We beg to differ.
Well now, isn’t it just so not typical of Philippine Congress to shrink away from what could be a media bonanza for the vote-hungry lot. If anything, the Pork Barrel Scam is a gold mine of media mileage for any politician who has the cojones to take the reins on this one. After all, there…
Read More “Why the Philippines is forever imprisoned by pork barrel politics” »
They say nothing dies harder than a bad idea. That saying is nowhere truer than in the Philippines where bad ideas replace one bad idea after another. What’s worse is that the bad ideas often come from government agencies that affect millions of Filipinos and make their lives a living hell. No wonder international best…
Read More “Ban on provincial buses on Metro Manila roads made commuting a living hell” »
For all the feel-good news snippets we are receiving about the arrival of the Philippines’ newest warship, the 3,200-tonne BRP Ramon Alcaraz which joins the 3,400-tonne frigate BRP Gregorio del Pilar also acquired from the United States last year in patrolling disputed waters off Palawan, one cannot help ask a simple question: Can anyone really…
Read More “Do the Philippines and the ASEAN community have what it takes to deal with China?” »
Fact is, one will be hard-pressed to find a totally objective account of history. Though ultimately historians either avoid bias to the greatest extent possible or purposefully show it, individual accounts will never truly be free of it. Ultimately each individual’s account passes through a filter which is composed of his/her philosophies, belief systems, experiences,…
Read More “Is there a right or wrong point of view of history?” »
To say that nothing positive ever happened during the Aquino administration would be unfair both to the administration and even more so the Filipino citizen who has resiliently, despite odds continue to press forward towards personal and national progress. With this I’d like to congratulate the tax paying and remitting citizens, who by the sweat…
Read More “Zoned Out On SONA 2013: Four Things I Might’ve Missed Hearing” »
Newly-minted Manila mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada comes up with a quick win to solve Manila’s traffic mess. Reportedly part of “a grand plan to ease traffic congestion in the capital”, a new council resolution implemented by Erap’s city government bans “the entry of provincial and metro buses without private terminals in the city”. The City…
No wonder the fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III took all of 102 minutes. He tried to cover every bit of detail in what was an unstructured litany of statistics, examples, and anecdotes. But to the expansion of BS Aquino’s speech in duration was a reportedly…
If you will pardon me, but I have a very simplistic take on the issue of pork barrel and it revolves around this simple question: Why are legislators involved in the disbursement of development and project funds? After all, we elect legislators to craft laws. But then we also elect our local government officials to…
Read More “Members of Philippine Congress shouldn’t have been given the pork barrel to begin with” »