A Brainy Quote from … Walt Disney and an appropriate reminder to (most) politicians, here and everywhere:
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Happy New Year !

More than in other countries, Christmas in the Philippines is a time to rest, to enjoy life with the family and, above all, to be harmonious. It is not the season of politics, much less a time for politicking. As a result, newspapers, television and radio shows are pretty bloodless, in a political sense. This […]

Filpinos have become used to demotions in international surveys. Usually, these are related to the economy, particularly the credit ratings. Sadly, we must now add a political downgrade: The negative status change in the annual “Freedom in the World”-report from “free” to “partly free” may be termed a kick in the face for a nation […]

One may not like the President of the Philippine Republic, and pollsters tell us nearly two thirds of the people have little if any sympathy for their supreme leader. But nobody would question her capability of political agenda setting. From being near the very bottom just half a year ago, GMA has managed an extraordinary […]

The proposed scraping of the 2007 general elections contained in the transitory provisions of the Consultative Commission’s (ConCom) report for the amendment of the Philippine constitution is at the very best a bizarre idea. Assuming that the intention of constitutional reform is improving the democratic quality of government, then abolishing elections, the heart and substance […]

Before moving to the Philippines in 2002, I spent six years in South Korea. There I did basically the same I am trying to do here: promote liberal politics.
Coming from Korea, where I spent tremendously interesting and also formative times, I was receptive to the Korean presence in the Philippines from the beginning. This presence […]

This time, I didn’t bother to watch the live coverage of the House of Representatives hearings on the wiretapping scandal. Reading today’s newspapers, I think this was a wise decision as nothing new came out of it. It even seems that most administration parliamentarians (and they control a huge majority) have written off the whole […]

In commemoration of World Human Rights Day, the Philippine Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism held its annual Kapihan on the Human Rights Situation Today in Quezon City this Monday. I was invited to deliver a special message. I appreciate this invitation as it allowed me to network with civil society groups and […]

While Germany (the place of my origin) may be far away, geographical distance in the globalized world has become relative. This said, I wish to share an interesting piece of information from the heart of Europe.
According to a recent survey published in DER SPIEGEL (Germany’s equivalent to Newsbreak in the Philippines) there seem to be […]

Yesterday, I lamented that the politicization of the wiretapping scandal in the Philippines is a virtual guarantee that no final verdict and, therefore, no closure could be expected anytime soon.
I had discussed this point with some Filipino friends the other night (all of them anti-GMA) and they said the fact that the prosecution has refrained […]