Gossip as history

By Luis H. Francia

NEW YORK CITY — Imelda Romualdez Marcos leads a charmed life. So far able to dodge the bullet of criminal liability and seemingly inured to the regular impugning of her past and her character, she’s living proof that lives can have third acts.

Ooh’d and ahh’d over in public, the congresswoman now has her own “Evita,” the musical based on Evita Peron’s life with whom she was often compared, a comparison she didn’t like one bit. But she has never raised objections, at least publicly, to the rock musician, he-of-Talking-Heads-fame, David Byrne’s poperetta “Here Lies Love,” reviewed last year in this column.

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A culture of poverty?

By Cielito F. Habito

While doing field research in the country’s poorest areas, my team came across a community where some residents, when asked why there were so many poor people in their area, matter-of-factly said it’s because many of their neighbors are lazy. We also interviewed the project staff of a national government poverty reduction program; when asked why there were so many poor people in their province, their response was, again, because many of them are lazy. Regional heads of national government agencies that we gathered in a focus group discussion chorused that the reason there are many poor people in their region is that most of them are—you guessed it—lazy.

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Why Senate should not allow the redefinition of savings and change the meaning of ‘errata’

By Leonor Magtolis Briones 

Last Monday, November 17, 2014 a number of interesting events happened in the Senate. In the morning, a necrological service was held for the much-loved Senator Juan Flavier. Two other related events took place: the referral to the Committee on Finance of the General Appropriations Bill (House Bill 4968) and a briefing by Social Watch Philippines on why the Senate should not allow the redefinition of savings and change the meaning of the word “errata.”

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P83 billion unused for coconut-industry poverty alleviation

By Rigoberto Tiglao

It could be another case, as worse as its lead-footed release of funds for Yolanda-devastated areas, of the Aquino Administration’s criminal inefficiency and sluggishness in undertaking real reform programs. Or there may be a worse explanation.

Since September 2012 – two years ago – the Supreme Court finally ended nearly two decades of litigation and ruled that the P82.8 billion that originated from the so-called coco-levy imposed during the 1970s by the strongman Marcos were absolutely government funds that could be used only for the coconut industry.

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