Wesley So Rises to the Top

Twenty-six-year old Wesley So, a Filipino chess grandmaster but now representing the United States, defeated the other day world number one Magnus Carlsen of Norway to claim the first ever World Fischer Random (FRC) title in Norway, the latter’s home country. For three days, from October 31, 2019 to November 2, 2019, So overpowered the… Read More »

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SEO 101

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a complicated technique to master, even for webmasters. I am not a webmaster, so please take at face value what I am going to share with you today. Try to google search “seo” and the top four results will likely show, in ascending order, three google advertisements (by Adwords),… Read More »

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Peacekeeping Is On The Ropes, Again

At the United Nations, questions about who is going to keep the peace resurface. As coffers dry up due to non-payment of dues by at least one-third of its member states, the UN’s ability to maintain its workforce and help keep world peace is at risk. The other day, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the… Read More »

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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 »

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Open Government Contracting

A relatively new discipline pertaining to procurement and contracting bodes well for government and other organizations that spend public funds, such as non-government organizations. This emerging field is called Open Contracting Data Standard (OCDS), developed in 2014 by the World Bank with support from the Omidyar Network. OCDS, according to open-contracting.org, is an open data… Read More »

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Even a Fool Would Know

My love for you is obvious, says an Air Supply song, that even a fool would know. The government’s resolve to clean government, kill criminality and move the country to first world status is clear as daylight, suggests the satisfaction rating surveys, that Sal Panelo’s brilliant paternosters are easily understood even when you mute the… Read More »

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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 »

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Traffic, Imagined from Afar

The vehicular traffic problem in major cities, particularly Metro Manila, has gone from bad to worse. It has crippled everyone—commuters, motorists, private companies and public agencies, among others. A 2018 Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) study estimated the economic cost of traffic congestion in Metro Manila alone at 3.5 billion pesos daily, which can be… Read More »

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From the Philippines to the World, with Love

Within a span of 4 or 5 generations from now, the Philippines can conquer the world, not with missiles and bullets, but with the loving presence of its care givers and health care workers. To achieve this long-term goal, the government must take basic steps now. By 2050, it is possible that a hectare of… Read More »

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