The “independent foreign policy” that President Rodrigo Duterte said he wants to adopt for the Philippines has for some reason been interpreted as either a policy of isolationor autarky in the sense of non-involvement with the rest of the world and a denial of the interdependence of nations, or as a total break with the…
Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippine government’s Official Gazette’s social media post finally said in its third revision of the caption accompanying the late dictator’s Sept. 11 birthday photo, was “the longest serving President of the country for almost 21 years.” After receiving a deluge of criticism for what many netizens saw as an attempt at…
United States President Barack Obama is correct: the illegal drug problem is serious enough to merit the best efforts of governments everywhere to solve it. But those efforts must conform with human rights standards and due process, which are mandated in both the US and the Philippines by international as well as national laws. The…
The Duterte administration could succeed where others have failed in ending the longest-running guerilla war in Asia. But it has launched another war whose outcome is likely to be even more uncertain unless the problem it wants to address is also recognized as a consequence of the social and economic infirmities of a country in…
Rodrigo Duterte the candidate promised change across a wide spectrum of Philippine life and governance during the 2016 campaign for the presidency of the Republic. He vowed an end to the drug problem and to crime within three to six months once he assumes the presidency. Together with the elimination of red tape in government…
The Duterte administration’s campaign against the illegal drug trade and drug abuse apparently assumes that the government can purge the country of its drug problem by killing small-time suspected drug pushers and even users. President Rodrigo Duterte himself after all told us during his first State of the Nation Address (SoNA) that the biggest drug…
With only a few exceptions, the corporate media are failing to provide the citizenry the information it needs to understand what’s going on as the five-week-old Duterte administration pursues an aggressive agenda of governance. While supposedly focused on bringing about the changes this country needs, that agenda is turning into a challenge to the press…
President Rodrigo Duterte’s dramatic declaration of a unilateral cease-fire vis-a-vis the CPP-NPA-NDFP to usher in the peace talks slated to resume on August 20 was, for all intents and purposes, one of the high points of his one-and-a-half-hour-long State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 25. He said it was to be effective immediately.…
President Rodrigo Duterte’s first State of the Nation Address (SONA) was at various times challenging, funny, and puzzling. Particularly problematic, however, were his statements on human rights, the drug problem, and even the media. As has become evident since Day One of his administration, Duterte continues to exasperate through a number of statements as well…
In 1986 the Republic of Nicaragua filed a complaint against the United States before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ ruled that the US violated international law by supporting the Contras mercenaries trained and funded by the US, in its attempts to overthrow the Sandinista government which had gained power in that country…
The series of killings of individuals who were supposedly trading in illegal drugs or who were drug users (we have only the Philippine National Police’s word for it) has “extrajudicial” written all over it in the sense of these killings’ being planned and deliberate. Since Day One it has been more than obvious that the…