INTRAMUROS’’ means "within the walls.’’ It was the original Spanish city of Manila. The Manila that we know today was created only in 1856. It encompassed all the suburbs (arrabales) that sprouted around Intramuros.

MANY of us have the mistaken notion that as long as we attend a weekly Sunday worship service, we are spiritually fulfilled. This is not so. We were created by a God who loves us. But in return we are to serve God. To give Him full glory. By sharing unceasingly the "good news’’ (that Jesus Christ died, was buried, and rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures, to pay the full price for our sins), serving others unselfishly, and leading Godly lives by obeying God’s Words in the Holy Bible.

THERE are many things we take for granted; we get stumped when younger people ask us about them. I got stumped when a young woman, looking at the group picture of cardinals in their red and white robes at the Pope’s funeral, asked, "Why do cardinals have to wear dresses?’’

THE discrimination against women prevails until today in most male-dominated societies. This is especially true in developing countries where women are generally relegated to household tasks.

THERE’S a local joke about certain evangelists attacking one another over the airwaves about "Dating Daan" (Old Way) and "Bagong Daan" (New Way) …until somebody said, "Padaan" (Give Way)!

(Senator Santiago, head of Philippine delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly and chairwoman, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, delivered this statement at the IPU Assembly on April 7, 2005, in Manila.)

"In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing,

NEGATIVE publicity since the mid1980s by the American Soybean Association in the US against tropical oils, such as coconut oil, as saturated fats that can cause heart attacks resulted in the replacement of coconut oil in US foods by soybean and other polyunsaturated oils and their hydrogenated products. The propaganda ignored the virtues of coconut oil as documented by scientific journal articles, that coconut oil’s mediumchain fatty acids have different properties from long-chain fatty acids and that saturated oils are excellent cooking oils without trans fatty acids, oxidized oils, and free radicals that are toxic or damage cells.

ALL that the Senate and the House of Representatives can do – in behalf of Francisco Juan Larrañaga, a Spanish-Filipino sent to the death row for the rape and murder of the Chiong sisters in Cebu City, is have the party concerned petition the Supreme Court to allow retrial before a collegiate body, such as the Court of Appeals, in response to letters from the visiting Spanish Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation members to Senate President Drilon and Speaker De Venecia for help. These IPU members are insisting on Larrañaga’s innocence and alleging procedural lapses in the case. Official legislative intervention from either or both chambers of Congress will legally not do here, having their separate power. My suggestion is: Get a brilliant trial lawyer to rectify the procedure.

ON June 2, 1986, forty-eight men and women met in what was then called the "Batasang Pambansa’’ in Quezon City, presently occupied by the Members of the House of Representatives. They formed what was later popularly referred to as the ConCom (Constitutional Commission). This Commission was created by virtue of President Aquino’s historic Proclamation No. 3, issued on March 24, 1986, which reads thus:

TWO of the disciples were going to a village seven miles from Jerusalem called Emmaus, and they were conversing about all the things that had occurred. And it happened that while they were conversing and debating, Jesus Himself drew near and walked with them, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. He asked them, "What are you discussing as you walk along?" They stopped, looking downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, said to Him in reply, "Are You the only Visitor to Jerusalem who does not know of the things that have taken place there in these days?" And He replied to them, "What sort of things?" They said to Him, "The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, how our chief priests and rulers both handed Him over to a sentence of death and crucified Him. But we were hoping that He would be the one to redeem Israel; and besides all this, it is now the third day since this took place. Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find His body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that He was alive. Then some of those with us went to the tomb and found things just as the women had described, but Him they did not see."