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THE SIEGE of the Islamic City of Marawi marks its first anniversary on May 23 but its vaunted multi-billion peso rehabilitation and reconstruction program remains a patchwork of disconnected promises mired in multiple problems.

WHAT DO some bankers and fund managers, a few senior government officials, a dozen top taxpayers, and a handful of companies located in the country have in common? They are among some 200 Filipinos, Philippine residents, and corporations that own or are linked to offshore accounts in tax havens across the world, according to the “Paradise Papers” cache of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents that had been leaked and exposed this month.

NO, JUANA, there has not been any big change in tactics in the government’s war against drugs just yet. By all indications, as well as the statements of President Rodrigo R. Duterte himself and his senior advisers, the supposed revert to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) as the “sole agency” assigned to the drug war was but a small concession that the Palace had made to appease “bleeding hearts” in the opposition and the media, and a public increasingly upset over what has been a very bloody anti-drug campaign.