Stories tagged
‘fidel ramos’

Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan

‘The military, once it intervenes, cannot go back to the barracks’

IF HE were an ordinary ex-military man, Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan would be taking it easy, preparing for what aging soldiers are supposed to do next: fade away. After all, he is just three years short of officially turning senior citizen, his hair is a salt-and-pepper gray, and the trim physique women used to swoon over is now just a memory.

Read more... | Posted Thursday, February 2nd, 2006

Fidel V. Ramos

'The people are tired of constant political bickering'

FROM HIS 26th floor office in a Makati high-rise, former President Fidel Ramos can point to the reasons why there should not be another People Power.

To the west, one can see modern structures rising from the land reclaimed from the Manila Bay. On the other side are shanties of the poor of Makati.

Read more... | Posted Thursday, February 2nd, 2006
What went wrong with the Comelec?

The Comelec’s fall from grace

by Alecks P. Pabico

TO DESTROY an institution like the Commission on Elections (Comelec), you must first fill it up with handpicked commissioners with questionable credentials and even more dubious impartiality. Then, let them run the constitutional body as if they were ruling over personal fiefdoms. This would then reduce middle-level bureaucrats to mere vassals doing — or forced to do — their every bidding, including perhaps, as the taped conversations involving President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano suggest, rigging the elections in their political benefactor’s favor.

Read more... | Posted Saturday, July 2nd, 2005
The President

The unmaking of the President

by Sheila S. Coronel

UNTIL last month, the heavens seemed to have favored Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The economy was picking up, the stock market was trading briskly, and Congress had just passed a new tax measure. For sure, the budget deficit and rising oil prices were something to worry about. At the same time, the opposition seemed bent on raking the jueteng muck. But all these were part of life — and politics — as usual.

Read more... | Posted Friday, July 1st, 2005
The Campaign

Songs in the key of politics

by George S. Caparas

IN A country as crazy about music as the Philippines, it is not surprising that even politics has a soundtrack. Long before showbiz and media personalities dominated Philippine political life, music was already part of it, from the revolutionary songs that boosted the morale of the indios revolting against the Spaniards, to the different anthems Filipinos were made to sing before they were finally able to belt out “Lupang Hinirang” in public.

Read more... | Posted Sunday, May 9th, 2004
The Campaign

Half-truths in advertising

by Cecile C.A. Balgos

AT LEAST Panfilo Lacson tells it like it is — or how it could be. Elect him as president and we could probably expect someone like Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohamad, or Thailand’s Thaksin Shinawatra at the helm. All three are known for being, as the TV ad says, “buo ang loob, walang takot (determined, without fear),” traits that supposedly enabled them to steer their countries into becoming economic powerhouses. According to the ad, Lacson has the same traits as well, and its logic argues that these would enable him to do wonders for the Philippine economy, too.

Read more... | Posted Wednesday, May 5th, 2004
The Campaign

Spinning the news

by Ibarra C. Mateo

IT WAS a slow Saturday, and so a middle-level editor thought nothing of working on a press release handed over by a senior editor and turning it into a readable news item. It appeared in the paper the next day, and that should have been that. But then the three government officials who were quoted in the piece complained to the newspaper’s editors, saying the writer of the press release had not interviewed them at all. They also said that they had not authorized the issuance of such a press release under their names. An internal investigation conducted by the paper’s management later revealed that a shadowy political PR person had been the source of the fictitious story. Apparently, the aim was to cast the winning bidder of a government contract in a bad light.

Read more... | Posted Sunday, May 2nd, 2004

With a little help from (U.S.) friends

by Yvonne T. Chua

WHEN the U.S. Democratic Party primary season opened in January, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry hardly looked like someone who could be the party’s candidate in the U.S. presidential election this November. Although already a fourth-term senator, Kerry was being outshone by Vermont governor Howard Dean, who the media had all but proclaimed the Democrats’ presidential bet.

Read more... | Posted Saturday, January 3rd, 2004

The grandmother of all scams

by Sheila S. Coronel and Ellen Tordesillas

GEORGE TRIVIÑO, Ital-Thai’s Philippine representative, was livid when he found out that the company had begun negotiating the purchase of three reclaimed islands in Manila Bay without his knowledge.

Read more... | Posted Friday, March 20th, 1998

The grandmother of all scams

by Sheila S. Coronel and Ellen Tordesillas

SINCE THE nineteenth century, discreet brokers, many of them ethnic Chinese, have played a key but often invisible role in Philippine politics. Filipino officials have relied on such middlemen to make under-the-table arrangements away from the glare of public scrutiny.

Read more... | Posted Thursday, March 19th, 1998

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