By LUIS V. TEODORO
In one of those turn-arounds that seem possible only in the Philippines, the media are not only being blamed for the arrest of some 30 cameramen, media technical personnel, anchorpersons and reporters last November 29. They’re also being urged to accept a “protocol” the Philippine National Police is drafting.
Both indicate an effort [...]

FoxNEWS.com: As research confirms time and time again, good sex in a healthy, stable, monogamous relationship can only better our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well being. Sex, in this context, offers us tons of benefits, most of which aren’t touted nearly enough. Full story

Danny Arao has a collection of interesting, often hilarious, signs he and his wife Joy collected during their travels. Check it out here.

Damon Darlin, writing in The New York Times, marvels at the fact that he has been able to survive a month without using Microsoft Word, that de rigueur word-processing software that comes with most PCs.
I’m going to top his claim: I have not used Microsoft Word for about five months now.
My disaffection with Microsoft [...]

Stacy (Mental Floss): I like movie endings that are unexpected. After doing a little research, though, I realized that maybe fairy tales and I are a perfect match: those Disney endings where the prince and the princess end up blissfully married don’t really happen in the original stories. To make sure kids go home happy, not horrified, Disney usually has to alter the endings. Read on for the original endings to a couple of Disney classics (and some more obscure tales). Read the story

By Rep. Satur C. Ocampo
Bayan Muna Party-List
Privilege Speech delivered before the House of Representatives on December 10, 2007

Today peoples all over the world observe the 59th year of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. The Philippines was among the 48 countries that adopted this historic declaration in 1948. Ironically, our country which is a [...]

By Fr. Shay Cullen
It is time to see how Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest Jew ever, the prophet, leader, champion of the poor and the outcast, was a messiah for all of us. He gave us the values that can change the world and turn it away from selfishness, sin, brutality, and evil and transform [...]

The whole opus of crafting a new government and a new democratic political institution cannot be played by simply laying siege on Oakwood or Peninsula Hotel.

By the Policy Study, Publication, and Advocacy (PSPA) Program
Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)

The Nov. 29 takeover of the Peninsula Hotel led by detained military rebels sharpens a continuing [...]

By Luis Teodoro

The Arroyo regime is carrying on as if it were business as usual, despite the basement level approval ratings of Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo herself as well as her entire Cabinet, the uproar over the arrest of media people last Thursday, and the regime’s imposition of a curfew in metro Manila and environs—and [...]

By Ninotchka Rosca
Holiday and year-end greetings to everyone.
The last month has been difficult, what with the deluge of emails, text and video messages, letters and phone calls, asking how a woman’s organization could contend with closed-doorism threatening the very reason for which 500 women were engaged in political activism. In the midst of this was [...]

By Fr. Shay Cullen

It is now December. Our minds and hearts ought to be turning towards the celebration of birth Jesus of Nazareth, that is if we are steadfast in resisting the distractions and temptations thrown at us by the commercial traders, they have made of this great feast a materialistic perversion. Christmas is irrelevant [...]

By Luis V. Teodoro
MANILA, Philippines — Mrs. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has formed another task force, described as a “high level” one, against political violence. The task force supersedes the police’s task force Usig which she also created for the same purpose.
Mrs. Arroyo issued Administrative Order 211 on the heels of the final report by United [...]

Human rights, civil liberties, and democracy are in a more precarious situation now. It is not because of the walk-out of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim from their court hearing at the Makati Regional Trial Court where they are being tried for coup d’ etat and the resulting standoff at [...]

By Ellen Tordesillas
I had a long-scheduled lecture at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines on “Online journalism versus print journalism” last Saturday but the students were more interested about last Thursday’s incident at the Manila Peninsula, specially the part when media became suspects for covering the event.

by Robert Ayson

Kevin Rudd has been swept into power after a 6 percent swing by voters to the Australian Labor Party, which has changed the political landscape in Canberra. As with most elections in most democracies, domestic issues dominated the contest. This time the Howard government’s unpopular industrial relations [...]

By Fr. Shay Cullen

OLONGAPO CITY, Philippines — Most of the young teenagers that have died violent deaths in recent years have been from the hands and guns of death squads that roam the City of Davao executing people with impunity. This is especially after the suspects were warned by the Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. As a [...]

By Renato M. Reyes, Jr.
MANILA — There are no if’s and but’s about it.
The final report of United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston on the extrajudicial killings in the Philippines clearly points to a national policy of the Arroyo administration through its Armed Forces of the Philippines and other agencies such as the Inter-agency Legal [...]

By Luis V. Teodoro

MANILA, Philippines — New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark may have been “impressed,” but it’s not likely that most Filipinos were.
Here was the most authoritarian leader the Philippines has ever had since Ferdinand Marcos declaring , albeit indirectly, the members of Burma’s ruling military junta “forces of authoritarianism,” and demanding the release [...]