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By ELLEN TORDESILLAS CONCERNED citizens are hauling the Malaysian government to the United Nations for human rights abuses against Filipinos in Sabah, even as they criticized the Philippine government for lack of outrage and action. Concerned groups and individuals are filing Monday urgent appeals with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay and

Slideshow by VINCENT GO EXACTLY nine years after the Clear Water Act was signed into law, water pollution remains a serious problem in urban areas in the Philippines. So is the supply of drinking water.  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources estimates that 19 million Filipinos, or one in every five Filipinos, have no

BY PABLO A. TARIMAN WHEN award-winning Ukrainian pianist Sofya Gulyak and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra ended their “Elegantly Brahms” concert at the Philam Life Auditorium in Manila Wednesday, many in the audience knew it wasn’t just the musicians who were bowing out. So was the iconic and much-cherished Philam Life Auditorium, which will be demolished

Podcast by KRIZIA ARCANGEL
RESIDENTS of Artex Compound in Malabon can’t live without boats. Not since 2004 when its roads became permanently submerged in water.

By CHERRY JOY VENILES HALAW in Malay-Bahasa means “driven away” and until very recently had not been given a face until news of the Lahad Datu standoff hogged the headlines in early February. In the early 80s, halaw was used to describe persons whose heads were shaved to identify them as those to be “deported”

  By LAURO L. BAJA JR. THE President has gone on TV appealing and at the same time chastising the Sultan of Sulu over the standoff in Lahad Datu in Sabah. The next few days will tell the wisdom of doing it in public. His statements and actions give the unintended consequence of leaning on

By JOSE APOLINARIO L. LOZADA JR. AS the 300 followers of the Sultanate of Sulu remain holed up in Sabah, the Philippines has no choice but to immediately act to prevent unwanted consequences that could lead to the “suspension” of relations with Malaysia again or, worse, possible bloodshed. One option: For President Benigno S. Aquino

By MA. THERESA ANGELINA QUINTANA-TABADA FOR Japanese student Keiko Abe, Cebuanos’ ease with English in and outside classrooms is a reason she is studying in Cebu City. And the University of the Philippines Cebu junior, who chose to move from Manila to Cebu three years ago, enjoys this bonus: “Cebu can offer better service (at

By IGAL JADA SAN ANDRES (Photos from Nick Deocampo’s personal collection) THREE days before his last research stint as a senior Fulbright scholar at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ended, Nick Deocampo made a stunning discovery that should have shaken the Philippines. That year, 2003, he chanced upon Zamboanga, a 1936 film produced

Audio slideshow by MA. BEA PATRICIA R. CRUZ MARIKINA City is not the “Shoe Capital of the Philippines” for nothing. Home to the world’s largest shoes certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, the city is, more important, the keeper of treasures that have to do with one of the country’s oldest trades—shoemaking, of

By CHERRY JOY VENILES WITH almost four decades of sustained and large‐scale migration of Filipinos to foreign countries, the Philippines has emerged as one of the major migrant‐sending nations, next to China and India. But it has also fallen into the trap of calling every Filipino overseas an Overseas Filipino Worker or OFW, clouding the

By NORMAN SISON  Photo and video by LUIS LIWANAG WITH the waters of Manila Bay murky with pollution and littered with flotsam, it seemed unlikely that anything could survive in there. But there they were, by the waterfront near the headquarters of the Philippine Navy, about a dozen locals with fishing poles last  Tuesday. “What’s

By MICHAEL A. BENGWAYAN BAGUIO CITY—“No mountain is too high, no trouble too difficult to overcome…” This saying might as well describe the  resumption of  series of protest actions to be  staged by environmentalists and residents against SM City Baguio’s plan to remove more than a hundred pine trees on Luneta Hill to make way for

By ACE ESMERALDA MANY things don’t fit in the statements of the police on the Jan. 26 Megamall robbery. As of this writing, the Mandaluyong police have claimed to have “identified” two of the six suspects in the robbery. But in reality, they don’t have the two suspects’ names and addresses yet. What they have

By JONATHAN DE SANTOS EMPLOYEES of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) have filed a graft case against an official of the DAR’s Bids and Awards Committee for awarding engineering firm F.F. Cruz and Co. a contract to survey Hacienda Luisita which they said was overpriced. F.F. Cruz was to survey a portion of Hacienda

By  ROMEL R. BAGARES JUST as pundits have predicted, China  soon announced it is not taking part in the arbitration proceedings initiated by the Philippines over the two countries’ territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea for the Chinese). So, what happens next – does this mean an abrupt end to the

  By LAURO L.BAJA, JR. THE Philippines has finally brought to the compulsory dispute mechanism of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)  its conflict with China over some areas in the West Philippine Sea. Finally, because many believe that this action should have been done before 25 August 2006, when

By CHARMAINE DEOGRACIAS THE campaign to raise autism awareness in the country is as old as my son Giancarlo Miguel, he is now 17. From that time that my kid was taunted in a theme park in Laguna for being special and cannot patiently queue like everyone else, back when he was 6, my resolve