Quo vadis, Donald J. Trump?

For four years, we saw the meteoric rise of Donald J. Trump from a reality show producer to the President of the United States. That’s a quantum leap from an obscure position in the TV industry to the highest political position in the world – the leader of the Free World! How did he manage to achieve that? By sheer… Read More »

Will Covid-19 end Trump’s presidential run?

The news came in at 9:00 PM on October 1, 2020. “President Donald Trump tweets he Melania test positive for Covid-19.” It was the most shocking news since Trump won the presidency in 2016. It’s a staggering blow to Trump’s reelection campaign. With 32 days left to Election Day, 14 days of which will keep Trump in quarantine, that would leave… Read More »

Red Mirage takes center stage on election night

What if President Donald Trump wins on November 3 based on 15% of the vote by mail ballots that had been counted? According to FiveThirtyEight, this could give Trump a projected lead of 408-130 electoral votes on election night. But once 75% of mail ballots are counted, four days later, the lead could flip to Joe Biden’s favor. This particular modeling… Read More »

Is America’s democracy dying?

On September 23, 2020, President Donald Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election to Joe Biden? His response was “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know that I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots, and the ballots are a disaster.” What he said next… Read More »

Duterte’s RevGov vs. Leni Robredo

Every time President Rodrigo Duterte has some health problem, all his political allies get nervous.  At his age, 75 years old, he suffers from a multitude of health issues, including an autoimmune disease that can potentially have serious complications.  He revealed the condition, myasthenia gravis, while he was visiting in Moscow in October 2019.  The condition causes muscle… Read More »

Russia-China rivalry in U.S. election

While it was obvious that Russian President Vladimir Putin is openly supporting President Donald Trump in his re-election campaign, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s support for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is not evident, which is typical of China’s secretive ways. With the U.S. presidential election just 80 days away, the outcome of the election would determine the geopolitical… Read More »

Trump’s voter suppression strategy

Last July 30, two bombshells were dropped in Washington DC.  The first was the announcement that the U.S. economy shrunk at an annualized rate of 32.9% in the second quarter, the biggest decline since1947. On a non-annualized basis, GDP shrunk roughly 9.5% between the first and second quarters of 2020.  The economy saw its worst quarter in at… Read More »

Why is Duterte worried about going to war with China?

During President Rodrigo Duterte’s last State of the Union Address (SONA) on July 27, 2020, he told Congress that he had no power to enforce the Philippines’ ownership of territories claimed by China in the South China Sea.  That was just two weeks after his foreign and defense secretaries backed the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s position… Read More »

Bridging the generation gap

Recently, I read an article by my good friend Peter Jamero who was featured in the Positively Filipino magazine under his byline. Peter’s column was titled, “Racism: Reflections of a bridge generation Filipino-American.”  I was touched by Peter’s article.  Being born in 1930 during the Great Depression speaks volumes of how his family managed to survive the discrimination… Read More »

Why China wants Fuga Island badly?

Strategically located between Taiwan and the northern Philippines, Fuga Island in the Babuyan archipelago in the Luzon Strait provides an important role in preventing China from entering the gateway to Western Pacific and beyond.  It’s a known fact that whoever is in control of the Luzon Strait could easily establish military superiority over the vast Pacific Ocean. Last… Read More »