The political situation in Southeast Asia in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic can be contextualized by the level of freedom in each country. The 2021 Freedom House survey of 210 countries worldwide rates “peoples’ access to political rights and civil liberties, including individual freedoms ranging from the right to vote to freedom of expression...
Category: Politics
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Cat and mouse at Ayungin Shoal (or China’s ‘very aggressive’ presence in the West Philippine Sea)
China’s Coast Guard is guarding Ayungin Shoal, on the map a tiny rectangle to the left of Palawan in the West Philippine Sea, likely to evade the eye if one weren’t particularly looking for it. Not many Filipinos are aware of the “low-tide elevation” well within their country’s exclusive economic zone, with a war-vintage ship,...
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After 48 years, Philippine agrarian reform remains an illusory goal
On June 10 this year, the government’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) reached its 34th year of implementation. If we were to include the dictator Ferdinand Marcos’ “Tenant Emancipation Act” of September 1972, agrarian reform as a major government program in the Philippines has been around for 48 long years. The Marcos version was an...
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Supermajorities are the trend
The apparent Senate president in the 19th Congress makes no bones about his wish fo form a “supermajority” in the chamber. The other contender to the post, Sen. Cynthia Villar, having expressed an absence of desire to complicate her life, Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri appears well on the way to build a constant consensus...
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A second chance for the Marcoses
Interviewed on May 25 after the proclamation of the winning presidential candidate, the President-elect’s sister, Sen. Imee Marcos, described the victory as a “second chance” for her family. In ordinary circumstances, people are generally wont to give others a second chance. Why not? Everybody deserves a second chance to make amends, to do better. As...
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The enduring case of De Lima, PDL
Days before the May 18 proclamation of the senators-elect, comeback kid JV Ejercito, No. 10 in the Senate’s “Magic 12,” noted a prickly point: the continuing detention of Sen. Leila de Lima on charges of taking drug money to fund her senatorial campaign in the 2016 elections. “Hopefully,” Ejercito was quoted as saying in CNN...
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The way to overcoming historical amnesia
Marcosian martial law made us Humpty Dumpty and we will never be put back together again. It broke us in ways so deep and permanent no amount of talk about reconciliation and unity will ever make us whole. But we can cope with it in a very Filipino way. We have always been described as...
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Marcos Jr., wife fly to Melbourne
Presumptive president Ferdinand Marcos Jr. flew on Monday to Melbourne in Australia where his youngest son Vincent, 25, is preparing to start studies for a Juris Doctor degree at the University of Melbourne, according to reports in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. On Tuesday, protesters picketed outside the Victoria One apartment building where...
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Elections 2022: a political party system in shambles
Our political party system is flabby, almost irrelevant. -Elections 2022 – Political parties are a mere supplement to the fluid alliances of dynastic families serving as the main political machine for churning out votes in national elections 2022. At the local level, the clan of the moment can secure for the family the posts of governor,...
