When the Department of Health (DOH) disclosed last July 30 that it carried out a “mass recovery” adjustment, it gave the impression of a government papering over the many, many cracks caused by their refusal to deal with the crisis in an appropriate and immediate manner. The record-high amount of “recoveries” reported are meant to…
Category: Opinion
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Packing up the pitchforks
In 2018, Amber Heard wrote an op-ed, published on the Washington Post, about her experience with domestic abuse, saying, “I became a public figure representing domestic abuse, and I felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” This was alluding to the abuse claims she filed against her ex-husband Johnny…
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Everybody’s business
“Keep your business out of politics” is a piece of hush-hush advice that is, more often than not, given to many fledgling entrepreneurs. Corruption issues, a poor judicial system, and red tape constantly hound the private sector; appeasing unscrupulous officials, or even colluding with them, is seen as an easier way of “doing business”. The…
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The elephant in the room
With tensions already high amid this COVID-19 pandemic, many more issues have surfaced in society—threats against press freedom, cases of sexual assault, and racial discrimination—and discussions of these have made their way online. I have seen many infographics and posts all over social media that promote different ways by which one can make a difference…
Last June 11, the Lucban Municipal Police Station publicized what soon became a controversial Facebook post warning women and girls to “not wear short clothes” to prevent becoming victims of sexual assault crimes. Among many others condemning the post for its perpetuation of rape culture, Frankie Pangilinan’s tweet, “Stop teaching girls how to dress? Teach…
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A system of care
The COVID-19 crisis has in many ways exposed the incompetence of several of our country’s public officials, not just in terms of pandemic response, but also in the apparent absence of development and support for several important sectors and societal institutions over the past years. Among these key areas is the healthcare system, shoved into…
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The blame game
Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic has raised many questions around the competence of the country’s leaders. It seems that more focus was given to silencing critics instead of the real and more pressing issue: deterring the further spread of the virus. Some critics of the administration have once again questioned how these officials were…
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Ground left uncovered
Now is as good a time as any to talk about mental health. Epidemiological evidence on mental illnesses in the Philippines is unfortunately lacking, but the National Statistics Office identified mental illnesses as the third most prevalent form of morbidity. With the uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in addition to unsettling tensions arising around…
There are numerous television shows and movies that revolve around crimes—tackling topics such as murder, homicide, self-harm, theft, corruption, and terrorism—and one could wonder just how true-to-life these depictions are. I personally have perceived most of these as mere fiction, or at least hoped they were. But in this day and age, that kind of…
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Carelessness finds no clemency
Hacking is something one would typically see in heist shows and science fiction films, yet fiction became fact last Thursday, May 28. Hackers took control of the customer service Twitter page of a local telecommunications company, using the account as a platform to demand improvements on the company’s internet services. Such actions bring to the…