing us on the budget. What finally convinced me to stop going was not the lecturing. It was the silence. More than half a trillion pesos was allocated for flood-control projects, and serious allegations have emerged…

Justice Should Not Depend on Who Can Afford It In the Philippines, you do not have to win a libel case to break the person you filed it against. Often, simply filing the complaint is enough. Libel remains a criminal offense under Articles 353 to 355 of the Revised Penal Code, a law enacted in…

Watch a Church, a university, a newsroom, and an old opposition that agree on nothing suddenly agree on one thing. The moment one name comes up, they move as one, and few are still surprised. What unites them is a removal. There is one person they cannot bribe or push out — the one who…

A thief can look like a holy man if the right pastor stands beside him. A politician robs the people on Monday, then sits in the front row in church on Sunday. The pastor lays a hand on him, calls him a friend of God, and says nothing about the stealing. The photo does the…

In the Philippines, you do not have to win a libel case to break the person you filed it against. You only have to file it. Libel here is a crime, not a private quarrel settled in money. Under Articles 353 to 355 of the Revised Penal Code, a law from 1930, a person can…