Category Archives: Social Issues

Social Issues and the poor — these are relevant and timely discussion of social issues that impact on the lives of the poor, the underprivileged, and the oppressed.

Social Issues cry for attention. IngmingAberia.com commits itself to address that.

 

Let’s Recolor Our World

A 40-MINUTE or so wait for a bus ride from Imus, Cavite that would take me to Lawton, Manila often gets me to digress to something many commuters go through while they feel public transportation has abandoned them — to consider paying more for alternative modes of transport (e.g., Grab, taxi, Angkas, car pooling, etc.).… Read More »

Remembering Sisa

In Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere, Sisa (some historians say the name was taken from his older sister Narcisa) is the mother of two teenaged boys—Crispin and Basilio. The boys worked as Sacristan apprentice in a parish where the priest—Father Salvi, among others, accused them of stealing church collections. Sisa’s husband was a pest, drunkard… Read More »

Balangiga and the IDPs in My Mind

From mid-2003 to sometime in 2006, I was part of a team that facilitated community meetings in Balangiga, Eastern Samar. Ours was one of several teams working in poor municipalities selected by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for its KALAHI CIDSS Project. The project applies community participation processes to the planning, implementation,… Read More »

Solid work soiled by shit

Doubts on the competence of the police to conduct drug operations persist as the government’s war on drugs recently claimed the life of another innocent victim. Three-year-old Myka Ulpina, one of four persons killed in a drug-bust police operation in Rodriguez, Rizal last June 29, became one of the latest additions to a growing list… Read More »

Everybody Loves Infra

I was a local government employee in 1992 when Fidel Ramos became president, who lost no time organizing the Club of 20 (consisting of the 20 poorest provinces of the country), coordinated by one Bitay Lacson, in pursuit of the then new administration’s vision for Philippines 2000. Lacson hired consultants (led by Ed Morato, who… Read More »

The Average Voter

THE latest Pulse Asia survey on senatorial candidate preferences, conducted April 10 to 14 — or one month before the elections on May 13, 2019 — ranks the top 12 candidates in this order: 1. Cynthia Villar, 2. Grace Poe, 3. Lito Lapid, 4. Pia Cayetano, 5. Bong Go, 6. Sonny Angara, 7. Bong Revilla,… Read More »

The Limits of Voter Education

IN a little more than a month’s time, Filipino voters will again troop to polling places to select their representatives in government. The candidates, even before the official campaign period started, have fanned themselves out in the hustings, megaphones in hand — figuratively and literally speaking, all in an effort to try and catch everybody’s… Read More »