Stories.

NAILING A DEADLINE. Carpenters rush renovation work on Quezon City’s Comelec Districts 1, 3, 5, and 6 in time for election day on May 13, 2013. PCIJ Photo by Maya Angelique Jajalla…

GANITO SILA SA MAKATI. The hallway leading to Makati City’s Comelec Districts 1 and 2 is a world apart from the swanky corridors of many high-rise buildings in the country’s…

WANTED: SPACE. Marikina City’s Comelec office, a 10 x 30-square-meter affair, bursts with files, documents, 19 employees, and a handful of visitors every day. PCIJ Photo by Lavilyn…

IT’S FINAL. Despite issues surrounding voter registration, Pasay City’s Comelec office has already finalized the official list of voters. PCIJ Photo by Josebelle Bagulaya COMPARED…

THURSDAY, APRIL 25TH, 2013 IN POLITICS as in the movies, it seems it pays to be the child of the so-called “kings.” Four children born to veritable political royalty — in other…

COMMISSION ON Elections (Comelec) head Sixto S. Brillantes Jr. almost quit in frustration after the Supreme Court recently issued a temporary restraining order against the…

NO LESS than its highest-ranking officials have repeatedly stated in media a serious intent to curb campaign spending and other illegal campaign activities in the May 13, 2013…

HOT, HOT, HOT. Without airconditioning, employees of the Bacolod City Comelec office have to buy mini-electric fans to cool themselves especially during the searing afternoon…

THE ONLY thing constant is change, supposedly, but apparently there are some things that remain the same. Yet another round of elections, for instance, will find Maguindanao still…

THEY BELONG to some of the most prominent political clans in central Mindanao, yet they are carving a path far removed from the mold of the traditional roles of their royal…

Last of Three Parts PRESIDENT BENIGNO Simeon C. Aquino III may have taken to publicly scolding septuagenarian Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III over the latter’s role in the recent…

IN ONE of the many raids conducted by government troops on the Ampatuan properties after the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, investigators came across a black bag containing a bundle of…

Second of Three Parts FOR A PROVINCE that is turning only 40 years old this year, Maguindanao has managed to emerge as “the most governed,” if only by the number of governance…

(Link to full size version of this diagram) A SPIDER couldn’t have spun a more complicated network: the diagram before you shows blood and affinal lines that link the Ampatuans to…

First of Three Parts DATU HOFFER, Maguindanao — This municipality is just a kilometer or so from the capitol, but it barely looks like a town. Bereft of any paved roads, it has a…

HOW DO public officials with secret offshore accounts react, when found out? The PCIJ confronted a senator, a congressman, and two former government executives with questions about…

SENATOR MANUEL ‘Manny’ B. Villar Jr. and Congressman Joseph Victor ‘JV’ G. Ejercito belong to rival political coalitions jostling against each other in the run-up to the May 2013…

IN TEN out of the 13 Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN) that she filed as member of Congress from June 1998 to June 2007, Ma. Imelda ‘Imee’ R. Marcos, eldest…

MARIA IMELDA Marcos Manotoc, the Princeton-educated eldest child of the late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and now a senior political figure in her own right, is beneficiary…

Dozens of journalists sifted through millions of leaked records and thousands of names to produce ICIJ’s investigation into offshore secrecy

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ exploration of the secretive world of offshore companies and trusts began after a computer hard drive packed with…