Stories.

WHEN President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III announced the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), he apparently meant nothing near getting rid of the…

MUTUALLY reinforcing interests — all too often political interests — between national and local politicians to this day drives the selection of which local government units (LGUs)…

AMID the public outcry for the abolition of the pork barrel system, Malacañang and Congress have agreed to delete the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), by name at least…

BUYING THINGS in small portions — “tingi-tingi” — is popular among Filipinos, but Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Rogelio Singson is clearly not a fan of…

IT SEEMS the heads of five government corporations would not be the only ones on the chopping board for implementing the anomalous pork barrel projects recently reported by the…

A month after President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III announced his intention to abolish PDAF, however, this much-hyped “new mechanism” for disbursing pork barrel funds in lieu of…

SOME TRANSPARENCY online, but also some opaque and chaotic disbursement practices offline: That seems to be the sorry story so far of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM)…

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…

AFTER A NOISY CLASH over the possible disallowance of claims for income tax payments, the Metropolitan Water and Sewerage System (MWSS) and its two private concessionaires are in…

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…