Overlooked

Juan Mercado 05/13/2014

Where should pork barrel scam thieves be jailed? In the bickering, did we overlook “another green revolution that is stirring the world’s paddy fields again”—from new seeds crafted in Los Baños? International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) developed…

Background memo

Juan Mercado 05/10/2014

Tempers  flared between the Philippines and Vietnam one side and China on the other over  fishing and oil explorations in contested waters. A Philippine maritime and police boat  arrested Filipino and Chinese fishermen for illegal catch of…

Restitution check

Juan Mercado 05/06/2014

Payback speaks louder than washing of hands by thieves,” an old axiom says. Exhibit One is a P40 million restitution check given by witness Ruby Tuason to Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who crafts…

Hard slog

Juan Mercado 04/29/2014

There’s a spillover for Filipinos in President Barrack Obama’s swing through Asia, now in a Manila stopover. The US “pivot to Asia” lifted our line of sight, albeit briefly, from insular concerns like pork barrel. Instead, we…

Blind spot

Juan Mercado 04/22/2014

For the more adventurous, island hopping can be arranged… to the neighboring Hilatangaan Island,” off Bantayan in northern Cebu, the travel blurb offered. Hilatangaan and two neighboring islets – Ocoy and Sillon – offer far more. They’re…

Express lane

Juan Mercado 04/15/2014

Multiple “historical firsts” explain why all roads lead to Rome on April 27—where all hotels have been booked solid. Institutions like Pontifico Collegio Filipino on Via Aurelia are similarly crammed. Pope Francis will declare on that day…

Culture trap?

Juan Mercado 04/12/2014

The Internet carried this week a riveting article titled “Trapped Between Cultures – Neither Filipino Nor American.” The author is Dr. Eugenio Amparo who lived in the US since 1974 when he started University of Texas Medical…

Arithmetic of sleaze

Juan Mercado 04/05/2014

Hemmed in  by deadlines, we captioned  that Cebu Daily News/  Inquirer column as “Perennial Irony”, then hit the transmit key…“Viewpoint”  ( 24 May 2013  )  focussed  on  “Naty”, a  53-year old beggar, who looked a  haggard 80.…

Dead end

Juan Mercado 04/01/2014

The fires that razed 50 hectares of forests on Mount Banahaw in Quezon Province late March have flickered out. Mindanao has less than 10 percent of forest cover left. Will a Bangsamoro regime reverse that skid, assuming…

Breathing spell

Juan Mercado 03/22/2014

Come  June, “I hope we can toast together,”  Manila Water Consortium president  Gerardo Ablaza Jr. said.   Toast what? Cheer the P1.1 billion  Cebu Bulk Water Project when  it will turn taps on. Then, 143  other  cities will…

Jitters

Juan Mercado 03/18/2014

The Age of  Anxiety” is a poem WH Auden wrote in 1947. It deals with man’s search for meaning in a turbulent world  and won the 1948 Pulitzer prize for poetry. Leonardo Bernstein thereafter  composed “Symphony No.…

Shoddy relatives

Juan Mercado 03/15/2014

The cross-eyed and the liar are brothers of the thief and the mother of greed,” an old Filipino proverb says  This axiom festers  in the now   41-year-old coconut levy scandal. Government this week bucked a bid by…

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