Archive - Commentary

Last Dec. 12, two days after the universal observance of International Human Rights Day, human rights advocates gathered at the Novotel in Quezon City to applaud the awarding to Aileen Bacalso, the Franco-German Ministerial Prize for Human Rights and the Rule of Law.

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court may wrap up its preliminary probe on President Duterte’s drug war sooner than expected.

Remember this photo of Senate President Tito Sotto and Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa watching the Las Vegas fight between Senate colleague Manny Pacquiao and American boxer Keith Thurman fight at a theater in Rockwell last July?

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo was wrong when he said that there is no song that embodies the whole Philippines.

I enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies of the 30th Southeast Asian Games. Salute to director Floy Quintos. Just enough dazzle to showcase the beauty of Philippine culture.

Ngayon ang tanong ko: Ano bang kinatatakutan ninyo? Ano ba ang kinatatakutan ninyong malaman ko? Ano ba ang kinatatakutan ninyong malaman ng taumbayan?

If Vice President Leni Robredo succeeds in dismantling the illegal drugs network and reducing the menace without the killings that have characterized President Duterte’s failed drug war, it would be a slap on Duterte’s much vaunted iron hand strategy.

The wonderful thing about Justice Carpio’s lectures is that they are never the same; there is always something new. And he is such a good storyteller.

I am not wishing President Duterte ill but the lying and the manipulation about his health must stop. It insults the public’s intelligence.

Last Friday was Senior Associate Justice Antonio T. Carpio’s last working day at the Supreme Court. The next day, Oct. 26, he retired on his 70th birthday after 18 years of dedicated and distinguished service in the Supreme Court.

What is the state of President Duterte’s health now? How serious is his current illness?

Interior Secretary Eduardo Año, in his attempt to explain President Duterte’s alarming order to newly promoted Police Lt. Col. Jovie Espenido to go to Bacolod City in Negros Oriental and “feel free to kill everybody” said it was an exaggeration to emphasize a point.

If all that President Duterte’s henchmen can come up with against former senator Antonio Trillanes IV is Guillermina Barrido, that means they have scraped the bottom of the barrel and found nothing.

I found myself sitting, with some unease, near the ILPS chair emeritus, better known as Jose Maria ‘Joma’ Sison, the Great Helmsman of the Communist Party of the Philippines. During the performance I glanced over at him and wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he had fallen asleep.

It's not even Christmas yet – though it is the Christmas season as far as Filipinos go – and already Facebook is filled with unprintable comments about the traffic situation in and around Metro Manila.

It is poetic justice that President Duterte’s brutal drug war, on which he built his presidency, is unraveling not because of the efforts of those who oppose it but because of the greed and impunity of the people that he trusted to carry it out.

It is the right of every government to come up with measures which it thinks will protect the interest of the people it serves. If Go thinks it will serve the interest of Filipinos to ban those “meddling” American officials, he should advise the President to do so.

BANGKOK (Reporting ASEAN) - A week before ASEAN leaders gathered for their 34th Summit here in late June, an article in Indonesia’s ‘Jakarta Post’ daily detailed disagreements between Cambodia and Singapore over the content of the draft ‘ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific’.