Dear Secretary Edwin Lacierda
Aug 01This is an open letter to Secretary Edwin Lacierda. I wrote this right after reading about his comment on the appeal from ABS-CBN employees to P.Noy. Full disclosure — I did meet with the disgruntled employees of ABS-CBN and I believe that they do have valid grievances. Dear Secretary Lacierda, I realize that you are new to the job. As presidential spokesman, every word you utter in an...
Coming Soon:No worker can leave for abroad without paying Php 600 to Pag-IBIG
Jul 28
I believe that many overseas Filipino workers do dream of owning their own houses. I do not fault Pag-IBIG Fund for wanting to market its programs to a growing base of over nine million workers overseas. I am glad that a lot of overseas and local workers have enrolled in this housing program out of their desire to own a house someday. However, it seems to me absolutely unfair and arbitrary to...
New Champions VS Human Trafficking
Jul 22Today we had a national dialogue between civil society and leaders in government on the problem of human trafficking. It was a well-attended event. My fellow convenors for this event were Atty. Gwen Pimentel of the Association of Child Caring Agencies in the Philippines, Amina Rasul-Bernardo of Philippine Center for Islam and Democracy, and Cecile Oebanda-Flores of the Visayan Forum...
Gruesome murder of Filipino maid in Kuwait
Jul 19The Arab Times online edition reported that police detectives in Kuwait found a body of a dead Filipino maid near a horse stable. Upon further investigation, the police obtained a confession from a Kuwaiti couple who employed the household helper. The couple confessed that they maltreated the Filipino woman daily. Fearing that she was dying, the couple decided to bring her to an area near the...
When the writing gets good
Jul 16When the writing gets good (Published in Panorama Magazine under my weekly column entitled, “Our Times.”) The good thing about being a writer is that you are never alone. Even when seated in a busy coffeeshop, all by my lonesome, sometimes I feel that my table is the most crowded of all. No, my brain is not addled. But it does enjoy doing a backfloat now and then, savoring the...
