At the height of Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” there was a huge billboard along C5 in Pasig City that advertised a pesticide called Tepox. It had an image of a dead cockroach, flat on its back and its feet up in the air, with this message: “Ipis. Nanlaban. Tepox.” The tongue-in-cheek ad played on the...
Category: Opinion
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Duterte’s arrest is about crimes against humanity, not ‘pamumulitika’
Too bad that after the daylong wait on Tuesday for President Marcos Jr. to enlighten the nation on the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte, no one thought to ask, when he agreed to take questions, what he thought of his sister’s statement lamenting the supposed failure of Filipinos to learn from the past. Minutes after the...
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Where love continues to live
EDITOR’S NOTE: With this new section called Young Voices, CoverStory opens space for young people feeling their way into the world and trying to formulate the rhyme and reason behind the paths they choose to take. I came across a post that presented a question: “How do you deal with grief?” Many had answers: Sit...
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Interregnum
Three impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte are pending in the House of Representatives, filed respectively by members of civic organizations, activist groups, and a coalition of priests and lawyers. A fourth complaint is reported to be in the works. The first two complaints were filed with the expectation that action would be taken...
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Tying up loose ends, or more unraveling in 2025?
We can see more clearly the cycle of renewal and rebirth whenever the holiday season comes and the new year approaches. We want to leave our old selves behind and become better in our collective and individual lives in the new year. As an economy, we want greater wealth and productivity. As a government, we...
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Mary Jane Veloso’s Christmas miracle
Mary Jane Veloso’s return to her motherland under a prisoner transfer agreement between Indonesia and the Philippines is the ultimate Christmas gift to those who love her. After close to 15 years of imprisonment, she is now 39. Her parents have aged; her two sons approached adulthood beyond her motherly embrace. But the death row...
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Who will save us from the bicam?
The bicameral conference committee (bicam) is the most powerful and the weakest phase in our budgeting process. It is in the bicam where vested interests not only lurk but also come to fruition. Without benefit of deliberations, its members reduce the funding of agencies, transfer funds from one program to another, defund programs, and increase...
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Words of rage and murder
The once-formidable UniTeam continues to implode, providing circus-like spectacle as the country tries to get back on its feet after the devastation wrought by an unusual cluster of weather disturbances. In a virtual presser that began shortly before 1 a.m. Saturday in the House of Representatives, an enraged Vice President Sara Duterte unleashed startling words...
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Election parallels: Does a bad world need a bad guy?
The world is in shock, the headlines say, in reporting that Donald Trump has decisively won the US presidential election and defied the odds once more, this time in convincing fashion. As soon as the trend was clear, congratulatory messages from world leaders started coming in, in apparent relief that the result was unassailable and...
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No such thing as ‘plain rice’
Makò Micro-Press held a zine-making workshop for Masipag farmers and urban poor gardeners from Payatas in Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija, four Saturdays ago, and I remain in awe of how palay seeds and the idea of small, independent presses weave together so well. I must admit that I knew very little of rice farming prior...