Archive - Commentary

It seems too easy for the camp of presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. to accuse multiaward-winning broadcast journalist Jessica Soho of being "biased against the Marcoses." Many surmise that this is because Soho is known to ask tough questions begging to be answered.

​ If you’ve been following the political developments in the United States since 2016 - or even longer before that - then the latest tugs of war between Donald Trump and the Biden Administration should be keeping you riveted.

Actor Robin Padilla assails political dynasties, yet he endorsed the candidacies of the Duterte children.

When one aspires to be president of the country, it is correct to assume that one must submit one’s self to public scrutiny. A presidential candidate is fair game and running for chief executive must be treated as a job interview before the sovereign people.

When the first Ferdinand Marcos was ousted from power almost a month short of forty years today, the Philippines could have been plunged into civil war.

So many things were not quite right in the Manila Bulletin news report about the alleged hacking of the Commission on Election (Comelec) website.

Our collective attention is being called by the blogger who goes by the Twitter handle of Miyako Izabel (“writer and independent publisher, political blogger and social media activist, existentialist and public anthropologist, Filipino and citizen of the world”).

The runaway winner in the surveys for preferred presidential candidates in the May elections has become the butt of jokes in the past few days because of his absence in last Friday's preliminary conference on a disqualification case against him at the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

​ Latest election surveys showed that if elections were held today, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. would be the 17th president of the Republic of the Philippines.

I am told, over and over, that one of the reasons why Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr is so high up in the polls is because millions of Filipinos have been made to believe in the “Marcos gold”.

As the second year of COVID-19 comes to a close, we Filipinos are learning to accept the reality that there is more than just death and taxes that are inevitable in life. In the Philippines, at least.

You’ll be astounded by the staggering numbers when you Google the number of TikTok accounts the Marcoses and their supporters have. Even more confounding is the exponential capacity of those accounts to share posts.

When I pick up a political conversation with the Omicron Generation and talk turns to Marcos and Martial Law, I either end up answering questions about how it was during the ML years or end up as if I were talking to a blank wall.

With six petitions filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to thwart his presidential bid in 2022, former senator Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has yet to speak up and clear his name of the allegations against him. He has been leaving the talking to his spokesperson and his adoptive political party, the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP).

“If I will be their chosen one, thank you in advance.”

Even in a small village, some candidates resort to underhanded tactics to get votes. It's good, however, that more people are coming out to expose the attempts to deceive voters and manipulate the election results.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, if the most rabid DDS is to be believed, is perhaps the greatest world leader that mankind has ever produced.

How long has Jefry Tupas been associated with Revsan Ethelbert Elizalde, that one who acts as Sara Duterte’s gatekeeper and primary apologist would motor all the way to Mabini, Davao de Oro, a good 94 kilometers from Davao city, for Elizalde’s drug-cocktailed birthday festivity?

The political circus in the past few days, involving President Rodrigo Duterte's family and their allies, showed how selfish interests obscure whatever good intentions they may have in seeking public office and how low they regard voters.

From his age to the zillions of assets that his family owns, Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. has been accused of lying; more so now that he is running for president.

Eleven days to go and then we’d know the real score: will Mayor Sara run for president or vice president or mayor?

Magnanakaw! Mandaraya! Sinungaling!! Mamamatay-tao! What else have you heard said about the politician you love to hate? All of the above, and more - and if you’ve lived long enough like me, you will surely have a long list of epithets that you hear over and over again, every three years or so, part of what makes our electoral process so colorful.

Last minute switching of political color and affiliation in the first week of October made it more obvious that political parties and ideologies have become of little consequence in Philippine elections.

Of all the declared candidates for President - as of this writing at least - I am most interested on two - Vice President Leni Robredo, and Manila Mayor Francisco Domagoso.