Media

The Expanded Program of Immunization has a budget of P7.5 billion this year, to cover about 12 million individuals, from infants to seniors.  As of end of June 2020, only 2.8 million individuals, not even one-fourth of the target, have been vaccinated. That is the sad...

The “PDL” stenciled on the prisoners’ OOTD stands for “Person Deprived of Liberty.” As we are still a government of laws, let us make sure that COVID will not change it to “Person Deprived of Life.”  Our congested jails—where prisoners are no longer packed like sardines, but...

The proof of death is a photo of the body. If there is, then doubts will be laid to rest. But there is no need to stage a macabre show by making the photo public.  Simply show it to the Justice Secretary, and if he says that he had seen it, and swears that it is true, then...

The “sana all” principle must be applied to the salaries of health workers in government, because a pay raise for one should cause a raise for all. The Salary Grade (SG) 15 entry level position of nurses should be recognized as the new benchmark for compensation for all licensed...

The message is more important than where the messenger is.  Laurel did not deliver any, Osmeña just once, and Quirino via radio from a hospital bed in Baltimore, Maryland, USA where he was recuperating. The principal audience of the SONA are not the politicians inside the...

Health-related announcements are better left to doctors. If the nation is the patient, let those trained to have good bedside manners announce the treatment.  We have to choose and curate the words we use, so nothing will be lost in translation and transmission.  We...

Malacañang should augment the OFW assistance fund of the Department of Foreign Affairs, as the surge in Filipinos losing their jobs abroad has reduced the P1 billion fund to P300 million.  “That lifeline to our kababayans will be gone soon at the rate it is being...

DTI should barter that off-the-cuff statement with common sense, and exchange it with a clarificatory statement that no law is being violated by neighbors swapping goods in the community chat group.  When you exchange a tax-paid shirt too small for you for tax-paid shorts...