We beg to differ.
I cringed when I read Patricia Evangelista’s The Rohingya and the port of last resort, a piece that reeks of the sort of perverted Pinoy Pride we once again put up with that all-too-familiar uniquely-Pinoy brand of pomposity. According to Evangelista… We know what we are. We are the port of last resort, and have…
Read More “The hypocrisy in the way Filipinos ‘welcome’ the Rohingya boat people” »
I’ve never heard of the name Mary Jane Veloso until a week before her scheduled execution on the 28th of April 2015. When her name started trending on social media just days before she was supposed to be killed by firing squad, I still had no idea what her ordeal was about. I have to…
Supporters of convicted drug smuggler Mary Jane Veloso heaved a sigh of relief after Indonesia suspended the execution of the Filipina in death row by firing squad on the 29th April 2015. The decision to postpone her execution came not necessarily after Philippine President Benigno Simeon (BS) Aquino spoke to Indonesian President Joko Widodo as…
According to presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda, the biggest boost a presidential candidate can get in the 2016 elections is an endorsement from current President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III. “Everyone wants his anointment,” Lacierda reportedly said. Indeed, so important is this “anointment” that even presidential nemesis Vice President Jejomar Binay is willing to sellout to…
Southeast Asia is a part of the world where much of the wealth was created by former colonial masters, inherited by a small elite clique of oligarchs, and is now largely held by the ethnic Chinese diaspora. The degree to which this wealth has trickled down to the greater population varies by country. Nonetheless, major…
Read More “Quaint outcomes on Day One of the 2014 World Economic Forum #WEF conference in Manila” »
The root issue in the on-going trouble down under in Mindanao is the way the Philippine government has traditionally cozied up to even the meanest and baddest terrorist and rebel groups “for the sake of peace”. Currently, it is the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that is being painted as the bad guy, and rightly…
Read More “MNLF head Nur Misuari is the Janet Lim Napoles of the Zamboanga crisis” »
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?” »
Already wrestling with the public relations fallout of the latest poverty statistics, the Aquino administration apparently was too busy last week to notice the press release from the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) announcing the results of a study that raises serious concerns about the preparedness of the Philippines’ small- and medium-enterprise (SME) sector…