The Commission on Elections (Comelec) as well as the poll watchdogs have a full plate as the country prepares to hold three elections in the next two years. While everyone is gearing up for the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections (BSKE) on Oct. 30, preparations are also already underway for at least two elections in...
It was a comfortless humid night in July 1974 in Zamboanga City when agents of the National Intelligence Security Agency (Nisa) arrested me. I was then a philosophy undergraduate student and an activist at the University of the Philippines Diliman. I was visiting my mother’s hometown to attend the funeral of my maternal grandmother, Isabel...
Representatives of Smartmatic met with the future first lady before the May 9, 2022, presidential election, violating their contract as the automated election system (AES) provider for the Commission on Elections (Comelec), according to a motion to disqualify the company from involvement in the 2025 polls. The submission to the Comelec on Sept. 11 is...
Did Speaker Martin Romualdez give $1 million (about P56 million) to fund a new Tagalog course at Harvard University? On Thursday, Inquirer.net, one of the Philippines’ most-read news websites, asked that question in an article based on an exclusive report by The FilAm, an online magazine based in the United States with which it has...
On July 10, the disbarred lawyer Lorenzo “Larry” Gadon was sworn in as presidential adviser on poverty alleviation. After nearly a month of public adverse reactions to Gadon’s appointment, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has made his priorities clear: to honor political patronage over providing credible leadership in addressing poverty in the Philippines. Critics claim that...
The Philippine power structure continues to highlight intriguing peaks and valleys, and attentive observers are recalling long-ago details after Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ’s “demotion” from her lofty post as senior deputy speaker of the House of Representatives. Time was when Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, now speaker of the chamber, was deemed a “favorite...
The dictator Ferdinand Marcos kept Gen. Romeo Espino for nine years as chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to enforce martial law, causing deep division and disenchantment among the military officers and men. The rumblings eventually reached tipping point. Then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and the AFP vice chief of staff,...
Up to the end, the Year of the Tiger has been a period of growling events and pulsating newsmakers in Philippine show biz—some wild, some victorious, some tragic. Seemingly like the tiger, the media-savvy stars were contradictory in behavior: intimidatingly fearsome yet warm-hearted, temperamental yet calm. The coronavirus in all its mutations is very much...
As the battle shifts to the Senate after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill creating the Maharlika Investment Fund (MIF), a former official of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has called on the public to amplify its objections to the measure. Diwa Guinigundo, BSP deputy governor until 2019, said that while the...
Let us reflect on process and progress. The more common source of failure to progress is “circling”—moving round and round in circles, only to arrive at the original location. Many things have been said about the proposed “Maharlika Wealth Fund” (MWF). Now the framers are scrambling to make the legislation enabling it, House Bill No....
