Archive - Commentary

Let’s help Sara Duterte trace how the grand dilemma of her confidential funds began.

Public utilities, government agencies, banks and credit card companies treat customers and subscribers as if they are cash cows while their service leaves much to be desired.

Who is onion-skinned? One who is infamously volatile made the charge.

Let's be vigilant that those resting in the cemeteries won't turn up in the ballots for Halloween.

Newspaper reports quoting members of Congress are describing Pres. Ferdinand Marcos’ war on drugs as “bloodless” which are negated by what is happening on the ground.

Suddenly a Dutertephobia erupted.

We should bear in mind that barangay leaders are supposed to represent the people to bring about much-needed changes in grassroots communities, not as extensions of political clans.

Many of the false statements mythologizing the Marcoses are being circulated—in the form of press releases, transcripts, and audiovisual recordings—by offices under the Presidential Communications Office.

It has become a jigsaw puzzle of public interest. What are the pieces?

Politically motivated or not, it was about time they sent a message to the Dutertes that their "bardagulan" days are over.

Unlike their beloved secret funds, the Dutertes do not hide in secret their hatred for Commission on Audit red flags. Publicly and openly, Rodrigo Duterte spews venom against being audited.

Why are Marcos and Romualdez quiet now on the questions of misspending raised against Duterte?

A public that engages in name-calling of its political leaders uses a valid form of political engagement.

“Making wars means making maps,” the Thai scholar Thongchai Winichakul wrote in his landmark Siam Mapped: A History of the Geo-Body of a Nation (1994).

During a committee hearing on the OVP's budget on Sept. 6, Angara uttered: "Does Congress still have the power of the purse? I'm not so sure. Anyway, that's a separate debate."

First of all, how was the letter leaked?The Office of the President provided it to the House, which was deliberating on the 2024 national budget.

How can you convince them that Scarborough Shoal is ours when they have been shooed away even before they could get near its entrance?

Vice President Sara Duterte has been the butt of jokes, particularly in social media, over her reticence to open up as a public official about her millions of pesos of confidential funds and her extraordinary number of security guards.

The proliferation of confidential funds has reached a fragile state that has rendered it to a point of illegitimacy, despite the joint memorandum circular allowing it.

By the will of Sara Duterte, her budget hearing in the Senate could have proceeded according to plan.

The proposed 2024 budget shows the administration's priorities for spending: a 58% increase in the president's travel funds, while the agriculture sector gets a measly 6% more than its budget this year.

In 2018, the country underwent a rice crisis. By October, retail prices of well-milled rice (WMR) reached almost Php 50 per kilo, up 14% over prices in the previous year.

That was the big question in 2016 when Rodrigo Duterte ran for president. His troll battalions said, yes.

COMMENTARY: Pulchritude has always been weaponized and used against women.