A young man I spoke with recently — early twenties, sharp, about to finish his degree —told me he had never voted and did not plan to. He wasn’t angry about it. He said it theway you’d mention the weather. Wala namang mangyayari. Nothing will happenanyway. What stayed with me wasn’t the opinion. It was…
There are really two republics in the Philippines. The first is the one written in the Constitution. It is displayed in government buildings, mentioned in speeches, and repeated during every State of the Nation Address. This is the formal Republic, with its agencies, departments, policies, plans, and promises. The second republic is the one Filipinos…
If countries were renamed based on what their citizens experience most, perhaps the Philippines would no longer be called the Republic of the Philippines. Perhaps it would be more honest to call it the Republika ng Pangako. Every administration arrives with a new slogan, a new roadmap, and a new set of grand declarations meant…
This issue came up in a recent conversation with Congressman Bonifacio Bosita, whose long advocacy for transport workers continues to surface a hard reality on Philippine roads: drivers are being punished for violations rooted not in their own actions, but in failures beyond their control. Imagine a bus driver. Four in the morning. Same route…
Every administration promises them. Every province requests them. Every budget cycle hands out billions for them. Farm-to-market roads have become the default answer to almost every agricultural transport problem in the Philippines. And yet, farmers in Benguet still watch their cabbages rot in the field. Maybe we are solving the wrong problem. In mountainous terrain,…
Every administration promises them. Every province requests them. Every budget cycle hands out billions for them. Farm-to-market roads have become the default answer to almost every agricultural transport problem in the Philippines. And yet, farmers in Benguet still watch their cabbages rot in the field. Maybe we are solving the wrong problem. In mountainous terrain,…
The most expensive infrastructure in the Philippines is the kind we never built. You will not find it as a line item in the GAA. You see it on the road — in diesel burned, hours lost, in cargo that arrives late. In Mindanao, a farmer loads his vegetables before sunrise and drives for hours…
In mid-April, DTI Undersecretary Ceferino Rodolfo signed the Philippines into the Pax Silica initiative, making the country the 13th member of a US-led coalition focused on semiconductor supply chains, critical minerals, and AI infrastructure. Frederick Go was in Washington at the time. The Bases Conversion and Development Authority committed a 4,000-acre site inside New Clark…
There are moments in life that do not need noise, or even answers. They only needquiet—and the willingness to be honest. For me, that quiet usually arrives with a cup of coffee. Early in the morning before theday takes over, or late at night when everything finally slows down. It is in those in-between hours…
There is a kind of frustration on our roads that never makes the news. You feel it while driving, see it at intersections, and encounter it in small, repeated moments — when a vehicle stops where it shouldn’t, cuts across where it can’t, or simply ignores the flow everyone else is trying to follow. This…