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No single event in 2025 produced as many incidents of state-related violence as the September 21 protest. The Sandatahang Dahas monitor of the UP Third World Studies Center recorded a total of 390 killings and 520 injuries resulting from incidents of state-related violence throughout 2025. Of these, 194 injuries erupted from that protest alone, with 151 of these being police officers, and 43 being civilians.
One development thwarts the Duterte pattern (of non-accountability). The Commission on Audit has now obligated her to return 73,287,000 of her confidential funds. There is only one meaning to that: fund misuse.
By late 1944, after two and a half years since the fall of Bataan, it was estimated by Allied intelligence that a million Filipinos were in one way or another part of the guerrilla resistance. These Filipinos held on to hope in a time of hopelessness, maintained courage despite being abandoned, and this is why we remember and commemorate their sacrifice on what is one of the most solemn days in the Philippines, the Day of Valor, or in Filipino, “ang Araw ng Kagitingan”.
The Philippine passport should be a source of pride, a shield of protection, not a badge of suspicion. Every Filipino deserves to see the world without being treated like a criminal just because of where they were born.
In February 2026, the Sandatahang Dahas monitor of the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center recorded flare ups of an ingrained strain of violence among the country’s arms-bearing state agents that made them turn on each other.
In DDS hitman Edgar Matobato’s testimony submitted to the ICC, he narrated a killing at Deca Homes: So Paolo called us, Major Lao, Major Francia to go to Deca Homes. We entered the home of the victim. Paolo ordered us to kill them.
META platforms may have cut funding for fact-checking organizations but Asian fact-checkers are finding ways to continue the fight, even with political pressure.
The falsehood has been relentlessly repeated that it has become the truth to those who want to believe it: Duterte eliminated the dregs of society. Did he? He didn't.
Given the manner in which the Trump administration has been derisive of allies and even dismissive of genuine offers of assistance, the Americans might just end up winning the battle and losing the peace in Iran. However, would that matter for Trump? Probably not as he and his cronies would probably be making a killing on Iran’s oil industry because nowadays, U.S. national security is not just defined as the interests of the U.S. itself, but how best will it fill up Trump’s corrupt pockets.
Filipinos are resilient. We always find ways to cope. But we shouldn’t have to keep surviving problems that could have been prevented. We deserve leadership that plans ahead.
