Watching the unfolding drama around the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) flood-control projects, many can’t help but feel that Secretary Vince Dizon and his team have forgotten the fundamental truth about what a real boss is.
In the scramble to respond to allegations of anomalies, what we’ve witnessed isn’t leadership. It is political self-preservation, where the people the boss is supposed to lead become expendable pawns.
The recent uproar surrounding DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla and his role in the unfolding drama regarding former President Rodrigo Duterte's “kidnap” to The Hague, Netherlands begs our paramount concern.
The way the situation is shaping up, it’s tough to see how Remulla can maintain any shred of credibility after the hilarious statement he made regarding the "rescue" of a kidnapped Chinese student—and then, well, it turned out to be quite the opposite.
It makes many Filipinos wonder if he has played a much larger role in a questionable political game.
There seem to be more juicy bits beyond Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla's revelations during recent media interviews.
It was explosive enough to say that the Office of the President chartered the silver Gulfstream jet with tail number RP-C5219 to transport former president Rodrigo Roas Duterte to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.
This came a few days after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s late-night press briefing, minutes after the plane in which the former President was forcibly whisked into left.
Who paid for the charter of the Gulfstream 550 luxury private jet that was used to whisk former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte out of the country last night (Tuesday) en route to The Hague, Netherlands?
Definitely, the International Criminal Court does not indulge in such expensive travel arrangements in ferrying arrested individuals to face trial for alleged crrimes against humanity.
Dear Editor,
More questions on rescue ops, transparency, and integrity
I wish to raise significant concerns about a recent police operation on a kidnapped 14-year-old Chinese student of a British school in Taguig City, conducted by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Philippine National Police (PNP).
Former President Rodrigo Duterte struck gold during his Mandaue City rally speech when he denounced the sale of the country’s gold reserves.
“Ang unang gikawat ni Marcos ang atong (The first thing Marcos stole is our) gold reserves. Sigihan na nag baligya ang atong (They kept selling our) gold, hangtud karon (until this.) Gamay na lang kaayo (Very little remain).” fPRRD declared before the crowd that was estimated between 20,000 and as much as 40,000 by organizers.
It had been expected since last year, but Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment finally came like a thief in the night on Wednesday morning.
What President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. had tried - unsuccessfully - to do, disavow any interest and involvement in the impeachment of the one who almost single-handedly carried him to victory in 2022, was finally confirmed when his eldest son, Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexander Marcos, top-billed the impeachment complaint.
Contrary to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s pronouncement, the Marcos administration's instability has been on full display in recent weeks.
In case you forgot, the elite Special Forces of Speaker Martin Romualdez in the House of Representatives trampled on virtually every known legal and moral doctrine known to a democratic state in their haste to crucify ex-President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte.
If there is anything positive to come out of the impeachment case filed against Vice President Sara Duterte, it is the virtual confirmation that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is no longer president.
A day after the impeachment case was filed, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin issued a statement saying that “(t)he Office of the President has nothing to do with it.”
“(The complaint) is clearly the complainants’ independent initiative, and its endorsement the prerogative of any Member of the House of Representatives,” Bersamin said.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a storm in a teacup,” declared President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in a rare admonition of the House of Representatives’ fixation to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte.
It’s probably the first time BBM openly contradicted the HoR led by his cousin, Speaker Martin Romualdez, prompting speculations that all is not well between the two.
What was billed as a shot at redemption, the Marcos 2.0 regime has backfired big-time for the Marcos family.
It’s no secret that the objective of the Quadcomm investigation, and the Senate before it, is to “unmask” FPRRD as a “monster” for the death of thousands in the war on drugs during his term.
The same is true of the witch-hunt against Vice President Sara Duterte and the Office of the Vice President, which Quadcomm prejudged even before the hearings could start.
It was Carl Sandburg who said, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.”
In all likelihood, Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez was merely dreaming when he asked former President Rodrigo Duterte to run again in 2028.
Perhaps drawing inspiration from the second shot at redemption by US President-elect Donald Trump, Alvarez claims the Constitutional prohibition on reelection does not apply to FPRRD because he is not the sitting president in the next presidential election.
Even before the bell could ring for the first round, former President Rodrigo Duterte had inflicted the House of Representatives’ Joint Committee on Public Accounts, Dangerous Drugs, Public Order and Security and Human Rights (QuadCom) a beating they will never forget.
Quadcomm had earlier invited the former President to attend its hearing on Nov. 13. This was a follow-up to a previous invitation set on Nov. 7, which FPRRD, through his counsel, Martin Delgra, had declined.
Is a falling out between First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos and Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez even possible?
Not a few people dismissed the alleged feud as just another political intrigue. The administration was desperate for a distraction after former President Rodrigo Duterte’s spectacular appearance before the Senate, and a Liza-Martin tiff was worth a try.
Days after his masterful appearance before the Senate, former President Rodrigo Duterte remains the nation’s hottest topic.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. probably thought the hearing would be the figurative last rites for FPRRD, but the old fox turned the tables instead. In one fell swoop, the tormentors found themselves on the defensive.
He had written himself off so many times, but it seems like the nation has not heard the last of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The aging political superstar turned back the clock when he turned in a masterful performance before the Senate, arousing a people that had started to give in to the incompetent, corrupt, and abusive Marcos administration, which is a more vicious version of the first.
By Lorraine Marie T. Badoy
They claim they’re scandalized by what the Vice President (VP) said. They think she went beyond the pale by threatening to dig up the Marcos carcass and throwing it to the WPS. How she dishonors the dead, they said.
And yet they won’t talk about the series of unfortunate incidents that brought the Vice President to this point. Or how the Marcos siblings first dishonored the dead by deprecating the gift of a dignified burial extended to their father by a President of the Republic.
Whoever advised President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to provoke Vice President Sara Duterte should be fired.
“I always thought that we were (friends), but maybe I was deceived,” BBM told reporters covering the ASEAN Summit.
An incensed Vice-President would not allow that to pass without comment (severe tongue-lashing is more like it).
The Hakbang ng Maisug is pinning its hope on Atty. Vic Rodriguez to be its voice in the Senate.
Rodriguez accepted Maisug’s challenge in a statement he issued before supporters in a lightning rally near the Manila Hotel after filing his certificate of candidacy.
There is something in the 1987 Constitution that does not like Speakers of the House to become president, so much so that all three who aspired for the highest post in the land failed miserably.
The first to fall was Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr. of the second district of Palawan, who presided over the 8th Congress from June 23, 1987, to June 30, 1992. Mitra defeated then-Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos during the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) party convention in 1991, which merely set the stage for the one that mattered most.
By Ronald Gian Carlo Cardema
Vice President Sara, President BBM, SAP Anton, and Speaker Martin are my godparents. Sandro’s first time being a ninong is with our daughter SG. I do not criticize any of them, thinking that the current political friction is just temporary and that they will forever be our family friends.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Reports have surfaced that Speaker Martin Romualdez and NCIP (National Commission on Indigenous Peoples) Chairperson Jennifer Sibug-Las met, during which the alarming news was revealed that the House leadership is considering abolishing the NCIP and amending the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act (IPRA).
This development not only threatens the future of indigenous peoples' rights in the Philippines but also raises serious concerns about the motivations behind this drastic move.
VICE-President Sara Duterte was supposed to be at the receiving end of the demolition job unleashed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In just three public appearances that were supposed to tear her to pieces, she has mounted a counter-offensive that has sent her tormentors backpedaling in retreat.
The budget hearings, first before the Senate and twice before the House of Representatives, looked, every inch, like ambush territory. With less than a handful of allies in both chambers and even less willing to stand up and be identified with her, it seemed like all was lost.
By Lt. Gen. Filmore Escobal (Ret.)
The government is bleeding with taxpayers' money as the police operations to serve the warrant of arrest for Pastor Quiboloy et al. continue indefinitely.
The longer PNP PRO (Police Regional Office) 11 fails to achieve its mission, the more doubtful its objective becomes—whether to achieve peace and order and public safety objectives or otherwise. This implies that PRO 11 has become a private army of some political master or foreign power.
Has the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) pronounced a curse on Philippine Presidents whose administrations, inaugurated in its confines, ended prematurely?
According to Wikipedia, the neoclassical building was built in 1921 and was the home of the bicameral Congress from 1926 to 1972, hence its name as the Old Legislative Building.
There is one intriguing detail about the NMP that many Filipinos may find interesting: four Philippine Presidents took their oaths in it and the first three failed to finish their terms.
Aug. 27 was the day Vice-President Sara Duterte crossed her Rubicon.
Vice-President Inday threw all caution to the winds, not giving in an inch in her verbal jousts with 47 solons itching to skin her alive. In what seemed like a coming out party to many Filipinos, the country’s most popular elected official made it clear that she would not be a party to her own political funeral.
If there were any doubts that President Bongbong Marcos is his father's son, the viciousness in the hunt for Pastor Apollo Quiboloy removed all that.
Only a cold, ruthless mind could send Gen. Nicolas Torre III on that heartless mission to get Quiboloy at all costs –precisely what the latter is doing. Torre does not mind if he has been cast as the villain in this miserable witch-hunt, but there is a need to clear the air that he was merely sent there by someone higher.
I have no love lost for Apollo Quiboloy. I don't like him as an uber wealthy evangelist. I think he's arrogant, bordering on the insincere. His words sound preachy at best.
And the charges against him? Competent courts should determine his guilt or innocence, which is really more than I can say of all this brouhaha over his capture. Isn't this supposed to be a simple police procedural matter, to be enforced with minimal warm bodies sans the limelight?
By Dr. Lorraine Marie T. Badoy
There is a time to be silent. And a time to speak up.
When the very institutions and people mandated to protect us are the very same ones that bend and break our laws with shameless impunity and who have made it clear to us that our country is no longer a country ruled by laws but by the whims and caprices of powerful abusers, then the time to be silent is over.
Silence means we are complicit in these great crimes perpetrated on us as a nation.
It’s getting obvious.
Haven’t you noticed how some self-styled experts are raising hell over supposed errors in the book “Isang Kaibigan” written by Vice-President Inday Sara Duterte? They who have been consistently silent all this time on the revelations of the drug use of President Bongbong Marcos?
The 2024 Paris Olympics saw the birth of Carlos Yulo as the greatest Filipino Olympian. His story is inspirational and worth writing in a book for our children to read in future generations.
But this Summer Games produced another remarkable tale: Bianca Pagdanganan's fightback on the final day of the women's golf competition.
No, Pagdanganan didn't win a medal. She narrowly missed a podium finish, but her performance against the best golfers in the world on the sport's biggest stage is an inspiring story to tell.
It does not take much to see that the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is on a mission to destroy Davao City.
Refusing to come to terms with the city’s enviable reputation as the country’s safest city and Numbeo website’s second safest city in Southeast Asia with a 72.4 safety index, the present leadership has set about to destroy that image.
The Marcos administration is hanging by a thread, and it has no one else to blame but itself.
Lured into a virtual trap by Vice-President Sara Duterte who looked like she had become vulnerable after Gen. Rommel Marbil recalled her security detail, it was not prepared for what came next.
For Gen. Rommel Marbil, it was the day when the bottom fell out.
He deserves that lengthy rebuke from Vice President Sara Duterte for making a mountain of what she dismissed as a molehill that was the relief of her security detail.
“Subalit tila nakatatlong interview ka na patungkol sa akin (But it seems you already had three interviews about me),” she pointed out in the second paragraph of the four-page open letter. Compared to her crisp comment about the unceremonious recall, he indeed overplayed it.
What she said next set the tone for the rest of her letter.
In 1992, when I was a staff member at the newly-established Office of the President-Mindanao, we crunched some numbers and concluded that Mindanao wallowed in negative economic growth at minus 0.48 percent. Although that figure would climb steadily to 4.12 percent by 1995, midway through Fidel Ramos’s presidency, that 1992 backwater fact was telling.
For one, it compared with the national figure—0.4 percent—a similarly dismal reality. For another, it dovetailed a story of how a nation clawed its way out of the abysmal hole of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s (FM) martial law years.
Marcos and Zelensky are the new war mongrels of the United States.
Ukrainian holdover President Volodymyr Zelensky recently visited Manila to meet Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., personally inviting him to attend the upcoming Ukraine Peace Summit in Switzerland. Incidentally, Ukraine has been under martial law since 2022, and its president is under holdover capacity due to the nonconduct of national elections.
It was a scene straight out of Martial Law.
Uniformed police officers employing superior force broke into what church members of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ consider hallowed grounds and swarmed all over the place in search of Pastor Apollo Quiboloy, the controversial preacher who enjoys a cult-like following not just in Davao City but even internationally. For one who did his part to campaign for the victory of the so-called UniTeam bannered by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., it was rubbing salt into an open wound.
When Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. campaigned for the Philippine presidency in 2022, a key promise was to lower the retail price of rice to P20 per kilo. This promise resonated deeply with the electorate, as rice is a staple in Filipino households, providing a major source of daily carbohydrate intake. At that time, rice prices hovered around 45-50 pesos per kilo, making the pledge for cheaper rice a welcome prospect for a population already battered by inflation.
Dear Editor,
I am just an ordinary Filipino trying to understand this impeachment trial. The prosecutors dropped three of the four articles of impeachment. They spent months preparing. They spent millions of our money, and then just walked away from those charges. And now they don't want the defense to answer the evidence they already presented?
It’s not fair to accuse someone of stealing, shout it to the whole world, then say "never mind," but not let Vice President Sara Duterte clear her name.
Dear Editor,
I've been following the news about Senator Panfilo Lacson's ongoing investigation into flood control projects, and I have to be honest—something about it just feels off. It's starting to look less like a genuine search for the truth and more like a hunt for a specific person. Or maybe a haunting, because no matter where the trail goes, it keeps circling back to the same target.
Senator Panfilo Lacson is being accused of violating the Ombudsman’s confidentiality rule. The reason is that he kept making public statements and accusations against Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano even after he’d formally submitted documents to the Ombudsman. The office is now handling the case at the preliminary investigation stage.
Dear Editor,
What if a mining firm executive heads the agency protecting our forests, or a pharma owner leads a health institute? It sends a loud and clear signal that corporate interests shape the national narrative. That's how alarming it is that a longtime tobacco company executive might soon lead the government's communications office.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Jonvic Remulla, in an article posted on Business Mirror on June 20, admitted that tourists avoid the Philippines because they "don’t feel safe." It’s disturbing. Instead of calming fears, he poured gasoline on the fire.
Remulla’s statement was a slip and a full-blown faceplant. Would anyone still eat in a restaurant if a manager told customers that the food served gives them food poisoning? Of course not.
On her 47th birthday celebration, Vice-President Inday Sara Duterte finds herself at the crossroads of destiny.
The undisputed front-runner in the 2028 presidential elections, VP Inday marks the occasion outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) detention facility in Scheveningen where her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte is being held while awaiting trial.
Being in the spotlight often evokes a sense of admiration and prestige, as it signifies recognition of one's efforts and talents. However, for public figures like Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla, the spotlight carries a weight of scrutiny and magnifies missteps.
Serious questions about his credibility and ability to lead the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) are popping up.
By Retired Gen. Filmore Escobal
Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Juan Victor “Jonvic” Remulla Jr. is facing intense scrutiny—not just over his questionable leadership, but also for his misleading statements during a Malacañang press conference on February 26 regarding the supposed "hot pursuit operation" of a kidnapped boy.
The reality? The child had already been safely reunited with his family as early as February 23, yet Remulla went on national television to peddle a bogus story, raising more questions than answers.
Political allies of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Speaker Martin Romualdez thought the filing of impeachment cases would be the last nail in Vice President Inday Sara Duterte's political coffin. Obviously, they were wrong.
The filing was met by massive outpourings of anger in different parts of the country. Outraged by the brazenness of the cabal led by the President’s own son, citizens took to social media to express their contempt not only for the signatories but also for BBM and Romualdez.
