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Almost every government official has the same message whenever the birth or death anniversaries of the country’s heroes are marked: it is to remember what they did for the country, and to emulate their patriotism and devotion to the welfare and betterment of the...
The year 2017 isn’t exactly auld lang syne, or good old times, and 2018 is not only likely to be a repeat of it. It could even be worse. As 2016 ended a year ago, the new year of 2017 was welcomed with optimism by most Filipinos, in the probable belief that...
There was hardly any question about it. The dominance of the Duterte “supermajority” in both houses of Congress made the one-year extension of martial law in Mindanao certain, and even the members of the political opposition in the House of Representatives and the...
The reformists and revolutionaries of the late 19th century; those who fought the Japanese invaders during World War II; and the professionals, workers, and farmers who comprised the core of the resistance against the Marcos dictatorship understood only too well...
Is jeepney “modernization” the answer to the Philippines’ land transportation woes? Or does the solution lie elsewhere? Will that scheme put in place a safe, rational and reliable transportation system all over the country, or in the National Capital Region at...
Even if he’s serious about it, President Rodrigo Duterte’s offer for the Philippines to host a high-level meeting, or summit, on human rights is unlikely to materialize. The leaders of those countries accused of human rights violations would hardly welcome an...
The United States has announced that President Donald Trump will take up human rights issues in the Philippines with President Rodrigo Duterte in their one-on-one meeting sometime during the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit this November....
After saying that he still “has to talk to the NPA (New People’s Army),” by which statement he meant that the Government of the Philippines will have to resume peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), President Rodrigo Duterte...
The Marcos terror regime may have been overthrown 31 years ago, the institutions of liberal democracy restored, and a new Constitution drafted. But the threat of dictatorship has never really passed. The conditions that made the making of a tyrannical regime...
Whether they’re in the opposition or administration side, the distinguished senators of this endangered Republic, who’re otherwise hopelessly fractious, share one thing: their hatred for “fake news” — and a consequent, irrepressible urge to penalize its...
President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed his displeasure over the continuing attention being paid by various groups and organizations such as Amnesty International and other human rights groups and the United Nations, to the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) in the...
Some of President Rodrigo Duterte’s adherents and those opposed to him because they have a vision of an alternative State and future and the programs to achieve it have more in common than most observers and even those in their own respective ranks think. Exclude...
The authoritarian path the Duterte administration is taking imposes on the Philippine press and media, as public service institutions, the duty to more vigilantly defend that freedom and to sharpen and enhance its monitoring and coverage of the regime. The press...
The killing of young people, minors, and children that have been blamed on the police of the Duterte regime is not without precedent. The same atrocities were committed by the then PC-INP (Philippine Constabulary Integrated National Police) and the military of...
Echoing his appointees in his propaganda machine, and the trolls and hacks who infest social media as well as some newspapers and broadcast networks, President Rodrigo Duterte rebuked critics of his regime’s human rights record. He claimed that while these critics...
In his message for National Heroes Day this year, President Rodrigo Duterte urged Filipinos to uphold the rule of law as the best way to express their appreciation for the sacrifices of the heroes who fought for the country’s independence. “Let us honor them by...
The wanton killings by the police and their surrogate assassins that are the main, in fact the only, component of the brutal and misdirected “war” on drugs that’s targeting the poor while the drug lords are treated with kid gloves and evade prosecution began almost...
Does anyone still believe that every government bureaucrat, or, for that matter, everyone in the private sector, or your average gossip-prone neighbor, can keep a secret — that they can keep in confidence information such as who has tested positive or has simply...
Without any proof and by merely attributing it to his sources in the military establishment, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV has been saying that the presence of left-wing personalities in the Duterte administration has enabled “hundreds of CPP-NPA (Communist Party of...
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