By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective This year’s EDSA people power celebration is turning out to be a very polarized one, despite the Duterte administration’s attempt to downgrade it. Two events have heightened the polarization: the retraction of former Davao police officer Arthur Lascañas who is now claiming that the Davao Death Squad did exist and…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective After providing an input on the Global and National Situation before sisters of the OSA, a nun asked me where President Duterte is taking the nation. My response was that it is not clear because the President could say one thing then his staff would try to explain that it…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective The kidnap-slay of Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo confirmed what critics of the Duterte administration’s bloody anti-drug war have been saying all along: that the blood of innocents are being spilled and that corrupt policemen are taking advantage of the impunity in killings to further their criminal activities. Impunity in…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective In May 2015, a fire gutted the Kentex slippers factory in Valenzuela City in the National Capital Region. What shocked the nation was not the extent and amount of damage to property due to the fire. It was the number of workers killed 74 and why and how they died…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective US Pres. Donald Trump is perhaps one of the first newly elected US president whose inauguration was met with mass protests. The calls “Not my president” and “Resist” reverberated across the US. US President Trump, however, appeared to have not been bothered by the protests. He ignored it and, true…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective The shocking victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections – despite the lies that he dished out, his racist, xenophobic, homophobic, anti-women statements, and his blunders during the debates – has been attributed to the rise of the “populist right” in the US and Europe. Understandably so because…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective After declaring, during his campaign, that he would approve the P2,000 Social Security System pension hike if elected, President Duterte has obviously reneged on his promise. Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno’s statement that people should differentiate between Rodrigo Duterte the candidate and Duterte the president did not help any. It is…
Rodrigo Roa Duterte is, perhaps, the most unorthodox president the country ever had. He talks tough and he curses. He intersperses his prepared speeches with extemporaneous declarations in the Visayan language and of course, laced with curses. He is not the typical politician. He acts more like your neighborhood toughie.
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective The resignation of Vice President Leni Robredo, the recognized head of the Liberal Party, would galvanize the Liberal Party, signal its break from the ruling coalition and strengthen the opposition, right? Think again. Robredo’s resignation from her Cabinet position under the Duterte administration hardly created a ripple. And far from…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective As December 10 International Human Rights day draws near, let us remind the Duterte administration that human rights is not something which could be upheld or disregarded at the whims or caprices of the government, the war no drugs notwithstanding. There are fundamental rights that could not be totally disregarded…
By BENJIE OLIVEROS Bulatlat perspective Much has already been said about the historical revisionism, callousness and political implications of the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. The accountability of President Duterte for allowing the burial, as well as that of all post-martial law presidents for their…