Politics.

Last of Three Parts WHILE MOST of the tycoons who bankrolled candidates and political parties in the 2010 Presidential elections were curiously absent, the 2013 midterm elections…

Second of Three Parts LAWYERS ARE taught early on to make the distinction between companies and their officers and shareholders. But Rona Ann Caritos, acting Executive Director of…

First of Three Parts IN THEORY, elections are supposed to be the great leveler or equalizer of democracy. The vote of any ordinary man scraping a living off the streets is supposed…

FOR THE 2013 midterm elections, a company called the International Global Mining Exchange (IGME) donated P5 million to the campaign kitty of deposed President Joseph Estrada’s…

LAGUNA GOVERNOR Emilio Ramon ‘ER’ Ejercito never got to have the success in the film industry that was enjoyed by his uncle Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada. But in the May 2013 elections, he…

Laguna Governor Emilio Ramon ‘ER’ Ejercito. Photo courtesy of laguna.gov.ph. LAGUNA IS supposed to be his clan’s ancestral province and he already enjoyed formidable name recall…

IMPLEMENTING THE Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) takes a long and layered process because it is a lump-sum item, which means that its purpose has yet to be identified…

Last of Two Parts THREE MONTHS ahead of the official campaign period for the May 2013 elections, 17 “prospective” candidates to the Senate and their political parties had hit the…

First of Two Parts THERE WERE late and incomplete filings, but the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is still considering the submission of election expenditure and contribution…

BOTH VETERANS of the “parliament of the streets,” they mounted separate failed, if high-level and issues-focused, campaigns for the Senate in the May 2013 elections. Yet while Ana…

Last of Two Parts WHO GETS VOTED is just half the story of elections. Who finances the campaign, who gains or loses money, and by how much, are the more salacious pegs to the…

First of Two Parts THE OPULENT names of tycoons and captains of industry, as well as of firms ranked among the country’s top 500 by sales and revenue, used to populate the list of…

THEY WERE supposedly set up to uplift the lives of those in need. Yet in their first few months of operation, they served a rather different, yet specific, purpose: to promote the…

IF RULES on campaign finance will be followed, only five winning senatorial candidates will be allowed to assume office on June 30, 2013. That is until the rest of the candidates…

NEARLY A year would seem plenty time for senatorial candidates and their political parties to study the campaign-finance rules and regulations for the May 2013 elections so that…

NINE SENATORIAL candidates and one party-list group in the recently concluded elections would have breached the airtime limit for political ads on TV had it not been for a crucial…

THIS COULD be the very first time in the history of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that campaign-finance violations will be treated seriously. Never before has the failure…

Last of Two Parts IN THE LAST ELECTIONS, President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III summoned voters to support his allies and associates who would supposedly help fulfill his epic…

First of Two Parts AMONG ITS many excuses for being, the government is supposed to combat crime and corruption. Those elected to office thus take a solemn oath before God, country…

IF YOU can’t jail them, elect them. If you do jail them, well, you can always elect them again. This appears to be a recurring theme in the Philippines, where the popular saying…

Last of Two Parts WHEN MEDIA marketing giant Universal McCann declared the Philippines the social networking capital in the world in 2009, it sounded as if every Tomas, Ricardo…