The Senate can do “no less” than adopt the House of Representatives’ realignment of P1.23-billion in confidential funds in the proposed P5.768-trillion national budget for 2024, Sen. Risa Hontiveros said on Wednesday. “The House has taken the first step institutionally. So I think we in the Senate can do no less because we actually started...
Tag: politics
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When public money is spent confidentially
The Office of Vice President Sara Duterte has denied her involvement in the recent disruption of traffic on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City purportedly to allow her convoy to pass unhampered. By then the video showing all sorts of vehicles at full stop on the busy avenue had, in the common parlance, gone viral, accompanied...
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Philippines prepares for 3 elections in next two years; 10 urgent tasks for Comelec, voters
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...
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Detention, ‘town arrest’ under martial law
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...
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Petitioners want Smartmatic out of next polls for ‘meeting with Marcos Jr.’s wife before May 2022 elections’
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...
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Inquirer.net takes down story on Martin Romualdez’s reported funding of Tagalog course in Harvard
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...
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Poverty alleviation is at the mercy of political patronage
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...
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When Arroyo’s ‘favorite companion’ picked up the dinner tab in New York
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...
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Marcos Jr. should learn from history, Biazon says in wake of military brass shakeup
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,...
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Politics, sex cinema, deaths stirred Philippine show biz in 2022
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...