Placing entire communities under lockdown have been the go-to response for many countries to the COVID-19 pandemic. This measure is effective in curtailing the spread of the virus, but adversely… Continue reading "Philippines: the poor are being left out by the Duterte government’s COVID-19 response"
The Philippines has claimed the unflattering distinction of having the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the entire South-East Asian region. At the time of writing, the country has 5,878… Continue reading "Philippines: Overcrowded jails are COVID-19 disasters waiting to happen"
On the 1st of April, dozens of residents from Sitio San Roque in Quezon City staged a demonstration asking for food assistance from their local government. The Enhanced Community Quarantine… Continue reading "Philippines: No security measures can trump the basic human instinct to survive"
After going back and forth countless times, it seems President Rodrigo Duterte has finally decided to revoke the Philippines’ Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the United States. It can be… Continue reading "The VFA fiasco exposes President Duterte’s heavy-handed approach to decision-making"
Signalling the start of their 2020 election campaign, National Party leader Simon Bridges and several of his party colleagues are making a working visit to the Philippines to allegedly boost… Continue reading "Simon Bridges and his National MPs are fraternizing with staunch acolytes of Duterte’s brutal drug war"
In Philippine politics, disaster relief can make or break a politician’s career. Take for instance the response the previous Aquino government had in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013,… Continue reading "Taal’s eruption exposes the Duterte administration’s lack of preparedness for disaster relief"
President Rodrigo Duterte has never been shy to voice out criticism towards the United States. In 2016 he called their former President Barack Obama a “son of a whore”, the… Continue reading "Despite Duterte’s rhetoric, the Philippines is still and always have been an American semi-colony"
Vice President Leni Robredo, a member of the main opposition Liberal Party (LP), was surprisingly appointed to co-chair the Duterte administration’s Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs (ICAD) in November 2019.… Continue reading "Innocent lives were lost and families torn apart for a drug war that only culled 1 percent of the drug trade"
As the clock struck midnight on the final day of 2019, Filipinos not only welcomed in a new year but also the end of martial law in Mindanao. The imposition… Continue reading "Martial Law in Mindanao: What did it achieve?"
As the year draws to a close, the fate of the country’s largest media conglomerate is basking in uncertainty. ABS-CBN Corporation, with a recorded Php40 billion peso annual revenue in… Continue reading "Explaining Duterte’s fixation with ABS-CBN"
