Did Ninoy Die in Vain?
We took on Marcos, with his martial law, his dictatorship, his human rights violations, his cronies. We kicked them all out – and took our country back.
“Never again”, we swore.
Bravo, BRAVO Philippines! A Light in a News Blackout
Why is there a news blackout on Speaker Martin Romualdez’ involvement in the Okada case? It was filed in the US and featured in Bloomberg and Japan Times. Yet nothing in major Philippine print and broadcast media!
2nd Quarter GDP Estimates:What Do They Mean?
Real GDP growth rate for the 2nd Quarter 2023 has been estimated at 4.3% by the Philippine Statistics Authority. .This is much lower than anyone’s expectations.
Still Out of the ICC: Is National Interest Involved?
President BBM recently declared on August 1 that the Philippines would not rejoin the ICC. No cogent reasons regarding national interest were given — the “we will lose our sovereignty” argument is neither cogent nor accurate as seen below. Note that he, as a Senator in 2011, concurred with the ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC.
SONA 2023: How To Judge PBBM By His Own Standards
Question: If judging BBM on the country’s economic growth versus the ASEAN 5 opens a can of worms, then how should he be judged?
The Frasco Fiasco: Love the Philippines
Actually, Reader, I have not seen a single news report that even hints at the possibility of the accountability of Frasco in the fiasco. So much so that I was forcibly reminded of the SWS survey that found that 47% of adult Filipinos agree that “it is dangerous to print or broadcast anything critical of the administration, even if it is the truth,” while only 26 percent disagreed with the statement and 27 percent were undecided, based on the poll conducted from Dec. 10 to Dec. 14, 2022. So I don’t know where the demolition or the smear campaign that her Cebu supporters are talking about is coming from.
More Fuel to the Fire: The Supreme Court
Politics has reared its ugly head in the JBC, because, as an example, in the Duterte presidency, the short list of candidates presented to him seemed to very often have a San Bedan (his alma mater). The study shows that 40% of his appointees were Bedans, whereas the average for all the other presidents was only 10%.
What They Don’t Tell You -4
The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law Index 2022 is the basis of Inconvenient Truth #8: The Philippines has the lowest score, and the lowest rank, among the ASEAN-5 as far as the Rule of Law is concerned. What is so galling is that eight years ago, in 2015, the Philippines had a score (0.53) higher than everyone else, except Malaysia (0.57). As you can see, Reader, the Duterte administration really brought down the Philippines Rule of Law score and ranking – from 0.53 to 0.47, and from 51 out of 102 to 97th out of 140. . One would have hoped that the BBM would see those scores and ranks going up, but judging from what is happening in the de Lima case and what happened in the Remulla fils case, that gleam of hope is fading. In the Philippines, the rule by law still reigns supreme.
What They Don’t Tell You – 3
Weep, Reader, for the blighted future of our country’s current crop of 10-year-olds, with only one in ten of able to read and understand what she is reading.
What They Don’t Tell You -2
Much has been made about the Philippine’s income inequality decreasing from 0.46 in 1997 to 0.41 in 2021. But this pales in comparison to Malaysia and Thailand’s performance: Malaysia from 0.49 to 0.39, and Indonesia from 0.48 to 0.34.
What these all suggest is that the quantity of economic growth experienced by the rest of Asean-5 was not only much larger, but also the developmental quality of that growth was better – more equally distributed.