Archive - Commentary

Because the administration's allies have the numbers — a supermajority, in fact — Duterte can spend the OVP budget however she wants to. That's their version of democracy.

A single human being represents the whole humanity; thus, August 30 represents humanity.- Argentinian Ma. Adela Antokoletz

To a Cebuano Binisaya speaker like me, those words remain ingrained in my mind forty years after the assassination of Ninoy Aquino by a Marcos-led military/civilian conspiracy.

No matter how high one's awareness is about the importance of eating nutritious food, it becomes useless when prices are unaffordable.

At the rate Rodrigo Duterte was giving away the Philippines to Red China, there now arises an acute need to exorcise the country from all Red Chinese concessions that he had approved. The suspension of all 22 reclamation projects in Manila Bay is a step in the right direction.

On August 15, 2023, Chinese Deputy Chief of Mission Zhou Zhiyong claimed during a news conference at the Kamuning Pandesal Forum in Quezon City that the Potsdam Declaration and the Cairo Declaration stated that “all territories Japan has seized from the Chinese, including those of Nansha Islands and Xisha Islands, shall be restored to China.” Retired Associate Justice Antonio Carpio: This claim is false.

Some progressive organizations have also abused the system by splitting into smaller groups; others formed factions due to power struggles to secure more seats.

The attempt by former president Rodrigo Duterte to use the China card to gain a prominent role in the Marcos administration and protect himself from the International Criminal Court got aborted just when his cohorts in the Senate were about to launch it.

In 2015, I had the opportunity to personally listen to Rodrigo Duterte in one of his listening tours around the Philippines.

The story of Pagcor is nothing but how Marcos monopolized gambling.

Controlling corruption in the PNP may indeed be a herculean task, and starting it with the illegal drug trade is a good move in the right direction. Is Marcos really up to it?

When I think of Doro, I think of these lessons that have stayed with me: One. The story is the story, and not the journalist. Let the information guide you, and do not let your ego get the better of you.

Red carpet celebrity photo-ops don’t just happen in Hollywood. They also happen in the SONA.

Apart from the budget bill, 37 other measures on LEDAC's priority agenda are still pending in various stages of the legislative process, and the president is expected to identify more in his SONA today.

The administration's obsession with sloganeering does not bode well for the current situation when a vast majority of people have identified inflation, wages and jobs as their most urgent concerns.

The anatomy of a logo is such that they are designed to be memorable at a glance. Logos are meant to “encapsulate the entirety of the brand in a single image.”

Pundits point out that a raging political issue in news media has a life as good as only two weeks before fading in the public consciousness.

Now that the one-year ban on appointing defeated candidates in the previous election is over, the president should still apply the "best and brightest" criteria more than personal loyalty and popularity, er, notoriety, in choosing people to serve in government.

Outright, the answer is no.

Isn't it ironic that shortly after committing to fight disinformation, Marcos appoints a creator and spreader of what the public loosely calls "fake news?"

Last year on her 93rd birthday on July 2, Imelda Marcos was feted to a birthday party at the presidential palace where she once spun fairy tales for twenty years.

Sa pag-appoint ni Pangulong Marcos kay Gadon, parang nag-dirty finger na rin s'ya sa mahihirap. Pakinggan ang komentaryo ni Christian Esguerra ngayong linggo.

Padilla and the other senators in the hearing are used to bardagulan — street slang for short and witty retorts — in real and reel life, and he has now taken that even into formal proceedings such as legislative hearings and plenary sessions.

Send them to jail, where the big-time drug lords continue to operate? Dismiss them from the service, so they can work full time with the syndicates? Or, as Duterte has suggested, "ihulog mo?"