On Dec. 13, on its last session day before the holiday break, the 17th Congress of the Philippines, dominated by the “super-majorities” of President Duterte’s political allies, took two controversial actions both of which will have negative impacts on the lives of the Filipino people, particularly the vast number of the poor and marginalized. The…
By signing Proclamation No. 374 last Dec. 5, President Duterte has formally declared the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army as a “designated/identified terrorist organization” under RA No. 10168, or the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012. Legally speaking, however, the 49-year-old revolutionary organization which has engaged the government in a protracted…
Today up to Nov. 27, the fifth round of formal negotiations in the GRP-NDFP peace talks had been scheduled to take place in Oslo, Norway. The two sides had been all set to tackle a three-point agenda hammered out in a series of discreet back-channel discussions in September and October. And by December, agreements on…
Observing its 50th year of existence, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) edged slightly onward on a raft of previously agreed plans, blueprints, treaties, and consensual agreements, cited in 144 items of the Chairman’s Statement, at the end of its 31st Summit held in Manila on Nov. 13-14. As official host, President Duterte presided…
“Let me state it publicly here and now, wala akong problema sa America (I have no problem with America)… We remain to be the best of friends with America.” That’s what President Duterte said a day before flying to Vietnam Wednesday for his first face-to-face diplomatic engagement with US President Donald Trump at the Asia-Pacific…
For ten days (Oct. 16-25) peasants from Mindanao, Visayas, and Luzon motored, sailed, and trekked to the National Capital Region in what they called “Pambansang Lakbayan ng Magsasaka para sa Lupa at Laban sa Pasismo.” Having camped outside the gate of the Department of Agrarian Reform (as they had annually done for many years), they…
The late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos was touted to be a brilliant lawyer. Rodrigo R. Duterte, who idolizes the tyrant, prides himself on having been a prosecutor. But as the country’s presidents, each in his own time, both made erroneous public pronouncements about rebellion as a political offense. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is no lawyer. As…
Apparently stung by the steep drops in his satisfaction and trust ratings, as shown by the latest Social Weather Stations survey, President Duterte has taken a one-step backward in his widely criticized and condemned bloody anti-illegal drug campaign, led by the Philippine National Police. He had earlier expressed his concern about preserving his credibility to…
Sensing that his ground base of support has been softening, President Duterte is conjuring a specter of conspiracy to oust him from power. Growing more bilious and truculent towards those whom he accuses of scheming to besmirch him with allegations of corruption, or who staunchly stand up to his blusterings and accusations, he is getting…
The recently concluded (September 18-26) “low-key” US-Philippine joint military exercise, dubbed “Tempest Wind,” signals three interrelated foreboding situations: First, – after so much presidential anti-US blustering and threat to cut off relations and chart an “independent foreign policy” – it has brought the Duterte government complicitly in closer security/defense alliance with American imperialism under a…
“Never again to martial law!” was the emphatic, defiant cry that resounded in all of the protest actions held nationwide last Thursday (Sept. 21), the 45th year of Ferdinand E. Marcos’ martial law declaration that ran for 14 years. Although the same cry has been echoed in each of the previous years’ protest actions, it…