CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF EARTH DAY

April 22, 2020 Fifty years ago (1969) at the UNESCO conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth linking it to the concept of peace. It was proposed to first be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. The trigger for

WILL GOOD PRACTICE LEAD TO DESIRED LEARNING OUTCOMES? An unplanned school visit and the initial thoughts on what I saw.

Looking for a particular elementary school principal in Paranaque to complete an assessment of the BEST (Basic Education Sector Transformation) Program, I chanced upon the F. Serrano Sr. Elementary School in Paranaque. My objective was to interview Dr. Antonio Dorado, school principal. Actually, Dr. Dorado had been the longtime principal of another school in the

READING FINDS: “Let There Be Water — Israel’s Solution for a Water-starved World”

by Seth M. Siegel (2015) In the middle of the Negev Desert, an arid wasteland becomes fertile farmland. And a land of limited water resources produces water for its people and more using desalination technology. It’s a story of resilience and grit based on a saying that captures the spirit of Israel’s birth as a

TAKING CHARGE IN AN UNCERTAIN TIME

The SYNERGEIA Zoom conference call with Mayors April 15, 2020 A town meeting of local government mayors from Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao organized by Synergeia.  The major topic:  How can LGUs (local government units) better organize themselves to do mass testing as a strategy to contain the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus?  That

THE METRO MANILA COMMUNITY QUARANTINE (LOCKDOWN): FINDING SAFETY VALVES (OPPORTUNITIES) TO DEAL WITH THE NO WORK-NO PAY SITUATION OF THE POOR

J. M. Luz Commentary April 4, 2020 The trajectory for the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus follows a particular pattern worldwide from direct contact infections linked initially to a Patient 0 to communal infection passed on by carriers who may not be positive for the virus.  This makes even incidental contact among people potentially harmful.