Korean teachers here to learn English teaching

For several years now Korean kids have been coming to the Philippines to attend English camps. On board my flight from Seoul last week I counted about 100 Korean kids all wearing blue T-shirts and with ID cards hanging from their necks. One teacher was carrying all the passports. I took photos while they were boarding. The kids looked like they were from elementary school. Now it is the Korean teachers’ turn to come and learn how to teach English and use English for teaching. The first batch of Korean teachers arrived Tuesday last week for a...

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Baseco worries, Juana Tejada rejoices

When you are poor you think of yourself as vulnerable, you consider changes in the landscape of your life that is not of your doing as threatening. Will the changes mean being thrown about again like flotsam and jetsam on one’s native shores? Where to move, where to live and where to find livelihood? Will so-called industrial and commercial development take over, leaving the vulnerable to fend for themselves? Residents of the Baseco compound in Manila’s Tondo district are anxious that proposed changes in the place where they had been settled will...

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46664

Say “four, double six, six, four” and remember. 46664 was Nelson Mandela’s prison number when he was in prison for 27 years on Robben Island, off Cape Town in South Africa. He was prisoner number 466, imprisoned in 1964. Like other prisoners, he was referred to not by his name but by his prison number. Mandela was 46664. Tomorrow, July 18, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, freedom fighter and former president of South Africa, turns 90. He has been feted by artists and celebrities as well as people from all walks of life in the past weeks. The gathering...

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Rampant crime in the country’s NGO capital

Women working and living in the so-called NGO capital of the Philippines are up in arms because of the rampant criminality in the area. Quezon City’s Teacher’s Village East and West and Barangays Central and Pinyahan and neighboring areas, home to dozens of national and international NGOs (non-government organizations), is a prime spot for criminals who prey mostly on women walking the streets to and from their offices or homes. This area is right behind Quezon City Hall! Almost every female NGO worker in this prime address has a crime story...

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Faint church presence in sea tragedy

I thought about this over and over. I would probably be excoriated for saying this but I wish the zeal and over-eagerness of the nuns, priests and brothers who were falling all over themselves to support, surround and sustain (for weeks and months) NBN-ZTE whistleblower Rodolfo Lozada Jr. were also seen in the aftermath of the recent sea tragedy that claimed more than 700 lives. Falling all over themselves, translated in Filipino, is nagkakandarapa. I didn’t see that same zeal in the wake of the sinking of the Princess of the Stars and I felt...

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