Thus ate La Gloria

It is a truth universally acknowledged, but furtively practiced, that a congressman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wine.

Rising above ourselves

There will come a time in our lives that we have to make a big decision—a decision whose consequences we are uncertain of. It is not easy to make such a decision, so we’ve got to really admire those who have mustered a mammoth of courage and made that decision.

History is strewn with great men and women who bravely made a big decision even if that meant putting their lives and other people’s lives at grave risk. On a wintry day in December 1776, George Washington decided to cross the Delaware River. The supplies and provisions of Washington’s Continental Army were fast running out. The soldiers were hungry and destitute. Some of them were sick; others were dying. And many more would die, including their fight for independence, unless they would cross the Delaware River into the garrison of the Hessians where stores of food, clothing, blankets, and munitions, ran aplenty. On Christmas Day, Washington and his men embarked on a bold move that would, historians say, alter the course of the revolution the Americans waged against the British Empire. They valiantly crossed the river, swiftly defeated their enemies, and successfully resuscitated the revolution.

Corazon Aquino, “Cory” to many, made hers when her husband, the former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was killed.

Don't heed Kennedy; Ask what your country can do for you

“Ask not,” said John F. Kennedy, the man whose presidency was cut short by a lunacy, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

Kennedy was, of course, goading no one else but the Americans. The complete version of that scintillating phrase goes: “And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” He was in no way speaking to a Filipino audience because he was not in the Philippines; nor did he have a Filipino ancestry; nor was his skin brown or his nose flat.

The Filipinos, therefore, are under no obligation to heed Kennedy’s invitation. By all means, they can ask their government what it can do for them. They must not, however, feel as though they are mendicant, for they are not.

Like flowers from the rubble

We never ran out of witty phrases by which we call, or give tribute to, our teachers. At times, we call them the molders of the minds or the movers of civilization. Jose P. Laurel, himself a teacher, once called them "the meek molders of man's character."

But how can the teachers meet so daunting a task with so meager a supply? Indeed, how can they mold the minds of others when their minds, too, need molding? How can they move a civilization when they scramble to persuade their students to follow their instructions? How can they mold someone else's character when they are sometimes looked up to with little respect?

Is the 1987 Philippine Constitution's Preamble ungrammatical?

The Preamble of the 1987 Philippine Constitution goes:

"We, the sovereign Filipino people, imploring the aid of Almighty God, in order to build a just and humane society and establish a Government that shall embody our ideals and aspirations, promote the common good, conserve and develop our patrimony, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of independence and democracy under the rule of law and a regime of truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace, do ordain and promulgate this Constitution."

The subject, which is ‘we,’ is far removed from the verb phrase ‘do ordain and promulgate . . .’ Could it be that the Preamble is one stellar example of an annoying English grammar error?

Read Jose Carillo's column to know the answer.