The last failure of the economic elite–and their surrogates in the media and civil society– was the one involving Mrs. Arroyo. They wanted her out of power right after the 2004 elections through means fair or foul, and preferably via the Nicaraguan version of crippling the capital with massive protest actions. There were constraints, though….
DAVAO City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte may have had the most challenging week of his campaign, just a week before the all-important presidential election in the Philippines, following allegations made by VP candidate Sen. Antonio Trillanes. Trillanes alleged that the Philippine presidential front-runner has multiple bank accounts with millions of pesos not declared in his Statement…
THESE last few days leading up to May 9—the Philippine national elections—are critical. This moment is intense as aspiring leaders are rushing to mount campaigns that will boost in public support, which in turn, they hope will manifest in actual votes. For Filipino voters, this moment is a chance for them to relish the power…
The surveys FOR the most prudent of reasons, I have never accepted as gospel truth the claims of the paid propaganda surveys on the alleged standing of our national candidates. You don’t have to, either. I have a profound respect for scientific polling, but not for polls by fraudsters who make a killing every election…
THERE are less than nine days left before you either go to a Philippine Consulate/Embassy, or mail your absentee voter’s ballot to cast your vote on the next president, vice president, senators, and other elected officials of the Philippines. Have you made up your mind on the candidates to vote for? If you are still…
Last week, Dr. Colin Sprigg, Director of Information and Technology in the ABC Unified School District and I strategized ways to respond to the new social media app called Ogle. We learned that ABC Unified School District along with schools from throughout California, faced a new problem caused by Ogle which targets high school and…
It seems so, or the Social Weather Station’s collation of data has fallen under the control of Manuel Roxas and Leni Robredo’s operatives, so that in the past two surveys their voter-preference ratings have inexplicably surged, while those of Vice President Jejomar Binay and Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. have fallen. This could be done because of…
I FINALLY filed my application to be naturalized as an American. It only took me over 20 years… My first trip to America was with my mom and two siblings in 1981. I was 15 years old and had just graduated from high school. The trip was supposed to be a month-long vacation to see…
FOLLOWING the last presidential debate hosted by ABS-CBN, The Filipino Channel’s daily newscast “Balitang America” asked its viewers: “If the elections were held today, would you vote for to be the next president of the Philippines?” The result of the April 25 online poll revealed Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte still topping the field of…
IN honor of Earth Day last Friday, April 22, international political, business and civil society leaders from 175 countries gathered at the United National Headquarters in New York for the historic signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, a global initiative to ensure a sustainable future for billions of people around the world through climate action….
WE have been urging Filipinos in America and elsewhere around the world to cast their votes and make their voices heard in deciding who will be the next president, vice president and other elected officials in the Philippines. But recent news about hacking, fraud, cheating, and voting machine problems surely douse water on the fire…
That conclusion is based on statistics on human rights abuses during the Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino regimes, presented in Richard Kessler’s book Rebellion and Repression in the Philippines (1989: Yale University). Ironically, Kessler’s statistics have been the basis of historian Alfred McCoy’s repeated claims that the human rights abuses during the Marcos regime were…
THE way the spate of public opinion polls on the forthcoming elections have been tarred and feathered in mainstream and social media should alarm the research companies that have been conducting them with greater frequency as May 9 approaches. The question now being frequently asked by opinion makers is, “Does anybody still believe in the…
KUDOS to Fil-Am community leader Loida Nicolas Lewis for calling out the Philippine Commission on Elections (Comelec) over a resolution that she says is a violation of the Fil-Ams and other overseas voters’ right to freedom of speech, expression, and even assembly. Lewis, who is a staunch supporter of the Roxas-Robredo team for president and…
SINCE freeing itself from an authoritarian rule three decades ago, the Philippines has enjoyed the restoration of democracy and freedom. However, human rights issues remain prevalent in the country, challenging the commitment of the government and its people to have a collective resolve to uphold human dignity. On Wednesday, April 13, US Secretary of State…
After the televised vice presidential debate in the Philippines, The Filipino Channel’s daily newscast “Balitang America” asked its viewers in an online poll: “If the elections were held today, whom would you vote for to be the Philippines’ next vice president”? The son of the deposed dictator, Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, came out on top…
Deeply concerned about the developments in the Grace Poe Llamanzares case, highly reputable Malacañang sources have revealed that a private meeting between President B. S. Aquino 3rd and Mrs. Llamanzares a week before the Supreme Court met in Baguio City on April 5 had paved the way for the pro “Poe-quino” Justices to declare the…
I can’t help comparing the clash of farmer-activists and PNP and government authorities in Kidapawan, North Cotabato with the oft-told anecdote about the three priests, a Dominican, a Franciscan and a Jesuit (actually, the roles and the priestly orders vary, depending on who is telling the story). At any rate, the three were meeting in…
YOU care about the Philippines. You want the next president and vice-president to really lead the nation toward progress, peace, order. You want to see more employment opportunities in the Philippines so you can come home and settle down in the Motherland for good, or have a loved one come back and never have to…
EVEN the temptation of a possible rematch—and vengeance—against Floyd Mayweather Jr. will not stop Manny Pacquiao from stepping into retirement, in boxing at least. Ending his illustrious boxing career on a high note, Pacquiao emerged victorious in his last fight—winning via a unanimous decision against a formidable opponent in Timothy Bradley at the MGM Grand…
THIS Saturday, April 9, could be the last time we will be seeing and cheering for Manny Pacquiao fighting for the belt in the boxing ring. As his camp announced, the Philippines’ Pambansang Kamao is expected to hang up the gloves so he could concentrate on serving the Filipino people as senator, and probably as…
WITH over 1.8 million Filipino overseas absentee voters across the world, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) strongly believes that these Filipinos will play a major role in influencing the results of the Philippine national elections in May. Republic Act No. 9189, also known as “The Overseas Absentee Voting Act of 2003,” provides a system of…
And I won’t even discuss her lies regarding the point in her life when she stopped being a US citizen, and when she established this country as her domicile, as my colleague Kit Tatad has already compressively written about that. What is scandalous in Grace Poe-Llamanzares’ high ratings in voter-preferential polls is that those who…
On March 16, President Obama did his constitutional duty by nominating DC Circuit Court Chief Judge Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. Now, it is the Senate’s turn. It is time for Senate Republicans to do their duty under the Constitution and give Judge Garland a fair hearing and a timely vote. The Constitution does not…
FOLLOWING the March 22 bombings in Brussels, Belgium, spokesmen of the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines immediately issued official statements to the effect that there were “no validated terrorist threats in Metro Manila.” One of the major dailies promptly ran the headline, “No terror threats in Metro, says PNP,” and…
HILLARY CLINTON and DONALD TRUMP—they are the front-runners in the Democratic and Republican races, respectively. But the voters in Wisconsin delivered a divergent verdict in their primary elections last Tuesday, April 5, favoring Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Let us discuss how crucial the Wisconsin primary may be as each party…
DESPITE a stern warning by China, this year’s anticipated Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) military exercises among 9,000 American and Filipino forces, pushed through. The Balikatan exercises, which began this week, will feature war exercises, naval drills and humanitarian activities. “A big country with vital interests in Asia, the United States should first clarify the targets of its…
THE race to the second-highest post in government is a must-follow in Philippine politics. Unlike in the United States where the president and his/her vice presidential pick are elected as a team and from the same party, Filipino voters pick their choices for president and vice president, independently from one another. This is why the…
DESPITE the generally slow Internet connection and only half of its population having access to the World Wide Web, the Philippines has been tagged as a social media haven by digital experts. Filipinos are adoptive to new technologies. According to a survey by Wave 7, Filipinos are the most social people online. The poll found…
Since 2014 Bataan Legacy Historical Society (BLHS) has been working with the California Department of Education’s Instructional Quality Commission (IQC) to implement AB199, a legislation passed in 2011 (Sponsored by Ma and Yee) by the California Assembly and signed by Gov. Jerry Brown which encourages for the inclusion of the role of the Filipinos during…
