GRPundit

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...

Poor Yellowtards. They are in a conundrum following the victory of boxing champion and Philippine Senator Manny Pacquiao over Argentina's Lucas Matthysse in today's championship bout for the WBA welterweight title. Yellowtards are torn between doing the Filipino thing congratulating Pacquiao and their aversion to his person because of his poltical loyalties and conservative views on human sexuality. The latter is particularly interesting when one considers how many Yellowtards are "prayerful" devout Catholics who, according to the dogma of their chosen religion, are also obliged to toe the Catholic line and refrain from any show of tolerancy for homosexuality. This is a key underlying reason why the Yellowtards are failing in a world made more transparent by social media. Inconsistency is more easily called out and one's hypocrisy more easily made evident.

Once federalism is in place in the Philippines then secession becomes a promising prospect amongst people within each of the autonomous states. That’s where things become even more interesting — and exciting . Minds should be open to the possibility that, perhaps, the Philippines may eventually dissolve and cease to be a "united" island nation over the next 10 to 20 years. The Philippines, after all, is a nation by mere colonial edict -- an artificial country composed of kingdoms, tribes, and communities united by force and not much else. Indeed, the much-vaunted individual "success stories" of Filipinos overseas highlight the fact that Filipinos achieve more apart than together. Perhaps it is time "Filipinos" confront the reality of who they are -- a people who collectively represent nothing of substance. Perhaps this sad reality could still be changed by considering a different trajectory for a people long imprisoned by a quaint legacy of Span...

I'm confused. Seeing that there are so many foreign "journalists", commentators, celebrities, and "rapporteurs" being celebrated for airing their views about the Philippine government under President Rodrigo Duterte, I wonder what it is exactly this bozo is calling for ... Paalala sa isang blogger, kung citizen ka sa isang bansa sa Europa, wala kang karapatang makisali sa politika sa Pilipinas at lalong hindi ka dapat nakikigulo sa Philippine media. Nakikibaka ako dahil Filipino citizen at leche, magbabayad na naman ako ng property at income taxes. Translated to the language of champions: "Reminder to a certain blogger: If you are a citizen of a European country, you don't have the right to comment on Philippine politics and, more importantly, you should not be getting involved with the Philippine media. I am concerned because I am a Filipino citizen who pays taxes." Perhaps we should seek comment about this from those who also cheered wh...

To win an election, you need to get the most number of votes. This means not just mobilising your following, but converting the undecided. The trouble with Leni Robredo being "leader" of the Philippine Opposition is that her followers are beholden to a cult of personality and not any sort of coherent set of ideas or ideology Robredo represents. Personality loyalties are hard to break in the Philippines. This reality is in plain sight in the way even the most criminal of oligarchs continue to win elections term in and term out. As such, while Robredo has endeared herself to a small clique of diehard Yellowtards, she has come across as a joke to the broader swathe of Filipinos looking for real change and real reform. The leader the Opposition needs is someone who could rally Filipinos around a compelling vision and not just rally a small choir around an obsolete ideological relic. Leni Robredo is not that person. No matter how much the Yellowtards try to come across as n...

You can see the sort of President "vice president" Leni Robredo would likely be if ever she found herself warming the seat of the highest office in the Philippine government. Finally speaking out on the matter of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte calling her unfit to be president, this is all Robredo had to say... Ayoko na sana i dignify pero siguro sabihin ko nalang na imbes na insultuhin ako o ang Diyos, asikasuhin nalang muna ang mga problema ng ating ekonomiya Translated to the language of champions:  " I prefer not to dignify this but I guess I will, instead, say that rather than insult me or God, [Duterte should] first focus on the problems of our economy ..." Firstly, being called "incompetent" is not an insult. It is a statement of an assessment of one's ability to fulfill a role. Second, a truly strong leader will not take being called "incompetent" sitting down. Indeed, Filipino macho culture looks up to people who pu...

Imagine for one moment a president like Leni Robredo. Just that simple thought experiment will result in you nodding in agreement with what Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte had stated ... I will not resign because it will make her president. My resignation is for the people, para makapili sila ng gusto nila. I don't think she will be ready to govern a country. Reason? Incompetence. She is not capable of running a country like the PH. During the campaign leading to the 2016 elections, Robredo's supporters chanted "Leni is my VP". Evidently they didn't make that vital logical link to the fact that the vice president is just a heartbeat away from the presidency. The VP is not just a VP. He or she is a potential president. Under a Robredo presidency, the halls of Malacanang would echo with the words " Ang sa akin lang naman ". This is a phrase Robredo prefixes just about every statement she makes with. It loosely translates to "in my humb...

Filipinos will never be able to compete globally until they apply a more realistic regard for their "national" dialect. For one thing Tagalog was originally spoken by a certain river-dwelling tribe that happened to be situated where the Philippines' biggest and most important city bubbled up. As a result their dialect became the de facto lingua franca of a nation cobbled together by colonial edict. The trouble with Tagalog, however, is that only Filipinos speak it. And it is mainly out of habit and necessity. Beyond Filipinos, Tagalog finds no place in any transaction or endeavour of global consequence. Certainly the vast store of world-claas knowledge vital for the Philippines to develop an ability to compete on the world stage is articulated in languages native to societies with strong traditions of achievement in science, technology, business, and governance. It is, indeed, high time that Tagalog be junked and English be taken up as the language of choice for t...

The way Netizens are once again in the middle of another one of their shrill outrage fad "activist" campaigns against the latest bogeyman mirrors the same collective frustration and feeling of helplessness that fuels the shameful and pointless brawls that have come to characterise Philippine basketball. Sure, the Inquirer caved to the request of Senate President Tito Sotto to remove articles about his involvement in the Pepsi Paloma rape case of the 1980s. But there is something to be said about these Netizens seeing their "heroic" journalists as the only bastion of "resistance" to so-called "bullying". In case these shrill "activists" hadn't  noticed, the successful takedown of Rodel Rodis's piece on Paloma is just the finishing touch on a shrewd burying of this case over the last several decades. The "battle" these bozos are talking about was not lost today. It was lost more than 30 years ago. The case was d...