Former senator FRANCISCO TATAD served in the Philippine Cabinet for ten years, in the Legislature for fifteen years, and in journalism and humanitarian work for more than half of his close to sixty years in public life. As presidential spokesman and information secretary, he accompanied President Marcos on his state visit to China in 1975; as Senate majority leader, he co-sponsored the Senate resolution of concurrence in the ratification of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the US in 1999.
Investigating Duterte
President Rodrigo Duterte once threatened to have Fatou Bensouda, the Gambian lawyer and chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, arrested if she ever came to the Philippines to inquire into his government’s drug killings…
‘Grandes males grandes remedios’
Five hundred years of Christianity has produced a vibrant Catholic Church in the Philippines, making it (in 2021) the third largest Catholic nation in the world. Yet seventy-five years of self-styled “democracy” has produced (in the same year) a highly erratic democratic state. Most Filipinos believe in democracy, but they are likely not to act in its defense, even if the Constitution and the rule of law are debased—-unless and until the tipping point has been reached.
Some things a president must know
He assigned his spokesman Harry Roque to debate with Carpio instead. And Carpio quickly honored Duterte’s turnaround by proposing that the Filipino comedian Vice Ganda debate with Roque instead. I never heard whether or not Vice Ganda accepted.
Covid-19 and the next elections
These, I think, are some of the first things that should be done to make our flawed elections—and our floundering democracy—work. Therefore, instead of simply calling on our Lord to lead good and honest “servant leaders” into the light, I believe we should all try to do the smallest things each of us can do to produce, first of all, an electoral system that will help manifest our genuine faith in God and in ourselves, as we seek to establish a just, honest and truly humane government.
Survive we must, but we must do a lot more
The world is now on its second year of the coronavirus pandemic. More than a couple of million people have died, and so many millions more have been infected, but the end is still nowhere in sight. Physical survival remains the single common concern of all, yet mere...