Category: Columns

YELLOW PAD By Isabel Rodrigo The month of March 2023 marks three years since Luzon was placed under “enhanced community quarantine,” the beginning of what is now known as the one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns....

Yellow Pad By Emmanuella Iellamo March is a month for celebrating women. This was declared by the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) in 1988 and signed into law by the first Filipina president and first female...

YELLOW PAD By Jeepy Perez Doctor Alberto “Quasi” del Gallego Romualdez took over the Department of Health (DoH) in 1998 as President Erap Estrada’s Health Secretary. He told DoH employees in his first meeting “When he appointed...

YELLOW PAD By Filomeno Sta. Ana III Rare is the policymaker, much less a politician, who would defy popular prejudice and resist powerful vested interests. The very nature of politics compels the typical Filipino politician and...

YELLOW PAD By AJ Montesa It seems to be a popular opinion that a glass of wine a day can be “good for the heart.” However, it’s high time we challenged this notion as nothing more than an unfounded belief. As recently as the...

YELLOW PAD By Nepomuceno Malaluan In November 2022, I had the privilege of being the discussant of a paper by Dr. Helena Agnes Valderrama, professor at the University of the Philippines Virata School of Business, titled “The...

Yellow Pad By Filomeno Sta. Ana III It was 10 years ago (to be exact, on Dec. 20, 2012) that the late President Benigno S. Aquino III signed into law the Sin Tax Reform. On the first day of 2013, the government implemented...

Yellow Pad By Isabel Rodrigo As we approach three years since COVID-19 was declared an international emergency, we ought to examine how the pandemic has affected those at the margins, for whom the pandemic has taken a different...

Yellow Pad By Pia Rodrigo On Dec. 6, 2022, the Department of Health (DoH), the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), and the World Health Organization (WHO) published the results of the 2021 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS)....

Yellow Pad By Filomeno S. Sta. Ana III What can we expect from Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s administration in terms of policymaking in 2023? We can second-guess how the administration will conduct itself this year in two ways....

Yellow Pad By Icia de Guzman Christmas, celebrated every Dec. 25, is believed to be the “birthday” of Jesus, born 100% man and 100% God according to the Bible. It is the most celebrated season in the Philippines primarily...

YELLOW PAD By Jessica Reyes-Cantos The pandemic years have been quite difficult for our people. The majority of our vulnerable people have borne the brunt of the shocks — closed schools, lost jobs, sickness, and worse, death....