Inquirer Opinion^

Earlier this month, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) expressed concern over what it said was the alarming increase in the number of barangay officials killed this year ahead of the midterm el...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173259/slow-justice-for-slain-barangay-officials

The Philippine national hunger problem would not be as hard to manage if there were not as many as 28 million families—the family, not the individual, is the Social Weather Stations hunger unit...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173258/our-population-handicap

Many problems keep the ordinary Filipino up at night. A recent Pulse Asia survey commissioned by the Stratbase Institute said seven in 10 Filipinos are deeply concerned with the escalating inflat...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173261/let-foreign-investments-boost-ph-economy

For the fourth time in six months, Filipino seafarers found themselves caught in the crossfire of the Middle East crisis on board ships targeted for their Israeli links. The latest incident invol...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173238/troubled-waters-2

If we can say “COVID is still here,” then what of tuberculosis (TB), which has been around since time immemorial and has killed more Filipinos than the coronavirus, even during the pandemic? ...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173235/a-new-hope-for-tuberculosis

Rene A.V. Saguisag, human rights lawyer, former senator, writer, public servant, staunch advocate for social welfare and responsible governance who took a clear and consistent stand on important ...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173239/saguisag-isms

I was once asked, informally, to comment on a long table of Philippine hardwood that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas wants to believe was used at the inauguration of the Malolos Congress in Septe...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173234/aguinaldo-table-diplomacy

The Inquirer editorial “Are we ready for global boiling?” (7/30/23) calls urgent attention to the impact of the increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves on people’s health, water su...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173232/mitigating-the-urban-heat-wave

Have you ever watched a caterpillar transform into a butterfly? A caterpillar does this through a process that requires it to stop eating, hang itself upside down from a twig, wiggle from its ski...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173233/from-caterpillar-to-butterfly

Per Civil Service Commission (CSC) data in June 2023, there are about 1.97 million government personnel in career and noncareer positions and more than 832,000 were hired as contractual or job-or...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173237/review-conditions-for-government-eligibility

This is in reaction to the article “Gov’t panel to meet amid ‘influx’ of Chinese students in Cagayan” (Inquirer.net, 4/22/24). In the face of Chinese militia’s aggressive actions usin...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173236/chinese-in-cagayan-students-or-spies

The lesser evil is, after all, evil just the same. The greater harm may not be choosing between two evils, but the acceptance that there is no other choice. That is the most insidious of all, whe...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173194/the-lesser-evil

What was earlier billed as the biggest seizure of illegal drugs by the Philippine National Police turned out to be less spectacular. On April 15, the PNP announced the interception by its operati...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173202/challenges-in-seizure-of-illegal-drugs

A foreigner who reads our country’s raging political news for the first time would think that Rodrigo Duterte remains the reigning ruler of the Republic of the Philippines, and not Ferdinand Ma...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173200/duterte-attacks-vs-marcos-fearless-or-reckless

This is the first time that I have been tuned in to World Book Day, which was celebrated last April 23. I have been woefully remiss in the pleasures of reading ever since my academic life have fo...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173197/in-defense-of-reading

Imagine that you’re living in the era known as the “Plasticene,” defined by the ubiquitous presence of plastics in every aspect of your life. The variety of plastic products is vast, rangin...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173201/planet-vs-plastics-how-did-we-get-here

A far cry from today’s Ongpin, Chinatown’s main street, it had much more character then than it has today. On a Saturday morning, my sister Jane and I joined a group of “eggheads,” which ...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173199/remembering-early-1960s-ongpin

So many interesting stories happen in the neighborhood. One day you share food, some days, you bicker over house noise or right of way. But what I like most about our neighborhood is the sense of...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173196/lessons-from-a-neighbor

Over the past month, my hometown of Aparri in Cagayan has been experiencing an intense heat wave, with temperatures soaring to a record high of 48 degrees Celsius. The situation has been describe...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173203/lgus-role-in-declaring-state-of-calamity-over-extreme-heat

World Password Day reminds us of the critical vulnerabilities of relying solely on password-based authentication. Passwords are easily guessed, cracked, and reused across multiple accounts, makin...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173198/insights-on-world-password-day-2024

Once is an accident, twice a coincidence, three times a pattern. Or so goes the saying that may apply—and not in a good way—to the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) that was hit for the secon...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173166/fireproofing-the-pgh

As that old saying goes, a statesman thinks of the next generation, while a politician thinks only of the next election. Just the other day, the Republican Speaker of the House put his position o...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173168/the-root-of-insecurity

On the 28th of this month, we commemorate a historic milestone in the US-Philippines bilateral relationship—the 10th anniversary of the US-Philippines Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (Ed...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173169/us-ph-edca-a-decade-of-defense

I often remind my students that there is a lot more to the internet than online shopping, TikTok, reels, and porn. If I had the internet in college, I would have hit the ground running when I sta...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173167/old-fashioned-vs-online-research

Build back better, the new normal, change. They were words we tried to define during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. They all represent some form of recovery.Recovery is easier to imagine wher...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173170/recovery-2

There’s nothing in “an hour left” that is synonymous with “I am late,” a couple of words I utter whenever time is winning over me. All my life, I felt like I had been competing with tim...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173171/time-of-our-own

I cannot understand President Marcos’ continued refusal to allow the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate former president Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity, for ...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173173/appeal-to-marcos-give-icc-entry-and-let-duterte-prove-his-innocence

The exclusive interview of my friend Broadcaster-entrepreneur Anthony Taberna on First Lady Liza Marcos Araneta is now triggering earthquakes in social media, rumor mills everywhere and in nation...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173134/first-lady-lam-to-critics-bring-it-on-but-i-will-never-stoop-to-their-level

Long afflicted with foot-in-mouth syndrome, Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez kicked a hornets’ nest two Sundays ago by asking the military and police to withdraw their support from Presid...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173143/the-politics-of-sedition

Last weekend, the peso-dollar exchange rate was P57.57. Just a week before, it was one peso less (P56.57). A month before that, it was nearly another peso less (P55.61). That’s 3.5 percent of v...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173142/the-sliding-peso

The recently concluded summit between US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Philippine President Marcos is a milestone in recasting the balance of power in maritime (...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173141/marcos-drives-east-asias-power-balance-shift

Wisdom can often come from the unlikeliest corners. Over the past few years, Sen. Cynthia Villar has emerged as the most “memeable” figure in the country. Late last year, she captured media h...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173137/barangay-geopolitics-bobo-ba-tayo

It’s World Book Day so I thought I’d pick up on the National Book Development Board’s (NBDB) 2023 Readership Survey. I made a mental note to look up the complete survey and got around to do...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173138/what-are-filipinos-reading

In 2023, India has overtaken China as the most populous country in the world, with an estimated population of 1,425,775,850, surpassing by 104,498 China’s estimated population of 1,425,671, 352...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173139/brain-drain-once-more

I read Nick Lizaso’s article (“Seniors: our untapped national wealth,” Commentary, 4/11/24) with great interest. Thirty-six years ago, I was part of an organization founded for older person...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173140/reflections-on-lizasos-article

The recent string of humid days and scorching temperatures in Quezon City is a struggle we have endured for many days now. It makes me contemplate the even harsher conditions faced by those in ar...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173136/scorching-heat-ph-bearing-the-burden-of-climate-crisis

El Niño is taking a huge toll on agriculture as the drought it brings sharply reduces farm production. Last week, the power sector started feeling the impact of El Niño as many hydroelectric pl...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173113/lack-of-el-nino-preparedness

The Supreme Court is planning to require all lawyers to render at least 60 hours of pro bono (or free) legal aid services to the poor every three years during their professional career under its ...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173112/60-hours-of-free-legal-aid-for-the-poor

Two weeks ago, a cousin had brought her 10-year-old daughter for her annual influenza vaccination. In the course of the conversation, she asked about pertussis. I laughingly told her that she was...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173114/world-immunization-week

In October 2020, a ByteDance representative—the parent company behind TikTok—reached out to me and my co-founders at She Talks Asia encouraging us to develop content centered around women’s...

https://opinion.inquirer.net/173118/to-be-or-not-to-be-on-tiktok