Some of the most significant issues and events that gripped the nation in 2012 will surely have a major impact on Filipinos in 2013 and beyond.

The ones we feature in this, our last issue for the year 2012, are:

1. The enactment of the Reproductive Health Act. We believe—as not only the Roman Catholic Church does, but also some respected social scientists do—that implementing the contraceptive regime prescribed by Republic Act 10354 (Reproductive Health Act of 2012) will lead to the Philippines being beset by the breakdown of moral and social values, the denigration of the family and the authority of parents over their children and the onset of the “demographic winter” and the empty cradle syndrome weakening Western (European and US), Japanese and other society

2. The challenges facing the Commission on Elections, especially the controversial decision to continue using the Precinct Count Optical Scan machines. Its commendable purging of the party list groups to rid the House of Representatives congressmen who do not represent marginalized sectors but are extensions of dominant political parties.

3. The unanswered need to create jobs—despite great triumphs of the Philippine economy under the Aquino Administration. How can the problem of extreme poverty, which afflicts some 30 to 40 percent (maybe even more) of the population, disappear if the phenomenal surge of our Gross Domestic Product rates of growth, our emergence as among the most dynamic economies of the world, are not creating enough jobs?

4. The toothlessness of government’s regulatory agency, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), to compel the telcos to do what it thinks should be done for the common good. This issue involves essential principles of what kind of business policy should prevail in our country. Should government have the power to determine how a businesses should price their products and services?

5. The People’s Republic of China’s policy to assert its sovereignty claims over the Philippine state’s territories and our government’s policy to welcome the rearming of Japan and the possible repeal of its “Peace Constitution.”