Justice and Rule of Law.

THERE’S OBVIOUSLY big money in the illegal-drug trade, so much so that it has made criminals even out of some members of the police force – a fact that authorities themselves have…

MORE THAN 20 years ago, Davao City was turned into the laboratory for its then Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte’s war against illegal drugs. Now that he is President, Duterte has mounted a…

EVEN PEACE and order come with a price tag, and next year ours may cost us P206.57 billion. Yet as hefty as that may look, it actually translates to just six percent of the total…

HE RANTS and rails against the drug menace nearly every day, and sometimes, morning, noon, and night time, but always only in press conferences of public events.

THE WAR on drugs in the last nine weeks — or even before Rodrigo R. Duterte took his oath as president a fortnight ago on June 30 — has yielded ever bigger numbers of casualties…

AT LEAST 20 congressmen, four governors, and 26 mayors elected in May 2013 should promptly vacate their office for failure to submit reports on their donors and expenditures within…

AMONG THE 19 work-related media killings recorded by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) under the Aquino administration, the murder of broadcaster Romeo Olea…

SOMETIMES, ANGELINA ‘Angie’ Cauzo chats with her husband in front of a small family altar in their modest house in Talavera, Nueva Ecija. As stereotypical marital conversations go…

HIS MOTHER is a former president who was widowed when her husband, a prominent opposition leader, was assassinated. And so when Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ C. Aquino III came to power…

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…

THREE MONTHS after Renato C. Corona was impeached as chief justice for his failure to declare and disclose the full and true details of his wealth, the justices of the Supreme…

THE FIRST WOMAN chief justice of the Supreme Court, Maria Lourdes P.A. Sereno, will have 18 years to roll our reforms in the judiciary, or nearly as long as the regime in power of…

AMID the rampant misdeclaration or underdeclaration of their Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) by senior public officials lies a prettier, often overlooked…

WHATEVER THE outcome of the impeachment trial of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato C. Corona, a once-ignored piece of document seems to be getting the attention it deserves at…

WHAT follows is an account of PCIJ’s correspondences with the Office of the Secretary General and the Records Management Service of the House of Representatives, which as discussed…

JUST A few weeks after the Nov. 23, 2009 Maguindanao Massacre, where 58 people including 32 journalists were executed in a remote barangay in Ampatuan town, officials of the…