President Duterte may go down in our nation’s history as one whose presidency was marked by the grandest promis
Author: Prof Randy David, Philippine Daily Inquirer
President Duterte and the challenge of aging
Presidents who have reached the end of their term have an understandable desire to influence the choice of their successor. They may differ only in the length to which they are willing to go to control the process. In this, President Duterte probably exceeds all previous presidents in his desperation to stake everything to get […]
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A wedding in Cavite
Nothing is more illustrative of the current shape of Philippine politics than the recent celebrity wedding in Cavite of a daughter of actor-politicians Bong and Lani Revilla. The bride and groom were completely eclipsed by the cinematic casting of Sara Duterte-Carpio and Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as the lead pair of 15 sets of principal […]
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A clash of rationalities
Laws prohibiting the buying and selling of votes have been with us for a long time. Yet we have probably not heard of anyone who has ever been convicted of this electoral offense. That’s because it’s not easy to prove it. Neither the buyer nor the seller would have any motive to file a complaint, […]
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A COVID-19 death in the family
Going by the common belief in the law of averages, the pessimist in me worried that COVID-19 could anytime inflict a fatal blow on our large family. I used to tell myself how lucky we were that the few in our family who tested positive at different times since last year experienced only mild symptoms. […]
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Dutertismo and the war on drugs
“Dutertismo” is a term I coined in a column I wrote shortly before the 2016 presidential election (Public Lives, 5/1/2016). I used it to refer to the Philippines’ own version of the phenomenon that came to be known as “Nazism” in Hitler’s Germany, and as “Fascism” in Mussolini’s Italy. The more current name for these […]
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Politics in the age of mass media
In the time of our elders, when we were just starting out as a young self-governing nation, those who aspired to lead our country felt bound to a code of political statesmanship by which they measured their eligibility for public office. They looked at themselves, so to speak, in the mirror of political virtues to […]
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Politics in the age of mass media
In the time of our elders, when we were just starting out as a young self-governing nation, those who aspired to lead our country felt bound to a code of political statesmanship by which they measured their eligibility for public office. They looked at themselves, so to speak, in the mirror of political virtues to […]
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The will to fight back
That was a powerful speech Leni Robredo gave the other day. It was short, simple, and filled with formidable images that depict the situation our people find themselves in today. It gave the electorate a clear idea of why she’s running for president and why the nation desperately needs someone like her at this time. […]
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Strongman rule vs. strong institutions
The sharpest way to frame the May 2022 presidential election is to portray it as a contest between strongman rule and governance by strong institutions. Not since the February 1986 snap election, which pitted the widow Cory Aquino against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, have the Filipino people been presented with this choice in its starkest […]
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Reclaiming the power to choose our leaders
The country’s biggest carnival is in town. Despite a surging pandemic, all eyes are focused on the arrival of the main stars that will perform in the May 2022 presidential elections. Hardly anyone bothers to ask why this or that personality is even part of the parade. All of them have figured one way or […]
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