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What is behind all these is the unarticulated but nevertheless all-encompassing determination to once more, as during Marcos Sr.’s benighted rule, make the democratization that has been long in coming to this country as difficult if not as impossible of an achievement quite simply because its realization would be contrary to dynastic interests.
The electoral watchdog Kontra Daya (literally, Against Cheating) has found that seven out of 10 groups running for party-list seats in the House of Representatives are in the hands of far from marginalized and far from voiceless sectors and interests.
Elections are among those exercises through which a free people are able to delegate their sovereign powers of self-government to their chosen representatives. Surely the Comelec knows that elections have to be free, honest, and fair to be legitimate expressions of the people’s will. It was precisely to make sure that they are, rather than the means through which the oligarchs can endow themselves with a semblance of legitimacy so they can remain in power, that the Comelec was created in 1940 through an amendment in the 1935 Constitution.
Both China and the US have such an interest, and so do other countries with which the Philippines has trade and other relations, albeit perhaps to a lesser extent. Only the naive would harbor the illusion that no foreign power would support anyone in the May elections and beyond.
From what he said during those interviews, it seems that what he is trying to pass off as his platform of government mostly consists of plans to revive his father’s discredited and long-dead programs. Among them is the revival of the training program for OFWs that during the Marcos Sr. dictatorship encouraged the export of Filipino labor as a cure-all for the unemployment problem that the Marcos Sr. regime could have solved by making more jobs within the country available.
Marcos Junior’s claim about self-sufficiency in rice was similarly false. There was a rice crisis during much of his father’s reign, with people lining up for the cereal for hours, and mixing rice with corn. Alternative means of generating power were indeed explored during the last years of Marcos’ rule, but these attempts, such as the corruption-ridden, badly designed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, never made any difference in assuring reliable power sources beyond the 1980s.
If elected President, expect his policies in such areas as dealing with social unrest and the armed social movements to be influenced and shaped by the military’s perspectives and interests. Among other consequences, it will mean the persistence and worsening of the human rights crisis that has constricted what little remains of what passes for democracy in the Philippines.
Well thought-out, pro-active policies based on informed and rigorous analysis could have helped the country navigate the treacherous waters of the pandemic from its very onset in 2020. The need for them was especially evident during the last quarter of 2021, as well as at the present time. But they are precisely what were and are still missing in the far from strategic and purely reactive government response to the pandemic.
Much of the lies and rewriting of history that feed that preference are deliberately cultivated by the trolls and hacks in print and broadcast media in the pay of those handful of families that have monopolized political power in these isles for decades and who want to keep it whatever the cost to this country and its people. Those dynasties are not only threatening to completely overwhelm the relatively few adherents of reason, democratic choice, reform, and just plain civility among the citizenry. They are also flourishing by using the ideology of dominance, repression, and exploitation that lives on in what passes for the minds not only of the ruling oligarchy but also of its benighted followers.
Duterte aide and Senator Christopher “Bong” Go’s withdrawal as the candidate for president of a group no one had previously heard of will be to the advantage of the Marcos Jr.-Sara Duterte team. And should that pair win in 2022, it will also mean the continuing...
To Filipino skepticism over Mr. Duterte’s seeming turn-around over China’s latest act of intimidation in Philippine territorial waters must thus be added the need to be especially alert over the distinct possibility that the 2022 elections will not solely be a contest among Filipinos but also another arena of contention between two of the most powerful countries on the planet.
As part of the commitment to issue-focused reporting, they also pledged to look into and report on the track records of candidates, check and challenge false information and hate speech, provide the context of whatever events and issues may arise, monitor the independence of the State and other agencies involved in the elections, and encourage and support best practice in journalism.
It should be more than evident by now that only the election of a halfway decent, competent, and honest alternative to the present regime can at least begin the process of halting the country’s descent into failed State sta-tus. But that can happen only if the mass of the electorate has learned enough from the experience of the last six years to elect the officials the country so desperately and so urgently needs.
In the Philippines, the above events of September at home and abroad have added to widespread citizen fatigue and resistance in exercising the sovereign right and duty of checking government excesses, holding it accountable, and demanding and struggling for the changes the country has needed for decades.
One journalist did say that President Rodrigo Duterte compounded the “lie” about the reason behind the shutdown of the operations of ABS-CBN’s free TV and radio services. But she did not outrightly call him a liar, and neither did the others. As Mr. Duterte was...
The Washington DC, USA-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) is concerned over the sale to the Duterte regime of $2.5 billion worth of US fighter jets and precision guided missiles. In an op-ed piece published in The Washington Post, HRW’s Washington Advocacy Officer...
A survey by the polling firm Social Weather Stations (SWS), the results of which were released on July 12, found that hunger incidence among Filipinos had reached 21%+ of the country’s 105 million population, or more than four million families whose members had...
President Rodrigo Duterte has made it to the gallery of heads of government in 37 countries that the international press freedom watch organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF, Reporters Sans Frontières) regards as enemies of press freedom. Mr. Duterte’s...
He has done nearly everything else except formally announce it, because if he does, under Commission on Elections (Comelec) rules he could be liable to charges of premature campaigning, but perennial absentee senator-cum-boxer Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao seems...
The return of authoritarian rule is a constant threat, and progress an increasingly elusive goal in the Philippines. Democratization and development have too often foundered on the shoals of government indifference, incompetence, and antipathy. A process that began...
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