Justice and Rule of Law.

THE PRESS in the Philippines has been described to be among the freest in Asia if not in the world, robust, almost rambunctious in its practice. But in the first 16 months of the…

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…

THE DATA PRIVACY ACT “is not meant to serve as a subterfuge to prevent the processing and/or disclosure of personal information sanctioned under law.” This, according to Chairman…

A CHIEF JUSTICE was impeached in 2012 for failure to declare the true and detailed list of condo units he owned, and pesos and dollars he had in banks. Ten years prior, a President…

MORE THAN a year after President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed the Freedom of Information executive order, a practice completely reverse of the policy has been creeping onto some…

TO REDACT or not to redact. Which could avoid or attract scrutiny and censure? Redactions are not the only issue that could arise if public officials would shade or black out the…

SOME CANDIDATES may have willfully mocked their lawful duty to file election-spending reports with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) but they are not the only ones who did so…

THE EXPENDITURE totals usually don’t quite add up and tallies from different entities don’t match. But there is no question that among those who strike it big during elections are…

ELECTIONS 2016’s 50 candidates for national office and the political parties that fielded them spent P5.8 billion across the 90-day campaign period, PCIJ has found in its review of…

CANDIDATES IN Philippine elections usually complain about what many of them say are outdated, low campaign-spending caps. But the Dutertes of Davao City apparently have no problem…

ONE OF them was determined to keep his post while the other two wanted to wrest from him the title of Mayor of Pasay City, one of the smallest cities in Metro Manila but which is…

IN THEIR bid to be Iloilo City’s chief executive from 2016 to 2019, then incumbent Mayor Jed Patrick Mabilog (Liberal Party) and Dr. Marigold Gonzalez (Independent, but with…

ONE WOULD think that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) should be happy that the number of candidates who went over the prescribed campaign spending limits in last year’s…

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte is already on his second year as the country’s chief executive, but the polls that clinched him that post continue to bedevil the Commission on…

IN A SERIES recently, PCIJ conducted separate, extended interviews with senior officials of Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the Philippine National Police (PNP), and the…

BY LAW, only certain acts or actions are clear grounds for any citizen to be investigated, arrested, or compelled to surrender, despite the vigorous push by the Duterte…

IT HAS been branded to be the true, the good, if not so beautiful, official report on the war on drugs of the Duterte administration over the last 11 months. Launched last May 2…

AS PART of its mandate to supervise and monitor corporate activity in the Philippines, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) maintains the i-Report database, which contains…

HE LOOKED calm and collected even as he lay one serious allegation after another against the highest official of the land, and even after saying that he expected to be killed…

EIGHT YEARS before retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas admitted to participating in killings done by the Davao Death Squad (DDS), supposedly on the orders of then Davao City Mayor Rodrigo…

MORE THAN three months after the Freedom of Information (FOI) Executive Order took effect on Nov. 25, 2016, requests for data from state agencies have been coming in, but not at…