GRPundit

The Philippines' "vice president" Leni Robredo is renowned for starting every statement with the phrase " ang sa akin lang naman " (in my humble opinion). As in something like this, for example... Ang sa akin lang naman, Martial Law in Mindanao won't be effective... Blah blah blah... And more of that to the same effect. What does Robredo's propose? Essentially nothing . The trouble with that is, Filipinos are all options but no roadmap . As such, Robredo mirrors the essence of the failure of the Philippine Opposition. They make a lot of noise about options (packaged as being "critical" of the administration) yet offer no pathway forward. It is hardly surprising why the Philippine Opposition led by the Yellowtards continues to fail.

[ Public post by Facebook user Benedict Exconde ] Four things: 1. Basic supply and demand. If your country has 100 million (and increasing, no thanks to Roman Catholic Church meddling, lobbying and politicking) mouths to feed and your local food production cannot keep up with demand, how do you plan to address the supply gap? 2. All administrations between Marcos and Duterte did not give value to agriculture and fisheries as important elements of the economy and national security (i.e., food security). They wanted agrarian communities to do away with agriculture and become laborers in the manufacturing and service sectors, which are controlled by the ruling class, with the "pro-masses" Maoists getting regular payola from them. The failure of these administrations to come up with a comprehensive long-term national food security and rural development plan and their sheer lack of regard to agrarian communities brought us to where we are now, a clusterfuck that Duterte ...

Poverty is a choice. This is most specially true in the 21st Century where information and technology needed to make the right choices are at everyone's fingertips. Thus, a call to Filipinos from a revered celebrity such as one issued by Inigo Pascual is long overdue... There's nothing like the right conversations being started with the backing of a celebrity. Back in 2013, top media personality Bianca Gonzalez made a similar call that also kicked up a storm around the topic of the poor's renowned sense of entitlement... Ang dami nating nagtatrabaho para makaipon para sa prime lot at bahay plus buwis pa. Bakit nga ba bine-baby ang mga informal settlers? Translated: “So many people working hard to save to buy a house on prime land while paying their taxes. Why do we have to baby these informal settlers?” It is an old concept. The simple principle behind Gonzalez’s tweet is rule of law and everyone — whether rich or poor — being subject to it. These ar...

The last few days must have been really hard for never-had-been-chief-justice Lourdes Sereno. Congratulations have continued to pour in citing not just newly-appointed Chief Justice Teresita De Castro's eminent qualifications but also her being the Philippines' first female Chief Justice. Indeed, this is a huge blow to Sereno. It is very likely that she regrets the day former President Benigno Simeon 'BS' Aquino III suggested she step up to the office she now never occupied. To add to the humiliation is the evidently warm welcome accorded to De Castro by the Supreme Court staff. Suffice to say, it can be easily surmised that Sereno was not at all well-liked by her never-had-been colleagues and staff in the High Court. Sereno is better off lying low and ignoring any further pats on the back (and on the head) coming from the Yellowtard community. This is a community of inbred thinkers who had utterly failed to evolve. And Sereno is a sad casualty of this Yellowt...

Photo source: @AttyGlennChong All the "thought leaders" of the Yellowtard-led Philippine Opposition could do is whine about why they believe newly-appointed Chief Justice Teresita De Castro is not "fit" to be Chief Justice. Other than that, the Yellowtards cannot seem to come up with any more objective reasons why they do not like De Castro. All the Yellowtards really want is for their preferred girl the now never-had-been-chief-justice Lourdes Sereno to be reinstated (or rather to have her appointment un-voided). But the fact is, De Castro, by all accounts, is the better-qualified magistrate. Just on the basic things, like her psych evaluation results and her compliance to the requirement for all public servants to have a complete record of Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs), De Castro is eminently qualified. As far as basic requirements to be a civil servants alone, De Castro already beats Sereno hands down. You wonder then: What is...

It's high time Filipinos who have had enough with the Yellowtards decide on the fate of certain monuments and icons that they have been subject to for many years! The 500-peso bill... The Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA)... The EDSA Shrine... Ninoy Aquino Monument, Makati... Indeed, the time has come for Filipinos to decide whether or not they would like to continue to live under the banner of an obsolete narrative!

It seems Filipinos are a bit confused about the two notions and they seem to owe that confusion to (1) the imprecision of their “national language” and (2) their deeply-religious collective character. Indeed, the imprecise way Filipinos evaluate concepts is evident in the flaccid nature of their national “debate”. The country’s foremost “thought leaders” habitually go off on shrill “activist” campaigns on the back of ill-defined and sloppily-framed premises. The messiness with which Filipino thinkers chart the discourse continues to contribute to the wishy-washiness of Filipinos’ concept of what defines their nationhood. This is why “heroes” and “martyrs” matter a lot to the Philippines’ cadre of politically-passionate “thought leaders” — because grounding of advocacies, movements, and political platforms on the theatrics of melodrama is easier. It is definitely easier than doing the hard intellectual heavy-lifting of framing issues properly and intelligently. Thus, Filipinos’ m...

A report published on Bicol Today way back in 2015 cited Naga City as " the most dangerous city in the Bicol region ". “Naga has the highest number of index crimes as compared to other Bicol cities.” Police region 5 statistics said.  Naga police and Mayor John Bonggat cannot be contacted for comment regarding Naga’s new imputed bad image. Joey Natividad, editor of the publication went on to write about the fear gripping residents of the City of Naga at the time... It is the FEAR felt by a Naguenio mother that her high school son may be beaten up by a gang of street addicts on his way home from school. It is the WORRY felt by a mother that her college girl student might get molested by a co-passenger inside a tricycle. It is APPREHENSION by a young professional that, by walking the street in downtown Naga, his laptop computer might be snatched by thieves riding- in- tandem on motorcycle. The same fear felt by a Naguenio family that, planning to spend their one-w...

As Rod Stewart once crooned in an address to "young hearts": time is on your side . This is really the only thing truly relevant to young people who have everything to look forward to and only lessons to learn from the past. There is a big difference, however, between learning lessons history has to teach and being paralysed by imagined "historical parallels". The latter is essentially what old-fart Martial Law Crybabies are trying to do. They are emotionally- blackmailing young Filipinos into believing that the "evils" of authoritarianism continue to loom in the horizon and, like the fear of damnation that is a key feature of the particularly primitive way Filipinos practice their Catholicism, enjoin them to remain fearful of that ever-possible dark future. This they do, not out of a genuine concern for the well-being of the future generation, but to further their political ends. We see this in the Yellowtards' astounding willingness to overlo...

Yellowtard Netizens are rallying trolls to vote on various Twitter and online polls to prove that their "leader" Leni Robredo is the fairest of them all. This, plus other polls that make respondents decide between a Yellowtard position and some other position on various issues preoccupy the minds of Netizens nowadays... The question remains, however: Can the Yellowtards win a real election? That remains to be seen. Activity on Twitter and other social media platforms have long been notorious for being unreliable indicators of the public sentiment. It brings to question whether the energies being expended by so-called "thought leaders" of the Opposition constitute an optimal deployment of resources. Do the Opposition even have a coherent election winning machine and a platform to back an effective bid in the coming elections? These are the more important questions these people should be asking themselves.

The answer to that question depends on whether or not there still are options to do something to bring some sort of closure to the heartaches of the Martial Law Crybabies. It seems, however, that while the Philippine Opposition led by the Yellowtards continue their shrill campaign keeping Martial Law Crybabyism a dominant aspect of their campaign, they evidently fail to offer a roadmap to achieving that closure. What more can be done if after more than 30 years of Yellowtard domination of the Philippines' political narrative, they have failed to contain the influence of the Marcos family which steadily grew over this period despite the Yellowtards' vehement efforts? Perhaps one of the Yellowtard politicians should run on a platform that promises justice for so-called Martial Law "vicitms", vows to prosecute the Marcos family, and aims to sequester whatever wealth the Martial Law Crybabies claim this family still possess. If the Yellowtards are convinced of th...

Even just the profusion of the colour Yellow in Santo Domingo Church last Tuesday, the 21st of August (death anniversary of Benigno 'Ninoy' Aquino Jr) could make one conclude that the Philippines' Roman Catholic Church is a partisan organisation. It routinely provides a venue for the poltical events of the Liberal Party (a.k.a. the Yellowtards) and, in this particular instance, provided a platform for the politically-charged rhetoric of partisan leaders gathered there to commemorate the occasion. Filipinos need to get to the bottom of this evidently profound relationship between the Yellowtards and the Roman Catholic Church. The Church is a powerful organisation that commands the fear and awe of the vast majority of a country of 100 million. Its mandate is to serve the spiritual needs of this people. What it is doing, however, is perverting that mandate towards poltical ends. An organisation such as the Catholic Church being involved in national politics is a dangero...

It's become fashionable nowadays to wax poetic about the "horrors" of the "Martial Law years" and how these alleged horrors continue to cast a shadow over Philippine politics today. That has been a talent of Yellowtardom exhibited over the last 30 years -- keeping Martial Law Crybabyism fashionable . The reality is more confronting, however. The shrill din of Martial Law Crybabies masks a more stark reality -- that under the watch of the Yellowtards, none of the supposed "injustices" perpetrated under the "Marcos regime" were rectified. Now we see them issuing their lame melodramatic laments around the continued prominence of the Marcoses in Philippine politics. Yet none of them question who actually failed to put them in prison (if, in fact, they deserved to be imprisoned to begin with). For that matter, one wonders: why all the noise about the Marcoses when what is really astounding is the silence surrounding Marcos's top Mart...

The qualifications and abilities of "vice president" Leni Robredo, who is but a heartbeat away from the presidency if, indeed, she won the 2016 elections honestly , has long been a subject of intense debate. No less than the president has raised this concern ... Duterte has repeatedly questioned Robredo's suitability for the job. Robredo has said that she doesn't want to dignify Duterte's attacks against her, and instead urged the President to focus on the economy. ...and, as can be observed, Robredo's response is typical of someone who actually has no response . Indeed, her sidestepping the question by, instead, telling the president to "focus on the economy" comes with a bit of irony. On many occasions, Robredo has proven herself to be quite mathematically-challenged, botching reckoning of relatively simple arithmetical puzzles. As such, it is highly doubtful that she could, herself, focus on "the economy" if her life -- or ad...

Yellowtards are up in arms over a statement Duterte made where he said that "vice president" Leni Robredo "cannot improve on anything here" if, presumably, she succeeds him as president if he decides to step down before his term as president ends. The Yellowtards should lighten up. They were the ones, after all, who popularised a tradition of implementing changes in leadership extra-constitutionally . They managed to seize power this way no less than twice. Counted among their leaders too is famed convicted mutineer Antonio Trillanes who for much of the early 2000s tried to launch military coups against then President Gloria Arroyo. It does not help that Filipino vice presidents are elected separately. It means presidents cannot count on their emergency successors to continue their work. The system is flawed this way. As such, nobody can blame any sitting president for looking upon their respective VPs with anything more than polite tolerance. In the case o...

Short of whatever surprise Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte may have up his sleeve, "vice president" Leni Robredo is set to take over as "president" of the Philippines if Duterte steps down. That Duterte would hint that a possible military junta could take over after he steps down can be interpreted as meaning that this possibility is actually a remote one. Who would, after all, reveal what would normally be a top secret plot if one such is indeed in the works? The question is, what kind of "president" would Robredo be? From the flaccid leadership she has so far exhibited, things don't look too promising. She will be a pussycat in a den of lions to say the least. Such is the luck of Filipinos. They cannot even find a good leader within their 100-million strong lot. Even supporters of Duterte are baffled as to why he'd even think out loud about stepping down. One would think that a President who won the trust of enough voters to be give...

One of the options being proposed from various quarters is for the Yellowtards led by "vice president" Leni Robredo to form an alliance with House Speaker Gloria Arroyo to "topple" the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. This is a possible strategy to exploit what seems to be an emerging opportunity in light of recent statements made by Duterte that he is wanting to step down from office. The more important thing proponents of this marriage of convenience see is that it could block Bongbong Marcos's path to the presidency. Marcos's mounting pressure on Robredo's hold on the office of the VP is making Robredo's claim to the presidency should Duterte step down quite precarious. Furthermore, she has so far failed to show any ability to consolidate power and even step up to exhibiting convincing leadership over a fragmented and rudderless Opposition. The trouble with this proposal is that it is a shortsighted tactic that promis...

Bishops of the Philippines' Roman Catholic Church do indeed deserve a wake up call. If that call comes in the form of a boot up their asses, then so be it. Amen! The Philippines' Catholic hierarchy have long presided over the delivery of misleading and often downright false information. They have, for example, fought tooth-and-nail against measures to implement long-overdue population control measures and reproductive health initiatives to empower and improve the lives of tens of millions of impoverished Filipinos. This misinformation on a national scale is done via dishonest means -- using emotional blackmail and the exploitation of Filipinos' deeply-ingrained religious and superstitious fears. They deliver their drivel through the abuse of a popular Filipino Sunday pasttime -- the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Rather than focus on sermons that delve into spiritual matters, Filipino priests use the pulpit to spew the Church's position on matters of national polit...

The Philippines is supposedly a "democracy". This is an assertion continuously made with pride by the Yellowtards -- rabid supporters of the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan who claim ownership of the 1986 "people power revolution" that supposedly "restored" democracy after two decades of supposedly authoritarian rule. It is therefore ironic that no less than the Yellowtards themselves are behind the continued immunity enjoyed by officials of the Philippines' Commision on Elections (COMELEC) from scrutiny following decades of overseeing fraudulent elections. This coddling of election fraudsters and their equally crooked technology partners is especially acute today in light of the single foothold to power the Yellowtards are desperately propping up. The current "vice president" Leni Robredo is widely seen to be a beneficiary of the COMELEC Mafia. She was catapulted to power by the COMELEC under the watch of its then chairman Andy Bautista ...

What are Filipinos to do? On many occassions, current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed his weariness with his job raising the possibility that he would step down given the opportunity. The trouble is, the person supposedly set to replace him should this happen, the current "vice president" Leni Robredo, is seen my many Filipinos as being too incompetent to fill as vital a role as President of the Philippines. Robredo has so far failed to exhibit any sort of leadership or statesmanship chops befitting a potential president of a nation of 100 million. Despite being seen to be "leader" of the Opposition, she has exhibited no evidence that she is up to that job either. For that matter, the idea of a "vice president" leading the Opposition does not even make sense to begin with! To make matters worse, evidence is mounting that Robredo may not even be the legitimate Vice President. Charges of fraud perpetrated back during the 2016 elect...

It is starting to look like the proverbial array of dominoes of Cold War yore that were likened to the foreseen falling of the chain of Indochinese and southeast Asian nations to the scourge of communism. Filipino communists seem to be on the advance. And they are infesting the labour unions of an increasing number of large Filipino manufacturing enterprises. The next domino teetering under the spectre of crippling labour unrest is Liwayway Marketing Corp., (makers of Oishi)... It seems the Philippines' communists have found ample opportunity to create the sort of instability in Philippine society upon which to launch their so-called "people's revolution" which remains the singular objective of their cause. An unstable society where unemployment is high serves as fertile ground for a communist uprising, and here we see the seeds of such a morass. Communists are not interested in working with mainstream free-market society toward progress. They only want...

Pounding monsoon rains and typhoons are a routine occurrence in the Philippines. By now, Filipinos should have disaster response down pat at the local level. Yet, year in and year out, Filipinos are consistently caught flat-footed by the next storm or flood. And everytime it is to whoever is sitting in Malacanang that they look to for salvation. The worst thing about calls to current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte today is that most of it is being issued by "influencers" of the Opposition with a tinge of malice. The calls are not genuine. They are delivered with scorn with the intent to entrap rather than contribute to ameliorating a bad situation. It is easy to see through the nefarious agenda of Yellowtards who try to "trend" hashtags like #NasaanAngPangulo on social media. Their intent is to lure Duterte into a damn-if-you-do-damn-if-you-don't debacle. He shows up and makes a statement and they nitpick it to pieces. He doesn't show up and he...

So what if top Filipino singer Lea Salonga rose to the pinnacle of achievement in the performing arts under the "regime" of former President Ferdinand Marcos? The Philippines, after all, experienced its Golden Age of locally-produced music under over that era. All that is beside the point, however. The Yellowtards who comprise the majority of the members of the shrill Martial Law Crybaby community can't really tell the difference between what is objectively "bad" and what they merely don't like . Indeed, mixed into their brew of confused morality and ethical frames is the Medieval idea of "evil" which, they think, if attributed to something they unilaterally don't like automatically gives them the moral ascendancy to condemn. Yellowtards are an intellectual disease in Philippine society. They hijack entire issues and apply their twisted sense of morality to the discourse surrounding it to the point where the entire discussion is muddled ...

As expected, the notion of "resilience" is again being touted as the Filipino virtue on exhibit as torrential rains pound Metro Manila and as floodwaters rise. Thus Filipinos' idea of "coping" with disaster is doing nothing during sunny days and being "resilient" during rainy days. The trouble with being assured of the goodness and blessedness of being "resilient" during one disaster or the next is that it lulls people into a bizarre sense of hollow superiority over an adverse situation. Under such a mentality, the adversity Filipinos face is seen to be a kind of an "evil" that they expect to overcome on the basis of an ill-placed sense of righteousness that entitles them to victory. Nothing to smile about. Nothing to be proud of. (Source: Twitter ) Sounds baffling? That's because it is. It is no more baffling than the reality that Filipinos undergo the same preventable disasters year in and year out with hard...

When you charm a snake make sure you don't turn your back to it. That's what happened to the Yellowtards. In supporting Carlos Celdran's "Damaso" stunt, they foolishly turned their back towards the beast they had gotten in bed with. The Roman Catholic Church, after all, makes friends only with those who toe the line. The "prayerful" branding of the Yellowtards was consistent with this line. Not Celdran's stunt, however. Even the nuns that pad the street rallies Yellowtards are famous for wouldn't have approved of a social media caricature disrupting a religious event. This is the whole trouble with using personalities as currency for one's advocacies, politics, and ideologies. Personalities are not stable. Principles usually are. Unfortunately Filipinos find using the latter as bases for their convictions as too difficult. Too much brain is needed for that.

Admit it. Mocha Uson went down the right path in her approach to promote "federalism" to Filipinos. Any more "intellectual" than " pepedederalismo " will have elicited bleeding noses amongst the broader public. Federalism, after all, is a broad and deep topic that demands precise language to discuss. This is not something that the ambiguous " dyan lang sa tabi-tabi " and " yung kuwan ilagay sa ano " nebulous nature of Filipinos' zone of comfort when it comes to articulating complex concepts can handle. Dumbing down messaging is par for the course in Philippine politics and Filipino voters have long been known to be responsive to messages crafted to appeal to simpletons. We have mainstream corporate media to thank for that. Anything that requires thinking does not sell, which is why dumbed-down content rules. The root of the problem that reared its ugly head in this latest outrage fad surrounding Mocha Uson won't be addr...

Revered Filipino "journalist" Karen Davila weighed in on the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the conviction of Carlos Celdran who was found guilty of “offending the religious feelings”... To the Supreme Court: How can @carlosceldran be penalized for Offending Religious Feelings when no less than the President has cursed the church? Celdran, however was charged for his offense, which, in due course through due process , led to his conviction. Furthermore, whilst Duterte made a statement about "God" in general, Celdran specifically targeted a religious occasion with the aim of disrupting it. Finally, the Supreme Court can only rule on something when charges are filed. So Davila is directing her lament at the wrong institution. She should, instead, direct it at the parties she presumes were "offended" by President Rodrigo Duterte's remarks. And those are the facts of the matter.

Reports are spotty, but it seems former House Representative Glenn Chong who attended a Senate hearing on election fraud was forcibly kept silent during the proceedings. According to various witness accounts, Senator Koko Pimentel who chaired the hearing consistently ignored Chong's attempts to take his turn to speak. It didn't help either that the Philippines' top mainstream media outlets provided very little coverage of this hearing -- perhaps because of the sensitivities involved in considering the partisan camp everyone knows the media to be really slanted towards. What media preferred to focus the spotlight on instead was the brouhaha surrounding the federalism promotion activities of Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson . One wonders then why Chong was invited as resource person for this hearing to begin with. This highlights yet another instance that goes to prove further why the Philippines' Commision on Elections (COMELEC) has never been reformed despite dec...

Nowadays, every other tweet coming from the Yellowtards is all about Mocha Uson; specifically on the topics of her involvement as promoter of the Federalism campaign of current Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Most of these tweets deride the style and content of Mocha Uson's messaging and have become an outrage fad amongst the chattering classes. This is as if it is surprising at all that Mocha Uson is promoting Federalism the way she is -- using sexual inuendo and slapstick humour. What is really remarkable is how the supposedly uppity " disente " crowd of Yellowtardom have been those that had responded the most to the Mocha Uson brand. The irony flies above their pointed heads: the Mocha Uson brand works . They should learn from the way that other genius of mass appeal branding -- Eat Bulaga -- remains a powerful media force after decades of existence. "Disente" is no match for basic style when it comes to appealing to the broad public base. The...

Cheating is a grave sin. And yet the Philippines' Roman Catholic Church remains silent on the biggest issue Filipinos need to wrap their heads around today -- the Great Electoral Fraud of 2016. Could it be because their allies, the Yellowtards, stand accused of cheating in these previous elections? Here we see the banal bias the Catholic Church applies with regard to its politics. Yellowtards currently presume to lead the wider Philippine Opposition which desperately needs to unite to beat the popular incumbent administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Its choice to front this leadership is "vice president" Leni Robredo who encapsulates the prayerful archetype favoured by the Church. The trouble is, the Robredo brand is stained by charges of electoral fraud in the 2016 election which brings to question her claim to the Office of the Vice President of the Philippines. The Church is therefore behaving predictably -- which is why its credibility as a ...

Rappler CEO Maria Ressa needs to be a bit more thoughtful with regard to who she cites as a source of "good" research. In dipping her fingers into the discussion surrounding the consistently fraudulent election management the Philippines' Commission on Elections (COMELEC) has provided to Filipino voters for decades, Ressa deferred the sophomoric work of Yellowtard blogger Jover Laurio . Writing for the premiere (and presumptuously-named) Yellowtard blog Pinoy Ako Blog , Laurio issues a " reply " to former House Representative Glenn Chong where she attempts to debunk Chong's assertions of COMELEC fraud by, get this, quoting the statements of the COMELEC itself on the matter! That's tantamount to a judge or jury using the testimony of a defendant as the sole basis for issuing a verdict favourable to said defendant! In his response to Laurio's lame attempt at "research" posted on Facebook , Chong had this to say... 8 taon na ak...

The quality of "leadership" over the Philippine Opposition exhibited by presumptive vice president Leni Robredo is an indication of the sort of leader she will likely be if she succeeds at her efforts to seize power. Even now despite being unilaterally canonized as a political saint by the Yellowtards, she remains a mere stereotypical caricature of Yellowtard-style "opposition". Her primary political song-and-dance remains stuck in 1980s vintage pandering to vicitm mentality and superstitious hocus-pocus. Imagine Leni Robredo as "president" of the Philippines. Que horror ! Not only will a nation of 100 million descend into chaos under Leni Robredo's watch, it will go hundreds of years back in time to an era of ignorants who worship wrathful gods and fear "evil" spirits. Robredo is not the leader Filipinos deserve. She is not the leader a true Philippine Opposition deserves.

According to Renato Reyes, leader of militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), the Philippine government should " respect " his comrades' "right" to refuse to comply to the law... Leaders of militant groups called on the government to respect the decision of former lawmakers who were charged with murder not to surrender as they claimed that the allegations against them were fabricated. It seems Reyes and his comrades are a bit confused about the way the law works. Firstly, citizens should respect the law. Where the state requires that one submit to procedure, one should respect that requirement and comply. Second, it is not Reyes's and his comrades' place to rule that allegations are "fabricated". That is for a court to decide as part of due process. These activists should take stock of their principles as, it seems, a misplaced sense of entitlement has made them inconsistent at many levels.

Leni Robredo's camp is making it look like the camp of archrival for the contested Vice President seat Bongbong Marcos is the one trying to influence the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET). The fact is, it is Robredo who is encouraging circumventing the original rules issued by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) which stipulated a 50 percent shading threshold for ballots used in the 2016 national elections. Robredo's strategy is to emotionally-blackmail the PET into agreeing to her plea. Her camp had been campaigning hard to get the PET to recognise an obscure change in the threshold rule that reduces the threshold to 25 percent. For his part, Marcos had been satisfied with the rule that applied at the time votes were being cast in May 2016. Indeed, the COMELEC itself had, in the lead up to those elections, implemented an information campaign to remind Filipino voters to fully-shade the circles corresponding to their chosen candidates on their ballots. The camp of...

Presumptive "vice president" Leni Robredo reportedly asked this question in a speech she delivered on the occassion of the awarding of the 2018 Liberal International Prize for Freedom to Leila De Lima who is in prison on charges of drug trafficking. Lamenting what she thinks is a problem in Philippine society created by the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Robredo calls on all Filipinos... "Let us focus on asking ourselves more deeply: How could we allow these injustices to happen, and when do we begin holding people accountable for their actions?" she said. That is a question Filipinos, indeed, should ask themselves. But it should be asked in the context of the bigger picture that spans multiple Philippine governments. Many injustices have gone unpunished and, worse, unexamined. The blatant hypocrisy in the Philippine Opposition led by the Yellowtards (which Robredo presumes to lead) is in suggesting that the Duterte government i...

The push for use of Tagalog at the expense of English proficiency has been one of the most DAMAGING initiatives to Filipino global competitiveness. Proficiency in Tagalog -- into which untold billions of pesos in public education funds had been poured -- has no proven benefit to Filipinos in terms of increasing employability and marketability. The probability of finding an ad for a top-money job stating that "Tagalog proficiency will be highly-regarded" is practically NIL. "You'll go places and achieve great career heights thanks to your exquisite Tagalog" -- said NO career coach EVER. The Tagalog dialect reflects the profound character of its native speakers. Oh and by by the way, there is no Tagalog word for "efficiency". A country that prides itself in being the "call centre capital" of the world undermines that source of pride by encouraging its people to speak in sub-standard English. English and other languages spoken ...

This year's State of the Nation Address (SONA) and the side-stories that ran parallel with it proved that the Philippine Opposition under the leadership of the Yellowtards are not on top of their game. They were caught completely flat-footed after focusing their ill-thought-out preparations on anticipating an expletive-peppered speech, being prepared to spot "evidence" of moves towards authoritarianism, and propping up obsolete Cold War era sloganeering. The clique of Yellowtards, in essence, was an old dog doing its tired old street parliamentarianism tricks. All the while real parliamentarianism was going on behind closed doors in air-conditioned offices within the framework of the law and due process. Alarmist tweets based on hasty conclusions dominates Yellowtard chatter. Rather than focus their "opposition" on real issues, the Yellowtards quibbled over personalities and conspiracy theories. Theirs is not the real and modern Opposition Filipino...

Filipinos beholdenness to their Constitution and the amount of chatter a proposal to change it is generating speaks volumes about the inherent nature of their society -- one that routinely externalises the causes of their issues and, as a result, habitually seeks external and even divine intervention in the implementation of solutions to these. The Constitution may be the guiding document of how a society is governed. But, ultimately, responsibility for personal prosperity rests in the individual. This individual ethic to take initiative and progress one's lot is the backbone of a society's collective character. When Filipinos see their fortunes disproportionately tied to an abstract piece of paper they are told is their "Constitution", it is evidence of a lack of an essential aspect of personal character of the sort that makes a great people.

The way certain "analysts" of Philippine politics make it sound like "charter change" and the shift to federalism supposedly being this administration's "end game", it is as if machinations like theae are unique to the government of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. One need look too far back and take stock what the government of Duterte's predecessor, former President Benigno Simeon 'BS' Aquino III was really all about -- none other than the securing of the family jewels -- Hacienda Luisita -- from the clutches of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). The point is, all administrations have agendas and "end games". The only way to have one's agendas win over another is to play democracy better than the enemy . More often than not, that just simply involves winning more elections than the other. The trouble with the Yellowtards is that they were so busy quibbling over spelling errors, jetskis, Malacan...

Filipinos are torn. Manny Pacquiao proved once more today that he is the Philippines' greatest athlete of all time. But many Filipinos are not happy, because Pacquaio is also a Philippine Senator who, they scornfully note, became one on the back of the popularity he acquired because of his boxing achievements. What's wrong with winning an election on the back of popularity gained in a different field? Many showbiz personalities, after all, have come before Pacquiao and capitalised on their own huge fan bases to win elections. The system Filipinos chose to govern themselves by allows it. They signed up to this. What these "activists" who now gnash their teeth in confusion over how to come to terms with the recent Pacquiao win that is being celebrated by millions of Filipinos need to do is step back and ask a more fundamental question: Why do Filipinos vote the way they do? Until that question is confronted head on and the obvious answer to it fully-embraced, t...