Tags: Vantage Point

Vantage Point | Hazing and the culture of violence

The death of Adamson University student John Matthew Salilig at the hands of his presumptive fraternity “brothers” is a wake-up call to everyone, especially those with a relative in a college or university, that hazing is a continuing problem in many schools as well as in other Philippine institutions. Salilig’s case is in fact provoking other citizens who had so far been silent to reveal how their own kin were similarly victimized.

Vantage Point | PHL’s ‘improved’ human rights situation

As the visiting European Union (EU) parliamentarians were declaring that the human rights situation in the Philippines has “improved,” a 17-year-old male and two others had apparently been abducted in a Batangas town. Very few details were available as this column was being written, but it was only one of the many abductions that are still happening despite the change in administration last July, 2022.

Vantage Point | Foreign policy predicament

The Marcos II administration has declared that part of its foreign policy is strengthening Philippine relations with other ASEAN countries and with China. But it is still the US on which the country has to depend for its external defense because, despite the billions spent on its supposed “modernization,” the Armed Forces of the Philippines cannot even protect Filipino fisherfolk from Chinese harassment and is most expert only at the suppression of dissent and social unrest. No government is to blame for this predicament except the Philippines’ own.

‘Only in the Philippines’

The consequences have since been evident in the common belief that there is one law for the rich and powerful and another for the poor and powerless. But the justice system over which DoJ Secretary Remulla now presides could still gain some measure of credibility. Other than merely demonstrating its alleged impartiality in the case of such high-profile cases as its current Secretary’s son, it could also look into actively helping speed up the judicial process.

A national shame

Not only the alleged involvement of government officials in it is among the fallouts in the investigation of — and hopefully the prosecution and punishment of those responsible for — the murder of broadcaster and online journalist Percy Lapid (Percival Mabasa). It is also its reminding the public and the rest of the world of one of the best-kept, but nevertheless well-known secrets in this country: the dismal and shameful state of its prisons.

COAxing government

Instead of attacking the COA should it find and report an anomaly in this or that agency, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. could urge the offending party to do better. In doing so he would be defending the Commission as a Constitutional body crucial to the drive for good government and national development to which every administration, including his and his predecessor’s, claim to be committed.