Archive - Commentary

A week after he filed a quo warranto petition before the Supreme Court to shut down broadcast giant ABS-CBN for alleged violations of its franchise which is due to expire on March 20, Solicitor General yesterday asked the High Court to issue a gag order to the media outfit.

Late last year, ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda told a group of human rights advocates from the Philippines in The Hague for a conference: “I am going to Manila next year.”

While the world and the Filipino people were preoccupied with the rampaging COVID-19 that has infected more than 43,000 and killed over a thousand people since its discovery a month ago, the Duterte government unleashed a virus so virulent, it threatens democracy in this country.

When I read the news report about a 60-year-old American infected with novel coronavirus who died in Wuhan, China Feb. 6, my first thought was, this debunks the conspiracy theory going around that the fast-spreading virus is directed exclusively against the Han Chinese.

Fresh from his five-day mysterious disappearance, at the time when governments all over the world were engrossed in coping with the threat of the novel coronavirus (nCoV), President Duterte surfaced February 3 as a medical expert and a seer.

"Infodemic means the spread of false or baseless pieces of information. And let’s not be party to such a propagation because otherwise, this problem, this misinformation can be more viral than the virus that we all are guarding against. So, this is an infodemic, we don’t want to be party to its spread," Duque said.

The cancellation by the United States government of Sen. Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa’s visa is a preview of what’s in store for police officials involved in President Duterte’s brutal drug war that has claimed the lives of at least 20,000 through a reprehensible practice of extrajudicial killing (EJK).

​May President Duterte unilaterally abrogate the Visiting Forces Agreement without the consent of the Senate?The question arose yesterday after Mr. Duterte angrily warned he will do precisely that if the Americans do not “correct” the cancellation of the US visa earlier issued to a close ally, Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.

Duterte’s disrespect for the truth is actually a disrespect for his audience- the Filipino people.He thinks so low of the Filipino people, presuming that they are stupid and will swallow hook, line, and sinker anything that he says.

Other than giving Oplan Tokhang defenders some brownie points to crow about in the eyes of their supporters, Jude Sabio's withdrawal of his communication does nothing to the preliminary examination being carried out by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s office.

A Vietnamese academic pierced whatever illusion about the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea being worked out between ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and China and being coordinated by the Philippines.

Why is Malacañang panicking over the U.S. visa ban on officials involvedin the“wrongful imprisonment” of Senator Leila de Lima that has yet to be implemented?