Last week, I attended the 3rd Climate Smart and Disaster Resilient ASEAN International Conference held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia via Zoom. The 3-day conference (November 23 – 25, 2021) addressed climate disaster diplomacy challenges amidst the pandemic and what struck me most was the speech delivered by Atty, Karen Jimeno, a World Bank Consultant, during the plenary session. She evaluated the challenges ahead of the pandemic and made a recommendation to...

Since 1999, a World War II-era navy ship lay aground off Ayungin Shoal (Second Thomas Shoal), an uninhabited atoll near the Kalayaan group of islands in the Spratly archipelago.   The ship, BRP Sierra Madre, was purposely grounded by the Philippine Navy to serve as an outpost in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) after China had grabbed and occupied the Panganiban Reef (Mischief Reef) in 1995.  Since then, China had p...

My favorite Thanksgiving Day joke is about the Pinay mother-in-law who cheerfully announced to her Anglo son-in-law and the entire (hungry) family: “I cooked tinolang manok with that big hen in the fridge. But it was so big, I also made chicken adobo!” Situations like this (which, by the way, really happened) give cynics reason to insist that Thanksgiving...