A separate department for OFWs: Should we?

By Carmel V. Abao
As of this writing, more than 30 bills proposing the creation of a separate department for Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) have been filed in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The proposal is not new. It was one of President Duterte’s campaign promises in 2016, but it was vigorously pursued until recently, in July 2019, when the President gave a directive to the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) to ensure that the new department is created before the end of the year. According to President Duterte, this new department was necessary “to protect migrant workers from illegal recruitment.”

It’s time to celebrate the nanny state, not apologize for it

By Adrian Wooldridge
The phrase “nanny state” used to be one of those automatic argument-winners, like “freedom and democracy” and “you sound like Hitler.” Nobody wants to...

A whole new world: Reigniting the stalled global economy

By Alma Rita R. Jimenez
“Once upon a time, there was a world where resources abound, where there were spaces to explore and enable innovations and creativity, where there were ‘rulers’ who governed with responsibility and accountability, where greed was just the villain in bedtime stories, and where the people were guided by their values in going after their dreams, all living in comfort and harmony. Then a plague cast a cloud in that world and left destruction and deaths in its wake. And things were never the same again.”

Reason versus Madness

By Luis V. Teodoro
Now on its 26th year in the Philippines -- March 29, 2019 marked the 25th year since the country was “wired” into it -- the global communication network known as the Internet has been rightly hailed as another milestone in providing the perennial human need for information.

The impact of COVID on the tourism industry and the resumption of travel

By Andrew J. Masigan
Many of us may not realize the importance of the travel and tourism industry to the economy.

Preparing the future

By Marvin Tort
There is a lot of talk nowadays about people quitting their jobs and looking for better opportunities. And, one of the issues of present is RTO or return-to-work orders. With the COVID-19 pandemic having forced a lot of people to make work-from-home arrangements since 2020, many now would rather leave their jobs than report back at the office full-time.

National serving of rice

By Marvin Tort
The Philippine Rice Research Institute (PhilRice) is urging Malacañang to issue an executive order setting the standard size for half-cup rice portions in meals...

The death of scruples

By Marvin A. Tort
I have come to the conclusion that in this modern day and age, that scruple is dying. Technology may be partly to blame, in...

Facebook’s Instagram research isn’t anything like science

By Cathy O’Neil
AS FACEBOOK weathers yet another scandal, this time fueled by its internal research on the effects of Instagram, I’d like to focus on something slightly different that should be a scandal, too: the quality of that internal research.

A better normal for women and girls after COVID-19

By Bambang Susantono and Anita Bhatia
THE YEAR 2020 was synonymous with the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented crisis it brought across economic, social, and health dimensions; 2021, on the other hand, is already being associated with the promise of the next normal.

Toward a more confident Philippine foreign policy

By Jemy Gatdula
The address at the 77th UN General Assembly was given by the Philippine president in the morning of Sept. 21, 2022 (Philippine time). Identifying himself simply as “Ferdinand Marcos,” he definitely would have known that, almost to the day, 40 years earlier, his father, Ferdinand Marcos the Elder, gave his own remarks before the Assembly.

Your health matters: SuperWoman deserves SuperHealth

MARCH IS Women’s Month. This is a month set out to acknowledge the multiplicity of roles women have assumed in today’s society, to recognize them for the flair with which they deliver effectively and efficiently on these roles, and to ponder on the needs of women that will ensure that they can continue to function with pizzazz.