Archive - Top Stories

By MIKHA FLORES THE Commission of Elections’ months-long negotiations for the release of the source code for the automated machines to be used in the May 13 elections have come to naught. “Masamang-masama ang loob ko (I really feel bad about it)…I’ve wasted my time negotiating since November. Pinaghirapan ko ito. Tapos wala rin palang mangyayari (I gave

JOSEPH Victor Ejercito-Estrada of the United Nationalist Alliance leads senatorial candidates in poster violations after almost two months of campaigning. The Commission on Elections’ legal department has sent eight notices to Estrada asking him to remove campaign materials found in places not designated as common poster areas. The other senatorial candidates with the most number

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS  PRESIDENT Aquino is being consistent when he said that the government will not be filing a diplomatic protest against China for the intrusion of a fishing vessel that got stuck in Tubbataha Reef in Sulu Sea, 150 kilometers southeast of Puerto Princesa City in Palawan. After all, he didn’t also protest

  By ERIN EMOCLING Photos from GREENPEACE PHILIPPINES GREEN superheroes Ben 10, The Green Lantern, and The Hulk are joining the Philippine election campaign. No, 10-year old Benwill not use his mysterious alien weapon, Omnitrix, for either Team PNoy or United Nationalist Alliance senatorial candidates. But  who knows if Green Lantern would  use the ring

Text by MIKHA FLORES Photos and video by VINCENT GO PROGRESSIVE party-lists have urged the Commission on Elections to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its latest party-list decision which effectively opens the system to major political parties and non-marginalized groups. In a press statement, Makabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (Makabayan) urged the Comelec to appeal

By MIKHA FLORES FOR the past 12 years, the Commission on Elections was guided by a Supreme Court decision describing the party-list system as a “social justice tool”.  The system was designed not just to give more laws for the protection of marginalized groups but to enable them to become lawmakers themselves. But with the

By HOMER TEODORO TARLAC City — It could have been a case of David taking a potshot against Goliath, only senatorial bet Greco Belgica is about 6 feet tall and does not mince words, not even against a president. “I think the President made a mistake,” Belgica said, referring to President Benigno Aquino III’s recent move

By TESS BACALLA NAIROBI, Kenya—When Kenya’s historic general elections on March 4 ended on a largely peaceful note, its people breathed a big sigh of relief, and rejoiced, regardless of who emerged as winners in the hotly contested presidential race. Peace, it seemed, had finally descended on Kenya, a nation long divided by ethnic tensions—and

By MIKHA FLORES THE Supreme Court has ruled that party-list organizations do not necessarily have to represent marginalized and under-represented sectors, a decision that would give the 41 groups earlier disqualified by the Commission on Elections a fresh chance to qualify for the May 13 elections. In a decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Antonio

[tabs] [tab title=”Top Spenders for TV”] [/tab] [tab title=”Top Spenders for Radio”] [/tab] [tab title=”Networks”] [/tab] [/tabs] By MIKHA FLORES JOSEPH Victor Ejercito Estrada of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) has logged the most number of television airtime while Team PNoy senatorial candidate Loren Legarda leads in radio placements for the first month of the

Infographic by JB URIETA THE campaign for national and local elections is in full swing, but are the candidates in your area following rules on posting campaign materials? Find out where they can’t post by clicking the image below.

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS THE Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines has been in the forefront in all the political upheavals the country has experienced since the time of the Marcos dictatorship. Many of its members braved the tanks sent by Marcos to Edsa during the 1986 People Power. They were very much

BY CAROLYN ARGUILLAS, MindaNews DAVAO CITY – Of the country’s 52 million voters, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s 1.3 million voters will spend the longest time in the polling precincts in May because they will not only elect national and local officials but regional as well.

  By JB BAYLON LAST Easter Sunday I watched PBA games live, sitting for the first time in the venue called The Arena at the Mall of Asia. I was transfixed – it was as if I had been transported to a city in the United States, or China even, as the venue was truly

BY MIKHA FLORES A social experiment in a town in Abra province aiming to educate and empower voters and track the causes of election violence and vote-buying has hit a brick wall. Local leaders, whose participation is crucial to the success of the project, have rejected it.

  By ELLEN TORDESILLAS WHEN some 30 concerned citizens met before the Holy Week to discuss the appeal to the United Nations for help for Filipinos in Sabah who are being maltreated by Malaysian authorities, they decided they would do it as private citizens and not waste their time getting the support of the Philippine

By BABYLYN KANO-OMAR BONGAO, Tawi-Tawi— The Philippine National Police is sending a company of Special Action Forces to Tawi-Tawi, the country’s southernmost province, as security measures are being tightened in the run-up to the May 13 local elections.

By CHERRY JOY VENILES IN Florencio “Butch” Abad’s book, the national budget is a game—a game, he says, in which “political actors with conflicting demands and competing to get a larger pie of the nation’s scarce resources.” But years of experience as politician, lawmaker, academic and Cabinet secretary in three government administrations have also shown