Trinidad and To­ba­go’s rel­e­ga­tion to League B of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League should bring an end to ex­cus­es and mark the be­gin­ning of a se­ri­ous re­build­ing ef­fort. A spir­it­ed 1-1 draw with Cu­raçao, one of the re­cent 2026 FI­FA World Cup debu­tants, could not dis­guise the sober­ing re­al­i­ty that the So­ca War­riors col­lect­ed just one point from four match­es and fin­ished sec­ond to last in their group.

Gov­ern­ments are elect­ed to serve for five years, a rel­a­tive­ly short time in which to ad­dress in­her­it­ed prob­lems, ful­fil cam­paign promis­es and re­spond to new chal­lenges. Yet many of Trinidad and To­ba­go's most press­ing is­sues were decades in the mak­ing and can­not be solved through short-term mea­sures alone.

When Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dave Tan­coo presents the 2027 Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 12, he should fo­cus on a straight­for­ward ob­jec­tive: im­prov­ing the lives of cit­i­zens while strength­en­ing the coun­try’s eco­nom­ic foun­da­tions. How­ev­er, suc­cess will de­pend on set­ting clear pri­or­i­ties, spend­ing wise­ly and de­liv­er­ing mea­sur­able re­sults.

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has ap­proved the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026, ad­vanc­ing a key Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress elec­tion promise. The leg­is­la­tion would raise the le­gal age for pur­chas­ing and con­sum­ing al­co­hol and to­bac­co from 18 to 21, while re­strict­ing cannabis pos­ses­sion and gam­bling to those aged 25 and over. The bill now goes to the Sen­ate for con­sid­er­a­tion.

In May 2019, dur­ing the Sen­ate de­bate on the Li­cens­ing Com­mit­tee (Val­i­da­tion) Bill, I urged the then gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er rais­ing the le­gal drink­ing age to 21.

A par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty gives a gov­ern­ment the au­thor­i­ty to gov­ern, but it should nev­er con­fer the pow­er to act with­out scruti­ny. That prin­ci­ple lies at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy and ex­plains why in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors re­main an es­sen­tial part of the leg­isla­tive process. At a time of grow­ing po­lit­i­cal po­lar­i­sa­tion and in­creas­ing ex­ec­u­tive in­flu­ence, the role of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors as a source of re­straint, ex­per­tise and ob­jec­tive analy­sis is more im­por­tant than ever.

The Gen­er­al De­bate (GD) of the 81st ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA 81) end­ed on Mon­day and did not al­ways dis­ap­point when it came to the ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of pho­to-ops, head­lines, sound­bites, and high dra­ma.

There should be lit­tle dis­agree­ment with the ob­jec­tive be­hind the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed leg­is­la­tion: pro­tect­ing young peo­ple from sub­stance abuse, gam­bling and the con­se­quences of ear­ly ex­po­sure to ad­dic­tive be­hav­iours.

By now, most peo­ple will have heard that sev­er­al coun­tries, led by Swe­den and in­clud­ing the Nether­lands, Spain, Fin­land, France, Italy and Den­mark, are scal­ing back dig­i­tal-first ed­u­ca­tion, re­duc­ing com­put­ers, tablets and phones in class­rooms and re­turn­ing to a fo­cus on books and hand­writ­ing. These coun­tries have ob­served de­clines in lit­er­a­cy, mem­o­ry and con­cen­tra­tion since the in­tro­duc­tion of dig­i­tal ed­u­ca­tion.

A na­tion’s grat­i­tude is mea­sured not on­ly in ap­plause, but in how it ho­n­ours those who helped shape its iden­ti­ty. With the pass­ing of Slinger Fran­cis­co, The Mighty Spar­row, Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost a cul­tur­al gi­ant, and the Caribbean one of its most gift­ed sto­ry­tellers. The coun­try must now give him a farewell wor­thy of his ex­tra­or­di­nary life and lega­cy.

Pitri Paksh, al­so known as Shradh, is a sa­cred pe­ri­od in the life of Hin­dus ded­i­cat­ed to ho­n­our­ing and ap­peas­ing an­ces­tors. Fam­i­lies and in­di­vid­u­als per­form rit­u­als to ex­press grat­i­tude and ful­fil their du­ties to­ward de­part­ed an­ces­tors.

The de­bate over Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s de­ci­sion to cast the de­cid­ing vote that en­abled the pas­sage of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill has gen­er­at­ed an im­por­tant and large­ly con­struc­tive dis­cus­sion about con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion, par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure and the lim­its of prece­dent.