TELLTALE SIGNS

by Rodel Rodis
March 1, 2011
It is unrealistic to expect the Philippine Senate to remove Chief Justice Renato Corona. The whole televised spectacle, while educational and entertaining at times, has been basically a constitutional exercise in futility as the end game was known right from the get go. Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
February 16, 2011
SAN FRANCISCO – Though straight talk at an open forum in Manila got US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry K. Thomas Jr. in hot water last September when he volunteered an estimate of the number of foreign male tourists who visit the Philippines for sex (“40%”), straight talk at an open forum in South San Francisco on February 4 drew nothing but warm adulation and a standing ovation.  Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
January 16, 2011
Ignoring a constitutional ban against making “midnight” appointments in the last three months of her term, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) went ahead and appointed her personal manicurist, Nitz Carpon, as director of a government housing agency and her personal gardener. Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
September 16, 2011
Friends and foes alike may not agree much on anything about recently impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona but all may likely concede that his most outstanding and endearing quality is loyalty.  Unfortunately, the Encyclopædia Britannica’s definition of loyalty Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
December 1, 2011
Autopsy findings on “healthy” children, as young as four and five, who were victims of accidents, already showed evidences of arteriosclerosis (hardening of their arteries), a condition we expect to see only in adults. There must be something we, parents, and society are doing wrong. Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
November 1, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement that started at Zuccotti Park in the financial district of New York City on September 17 and that has since spread to 70 major American cities and 600 communities throughout the U.S. is the 2011 reiteration Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
October 16, 2011
I first learned about Filipino teen-age girls selling their bodies on San Francisco’s Sixth Street from a Filipino senior citizen manong who viewed the pitiful sight from his hotel window every night. Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
October 1, 2011
In his iconic book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference”, Malcolm Gladwell defines a tipping point as “the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point.” Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
September 16, 2011
“Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all” was the argument presented to us in January of 2003 as we were furiously lobbying the Philippine Congress to pass the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV) bill. Makati Rep. “Teddy Boy” Locsin had enough votes to guarantee the defeat of the OAV but expressed willingness to support it if it included what I then called the “poison pill” provision. We were asked to accept his offer of compromise. Continue reading →

by Rodel Rodis
September 3, 2011
This past week, the Philippine News celebrated its 50th anniversary as it published its 2,600th issue, an accomplishment of endurance that other Filipino American community publications can only marvel at. Continue reading →