Positive thinking

SILVER LINING 03/02/2010 Fifty-two percent. The latest Pulse Asia survey reveals that five in 10 respondents will “surely not vote” for a candidate endorsed by Mrs. Arroyo

The price of real estate

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW 03/02/2010 It came as news to this outsider (unless I had heard of it earlier and then forgotten it) that after the mysterious sinking of the American battleship USS Maine in Havana harbor in February 1898, US President William McKinley, still unenthusiastic about the prospect of war with Spain, had contemplated offering to purchase Cuba, then in revolt against the colonial power, for $300 million. This is interesting in that it provides another illustration of Washington’s apparent belief that territories which non-American (or, at least non-Caucasian American) people called home could be treated as no more than real estate.

Palace lawyer to SC: Define ‘deemed resigned’

By Benjamin B. Pulta and Aytch S.

DFA warns OFWs against illegal recruiter in Spain

THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) yesterday warned Filipinos against a syndicate based in Spain and engaged in illegal recruitment….

Is Morohood a myth?

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW 01/26/2010 For a long time this outsider has, influenced by writers like Renato Constantino, been of the view that Spain’s failure to fully conquer Mindanao was due to Islam. This is challenged by Thomas McKenna in his Muslim Rulers and Rebels (Anvil, 2000). He reminds us that the term “Moro” was introduced by the Spanish and had negative connotations, and claims that it was only in the late 1960s that “Philippine Muslim nationalists attempted to appropriate the epithet…

Espiritu recalled as envoy to UK

Ambassador Edgardo Espiritu has been recalled from his post in the United Kingdom reportedly because he is siding with former Senate President Manuel Villar who has declared himself to be running for president. Espiritu will be replaced by Antonio Lagdameo, the Philippine ambassador to Spain.