“Being male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. But being a gentleman is a matter of choice.” – Vin Diesel Chivalry is dead. Gone are the days of knights in shining armor. Men opening doors for women, taking the dangerous spot in crossing the street, offering the…
When Manny Pacquiao lost to Manuel Marquez, Facebook was flooded with all sorts of wall posts. There were criticisms. There were praises. There were those that hinted at the match being a mistake in itself. There were many whose comments sounded close to a eulogy. And, of course, a good number were after the reaction…
Emotions run amok as Valentine’s Day approaches. Many are excited about that special meal with their loved ones. Some get jittery over the prospect of being turned down for a date. Others are worried where to get the funds for that special gift on this day that Cupid pegged on the calendar with an arrow.…
Social media has seen the peak of citizenship participation. It has challenged barriers to the full exercise of freedom of speech. What on one end is a platform for self-expression is a catalyst for community action on the other. Social media has become a convenient internet street to where citizens actively take their issues and…
In the animated Stone Age, whenever Pebbles was curious, she would crawl and babble to Wilma or Fred Flinstone. She would point to the stars, the moon, that giant toothpick from a bone of a dinosaur’s hind leg. She would ask about anything that sparked that firefly in her head. When dictionaries and encyclopedias were…
When Pia Wurtzback won Miss Universe, it resuscitated an issue on comatose. Many brought to life the debate on beauty pageants being sexist and exploitative of women. As Pia described in one of her international TV guestings, there are three things that are “big” in the Philippines. They are crowd-drawers. And Filipinos, like Colombians (and…
Circulating on Facebook is a poster with a non-Catholic priest openly admitting that he has HIV. The poster reads: “I am a priest. I got tested for HIV. Your HIV status is a medical diagnosis, not a moral judgment.” Many, including myself, are ignorant about HIV. Even those who have contracted it are not fully…
They say that the only constant in this world is “change”. Day in and out, by the millisecond, there is that – change. And even when we refuse to change, the process of refusing to change is hardly consistent. The introspection that we go through is never the same. The factors that weigh in on…
Many misconstrue consumer activism for radicalism. It is not. One serves to increase awareness and initiate action for common good; the other can be considered blind adherence to principles often depicted as misguided and self-absorbed. In a consumer summit I attended in Manila sometime November this year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) highlighted…
John Garrison, civil society specialist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, made a good point. He said when he started working in the Bank, he was always corrected as regards his take on curbing poverty: “Reduce, not eradicate.” Those two words (“reduce” and “eradicate”) might seem the same. After all, either way, the intent…
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