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I welcome/This redeeming kind of sunset/ In the island/ So full of solace

We’re back to stricter restrictions in Metro Manila and nearby provinces starting today until Easter Sunday. The situation is far worse now than before because, for one, the reported number of daily infections has been growing by the thousands.

A bill to reward businesses for corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities is pending in Congress. At its face, the bill may be harmless: Who would not want to reward companies when they appear to be more socially responsible, especially in this time of need?

With the number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surging again in the past two weeks, people are quick to take the government to task for its apparent ineptitude in containing its spread. On the other hand, the government blames the public for being pasaway (hardheaded) despite repeated reminders to follow health protocols.

Amidst the disaster of unabated rise of COVID-19 cases (breaching the 5, 000 mark last Saturday, the highest daily increase since Aug. 26, 2020), the Filipino people are being set up for another tragedy: an attempt to bastardize the Constitution for President Duterte to continue being in power after his term ends on June 30, 2022.

Four search warrants issued by Judge Jose Lorenzo dela Rosa (RTC Manila Branch 4) and two by Judge Carolina C. Icasiano-Sison (RTC Manila Branch 18) were analyzed for their information particulars and adherence to legal protocols. Both judges had issued the search warrants that resulted in the killings and arrests of the Tumandok indigenous peoples of Panay last December 30, 2020 and those of the Calabarzon 9 Bloody Sunday this March 7.

The legal profession in the country is under siege. Lawyers smell trouble in the recent move by the Philippine National Police (PNP) to secure from the courts a list of their colleagues, who are representing activists.

Asean hasn’t been gaining fans from its handling of the Myanmar military’s coup. But if it is able to craft a new template, the grouping may still count as the best pragmatic bet for getting a conversation going with that country’s men in uniform in order to, first, stop the brutal crackdown on its people.

It may sound strange that confirmed cases of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) began rising again on the same week that the initial shipments of vaccines arrived in Manila and the government started rolling out its inoculation drive.

Despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s bravado that he is not worried about the complaints of crimes against humanity filed before the International Criminal Court (ICC) against him and officials involved in the government’s bloody drug war, the speech of Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) last Feb. 24 betrayed the administration’s concern about it.

As the Philippines officially rolls out today, March 1, its national vaccination program against the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), it should not sweep some important issues under the rug just because the inoculation drive has begun.

There are at least seven false claims, misrepresentations or elements requiring context in Bongbong Marcos’s latest vlog, BBM Vlog 148, titled “Bringing Back Transparency to the Election System” posted after the Supreme Court (SC), sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), dismissed Marcos’ protest of Vice President Leni Robredo’s victory last Feb. 16.

The year before the filing of candidacies for the 2022 presidential elections is as critically vital as the voting day itself. That is because it is a long period of mind stimulation, when politicians lie the most – as, for example, when they say they are not running. It is actually a song-and-dance number, a canard deliberately curated and designed to keep them in the imagination of a vulnerable public given to fear, self-interests such as pecuniary considerations, and passing titillation.

The case of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against journalist Lady Ann “Icy” Salem of Manila Today was dismissed last Feb. 5 but she continues to be in jail in Mandaluyong City.

Incumbent legislators would do the country a great service if they seriously take a closer look at a provision in Republic Act (RA) 9369 that rendered premature campaigning a thing of the past.

“I would like to put on notice, if there’s an American agent here, that from now on, you want the Visiting Forces Agreement done? You have to pay.”

The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision granting the full retirement benefits of the late chief justice Renato Corona, despite his impeachment in 2012, is quite unsettling. It sends the wrong signal to public officials that it is all right to be dishonest for as long as they serve at least 15 years in government.

The title of this column is borrowed from Jose Rizal’s masterpiece, Noli Me Tangere, which historian Ambeth Ocampo best explained in his 2016 opinion piece to mean “one is pretending not to appear interested in something, though in reality one is desperate to have it.”

The deferment of the implementation of the “Child Safety in Motor Vehicles Act” does not mean that the two-year-old law is taking a back seat.

I recall from my erstwhile years at the University of the Philippines schoolmates who had later joined the Philippine Military Academy, one of whom became chief of the Philippine Navy. My own high school class of Xavier University Ateneo de Cagayan, also red-tagged by neo-McCarthyist supremo Antonio Parlade, had produced only one leftist cadre in contrast to, among others, a secretary of agriculture, an undersecretary of tourism, a public health doctor, law and medical professors, a college dean, a congressman, and two municipal mayors. The leftist cadre was held in high esteem, standing tall among the sterling as the class salutatorian.

Alex Padilla, one of the 28 University of the Philippines students and alumni in the list of the Armed Forces of the Philippines “who became NPA (died or captured),” noted that the unsigned apology of the AFP Information Center that released the erroneous and egregious list is” hardly one.”

Journalist Roel Landingin, one of the 28 named in the latest red-tagging offensive of the Duterte government, expressed concern over the credibilityof information that the military has and uses.

The business community’s joint statement issued on Friday against the revived efforts in Congress to amend the restrictive economic provisions of the Constitution drew attention to the dubious intentions and wrong priorities of those behind this latest Cha-cha initiative.

Senator Imee Marcos just has to butt in. She defended President Rodrigo Duterte’s low regard for women in politics only to remind us of her father’s similar, if not more atrocious view.