Uyboco: Market madness

SINCE the beginning of the year, the stock market has hit record highs 23 times - and we are just 67 days into 2013. This has sparked a lot of interest in the stock market and investing. People dive into the market at the advice of friends, relatives, bankers, brokers or business associates.

Editorial: Disturbing images of a child’s death

WE CAN only wish with all our hearts that the death by stabbing of a 16-year-old second year high school student by a 14-year-old sixth grader inside a public elementary school is but an isolated case.

But we know it’s not.

Lee: Bribery and Corruption of Public Officials

ONE often ignored crime is that of bribery and corruption of public officials. As seen in a recent news report, one Japanese national was supposedly caught committing this crime.

According to news reports, this Japanese national was arrested for car theft by NBI agents. He then proceeded to try and bribe them for his release, and offered P1.5 million pesos. The NBI agents did not take the bribe, and instead subjected the Japanese nationals to additional charges of corruption of public officials.

Velez: Raging on in women’s day

THERE’S sad news heading into International Women’s Day tomorrow. Cristina Jose, barangay kagawad and leader of the Typhoon Pablo victims’ movement Barug Katungod was shot dead Monday night in Binondo, Baganga, Davao Oriental.

Reports from her group said she was about to board a vehicle in Poblacion coming back to Davao when she was shot by three-men aboard a motorcycle.

Ledesma: LP’s choice: Karlo or Louie?

FORGET Sabah imbroglio. Three centuries had elapsed. If the Sultanate of Sulu and all the Philippine Presidents failed to acquire sovereignty over the area don’t expect the present one to do miracles this time. With his predilection to blame his predecessor for every problem that beset his administration don’t be surprised if Gloria Macapagal Arroyo would come out as the one who stirred Typhoon Pablo to be a killer storm that ravaged Comval and Davao Oriental.

Editorial: Righting history

THE past day, Moro and Mindanao scholars have been living in a state of disbelief as no less than President Benigno Aquino bumbled and mumbled his way roughshod through the Sabah issue that is now shedding the blood of Tausugs who have long regarded Sabah as part of their history.

But then, we can’t expect any better from the President if we were to look at what we are teaching out children. Then, we begin to realize that even the most intelligent child will not know any better, much less the regular student who is not inclined to study anything further than what his textbooks say.

Editorial: Bind to history

WE CAN understand why President Benigno C. Aquino III would rather not have the Sultanate of Sulu rocking the boat and claiming Sabah. It’s the most inconvenient time. He’d rather that people focus on Philippines’ claim to Spratly’s than Sabah. It’s election season, my foot!

Valle: Learning Sociology in its real context

KNOWING that his teacher and the school will not allow him to go where the action is and take the responsibility should anything unlikely happen, one independent-thinking youth went out of his way and decided to go and observe the conduct of the people’s demands for assistance at the premises of the Department of Social Welfare AND Development (DSWD). It did not occur to him at all that he will actually be seeing society and how it works and learn first-hand everything that no textbook can ever offer.

Mendoza: Davao City remains Davraa Champs

DIRECTOR’S Cut: “I am your team leader and you are my teammates; together, let us work as a team.” - DepEd 11 Regional Director Gloria D. Benigno, CESO IV.

Estremera: Too rich, thus, very poor

AN APPEAL by a friend saw me more than 300 kilometers from home listening to stories of places unfamiliar and of names never heard before.

Still groggy from a very long trip made longer by the long waits on one-way highways, I had to listen to their stories until 10:30 p.m. and then listen again from 9 a.m. till 2:30 p.m.

Custodio: Lessons after my exams

LET me just say that I haven’t taken any exam, verbal or nonverbal, for so many, MANY years. And yet, how can it be any different from the exams that I have taken in the past? I was pretty confident that I would do okay, I was thinking, “How can an entrance exam be hard?”

Oh boy. Was I in for a surprise.

Editorial: The great divide between moral and legal

MANY a time we are caught in a struggle between what is moral and what is legal. Laws are there to restrict even human emotions so that order can be established. But that removes our humaneness.

Many a time, the moral has been easily set aside. If you’re wondering how, think: ingrained corruption in government. We’ve witnessed how government official upon government official have stood up and shouted name names and prove that in court. But of course, the corrupt knows they are corrupt and will do everything to reduce the paper trail, or at least mislead those following it. In the end, the audit report may find something unusual, but will not be able to pin it down and no one will be held accountable. Legally, that is right. But is it moral? Definitely not.

Valle: Some kind of harsh ‘hospitality’

THE noon day sun was sizzling hot as I entered what looked like a garrison along Suazo Street in Davao City on the third day that the aggrieved people of Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental were holding their ground. My purpose was to find out about their situation there, realizing that they were in a very vulnerable situation.

Maglana: That V word

THE three-day barricade by Barug Katawhan and other groups in front of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) XI Regional Office ended last February 27, 2013 but the matter apparently is not finished. Sec. Dinky Soliman of DSWD said that cases would be filed against leaders of the protest action.

Barug Katawhan, described as “a movement of typhoon victims demanding genuine relief and rehabilitation and environmental justice”, conducted the protest action after the impasse over the provision of a list of recipients to facilitate distribution of 10,000 sacks of rice. The rice had been promised to Barug after the January 15, 2013 barricade along the highway in Montevista to ventilate their grievances about the poor delivery of relief services to communities affected by typhoon Pablo.

Millan: A good day to die hard

MUCH has been said, and much has been written, but not much has been done, about the Sabah standoff. This is not in terms of cooling down the heated arguments. This is in terms of solving the problem with finality.

We do not demand a signed agreement. We just need a definitive roadmap on how the issue will be resolved. There was none, before. There is none, right now.

Oledan: Way too low

IT STARTED with the filing of a case against the victims of typhoon Pablo who protested the lack of distribution of relief goods in their area and demanded for an end to large scale mining and illegal logging activities.

Their protests irked the Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) who was probably inconvenienced with being stranded in the traffic. What came next was for the protesters to be charged with unlawful appearance, public disturbance and obstruction of traffic under the Revised Penal Code.

Velez: Another 40 days of rage

TUESDAY saw another outrage from 5,000 Typhoon Pablo victims who came all the way from Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental, camped out outside the DSWD office, and after being snubbed for a dialogue, stormed the office and took the relief goods in organized manner.

All this happened after a failed promise by the DSWD to deliver them 10,000 sacks of rice as many have still not received food relief and farms have been devastated. DSWD Secretary Dinky Soliman made that promise to the victims who gathered as Barug Katawhan barricaded Montevista highway during a visit by government officials and aid representatives.

Ledesma: Legitimate confiscation

THE mob which called themselves "Barog" ransacked the regional office of the Department of Social Welfare and Services. The broad daylight plunder was carried under the helpless and hopeless law enforcers. Leading the pack was Akbayan a communist legal front who dubbed itself as "progresibong grupo."

This is a sad day in Davao City. Knowing how stickler is our city authority in enforcing laws and regulation I am dismayed and shocked that this anarchy could happen and as it happens seemly appears to be abetted. A leader of the group, a certain Cherry Orendain, declared on radio: "This is a legitimate confiscation!" Out there in Quezon City, a spokesman of the front was singing the same refrain.

Covington: Bring on the chainsaws!

WHAT a cracking idea. OPAs. Overseas Private Armies. There's far too many of their like here in the southern Philippines - The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFM), the New People’s Army (NPA), the Abu Sayyaf, countless 'Lost Commands' and any number of 'Kumanders' who fancy a shot with their own rag-tag bands. For years the administration has said it's going to 'clamp down' on private armies - what better way to get rid of them than by shuffling them off to some overseas and foreign land?

Look at the advantages. Malaysian Sabah - so recently 'invaded' by yet another Philippine private army, the so-called 'Royal Sulu Army' - is a well-run, peaceful and prosperous state with a booming tourist industry. In no time at all we could transform the place into a poverty-stricken wasteland of vestigial infrastructure, bickering armed groups and despairing evacuees camped out in covered basketball courts.

Editorial: Oplan Tokhang versus pushers

THE visits the Davao City Police Office (DCPO) initiated on suspected drug pushers is an inspired move, as it manages to skip past possible human rights violations. Oplan Tokhang, the DCPO calls it, for “toktok hangyo (Knock and plead).”

To plead with the pusher to stop whatever he is doing.

Hidalgo: Remembering Edsa People Power 1986

I AM privileged to have experienced events of the Philippine history as they happened (circa late 1930’s up to the present). One of the most memorable of these milestones is the Internationally Acclaimed Edsa People Power Bloodless Revolution of 1986.

The Filipino people experienced euphoria possibly unequaled till the present. I was then a professor in St. Scholastica’s College, Manila. This event happened from February 22 to February 25, 1986. I was glued to the television set every step of the tumultuous events while at home.

Editorial: Remembering

IT’S been 27 years and many of the people we bump into and talk to look at the People Power Revolution as just a page in history. They were not born yet, that’s why.

That is also why we have to commemorate this day every year to drum into our collective consciousness that at one time in our country’s history, the people gathered together to boot out an abusive and overstaying president who used the military to kill all oppositors.

Avellanosa: More than mere teachers

BEING a teacher for just a couple of semesters or so has not really turned me into a pro, but I guess I can say, it has opened a totally different vista for me to really find out the real roles that women play as a teacher. Foremost, Teacher act as the second parent of God’s little creatures in school, and society’s first class hand maids.

They too are tasked, not only to teach the ABCs and the 123s in formal school, but unconsciously, parents expected them to give their children a ‘dose’ or two of the morals that they should have taught them at home. In other words, some parents expect their children to learn the GMRC (for good manners and right conduct) which, for the most part of it, they should have been taught at home.

Mendoza: Davraa in a world class sports complex

Director’s Cut: (This portion features the thoughts of DepED 11 Regional Director Gloria D. Benigno, CESO IV to all stakeholders and recipients of the efforts to improve the basic education) "I am your team leader, you are my team mates, together, let us work as a team”

Estremera: A peek into a travelling trader’s life

SHE’S a viajedor, traders who go from one place to another to sell merchandise.

She has a quarrel with a neighbor. We all heard about it as she was on speaker phone talking to a woman she called “ate”. She was using her cellular phone like it was a two-way radio: Unit held upright in front of the mouth, the one in the other end heard by all through the speaker.

Custodio: The inevitability of human oblivion

EHEM. Staring at my title for this Sunday’s article just gives me mixed feelings.

Wow.

Valle: Haunting images of a rescue operation

FLASHFLOODS are becoming the “daily bread” of Dabawenyos. In the wake of super typhoon “Pablo” in Davao regions, our beautiful Davao is no longer a peaceful haven like the movie “Shangri-La” – where the air you breathe is soft and clean...

Davao can no longer boast of a “typhoon-free” summer capital, because of the endless LPA or low pressure area warnings that has constantly put all of us on a defensive, wondering what has happened to the once ‘calamity-spared’ tourist destination.

Maglana: Sabah standoff

THE standoff in Sabah calls to mind lines from one of my favorite poems by Irish poet William Butler Yeats. In “The Second Coming” Yeats painted this image: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre/ The falcon cannot hear the falconer;/ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. But instead of causing dread or cynicism, the situation to me invokes a sense of challenge and inspiration.

Millan: Playing for keeps

THERE is no point hammering the nail on political dynasties. Firstly, there is no hammer. Secondly, there is no nail.

Nobody is just sincere in building a law against political dynasties. Everybody is just serious in breaking any attempts at building a law against political dynasties, no matter how so much it is denied or hidden.

Uyboco: Earth and sun

"IF THE earth were 10 feet closer to the sun, we would all burn to death. And if it were 10 feet further out, we would all freeze."

Fact or Fiction?