MANILA Philippine President Benigno Aquino’s “business-not-as-usual” stance is discombobulating many of us here, especially those who had become so used to the transactional style of doing business before. As a consequence, there is a lot of resistance. PNoy (the President’s media nickname) came on the scene with a gang-busters attitude. Armed with an overwhelming electoral mandate from the… Read More »
President Benigno Aquino III has had it with Chief Justice Renato Corona. He sees the magistrate as a stumbling block to his program of reforms. Last Dec. 12 Aquino’s allies in the House of Representatives impeached Corona. It was bound to happen. Corona is a close ally of former leader Gloria Arroyo. He had served her as chief… Read More »
If we are to believe Gloria Arroyo’s mouthpieces, someone is out to kill their employer. Recently, Mrs. Arroyo’s all-purpose spokeswoman, who goes by the name of Elena Bautista-Horn, urgently called in the press to announce that, yes, there’s a plot to do her boss in. The plan is supposedly called “Put the Little Girl to Sleep.” The Horn… Read More »
MANILA High tension and higher drama gripped the Philippines on the week of Nov. 13-19 as two opposing political sides raced to outwit each other in the continuing saga of one Gloria Arroyo. Mrs. Arroyo has been treading burning coals since leaving office in July 2010 as her successor, President Benigno Aquino III, goes after her for crimes… Read More »
The decades-old armed conflict in the large southern island of Mindanao reared its head again when an army patrol was ambushed there recently, resulting in the death of 19 soldiers. Some of the soldiers were tortured first and then beheaded or dismembered. Immediately, howls of outrage rang in this capital and elsewhere, demanding retaliation by the government. Hotheads… Read More »
MANILA Will former President Gloria Arroyo be spending Christmas in jail? It’s a possibility. Some six legal cases have been lodged against Arroyo since leaving office end-June 2010. Most of them are for plunder which, legally defined, is the theft of the people’s money worth at least P50 million while in office. I had visualized when Arroyo was… Read More »
MANILA The Philippines has been in the global news lately because of the exposes on the plunder and corruption wrought by the past administration of Gloria Arroyo. Recent news has cast us as a nation of thieves and cheats who take every opportunity to grab a quick buck at the expense of the public treasury. The exposes point… Read More »
MANILA From the start of President Benigno Aquino’s administration, certain groups have been trying to undermine his hold on power. Let’s have a look at who they are. First is the political opposition, which is directly allied with former President Gloria Arroyo. It’s a given that the political opposition would attempt to weaken any incumbent leader. But this… Read More »
MANILA Corruption in the past government appears to have been so rampant it makes one sick just thinking about it. Recent exposes about stealing the people’s money, crooked deals involving public funds, and plain abuse of power are so sickening in the stomach it’s hard to believe that such crookedness really took place. But it seems it’s true.… Read More »
The news here continues to swirl around Gloria Arroyo, her husband and sundry family members. If all the latest allegations against the Arroyos are true, this family’s transgressions against the Filipino people are second only to Ferdinand Marcos’s depredations during the martial-law period in the 1970s-80s. But let’s forget about the Arroyos for now. After all, there’s been… Read More »