We beg to differ.
Janet Lim Napoles is now on the run. That makes her the perfect fall guy for the P10-billion “pork barrel scam” that is rocking the Philippines’ political establishment. A high-profile fugitive attracts all the attention and, not necessarily living up to the principle of scientific criminal investigation, all law enforcement resources. Never mind that the…
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” »
Funny how just a short time ago, Rappler.com CEO Maria Ressa was crying bloody libel over Katrina Stuart-Santiago’s article Going to the dogs — an article about the manner with which Ressa’s self-described “social news network” startup precipitated (and possibly encouraged) a broader “ganging up” on the University of Santo Tomas over a perceived favour…
Read More “Bloody libel! Janet Lim Napoles versus Maria Ressa’s ‘social news network’ Rappler.com” »
The recent brouhaha over the linking of Senator Manny Villar and House Representative JV Ejercito to shady offshore corporations based in the British Virgin Islands is timely. The brouhaha surrounds a recent report published by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) of revelations following a thorough international investigation conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based International…
Read More “Tip of the iceberg: Manny Villar’s and JV Ejercito’s alleged secret offshore accounts” »
You wonder now, where did the USD159,700 Marissa Tadeo Lapid, wife of Philippine Senator Lito Lapid, was allegedly attempting to squirrel into several US banks to “structure transactions to evade reporting requirements” come from? According to an ABS-CBN News report, Mrs Lapid knowingly attempted to conceal and evade US bank transparency regulations… A Philippine Star…
Read More “Lito Lapid wife Marissa convicted for dollar smuggling!” »
You can’t blame old fogey Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile for trying the old Pinoy style sidestep-the-issue-then-lay-out-a-Joker-card trick when painted into a corner. That’s exactly what he did responding to very clear and specific issues raised by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano during a speech he delivered before his colleagues around the need for a private…
Indeed, it’s been one of Philippine Media’s greatest non-mysteries: the question of who owns “social news network” (pa)hipster news site Rappler.com. According to Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, all the answers to that question are in their sanitised About page which features a list of its illustrious Board members. But ever since a quick-and-dirty exposé (actually,…
Read More “Who are behind DMT Ice Angels who own 17 percent of Rappler?” »
It used to be that the shady world of high-level corruption among politicians was an opaque black box where public funds (taxpayers’ money) went in one end and vacuous political rhetoric and infrastructural mirages went out the other. Nowadays, that unspoken pact amongst crooks has steadily unraveled before the public eye. It started with that…