LuisTeodoro.com

A specter is haunting Philippine politics: the specter of a Fernando Poe Jr. candidacy. Ex-presidents and civil society leaders, academics and editorial writers, businessmen and high level professionals—but most of all the politicians who have their own candidates for the Presidency—have greeted that possibility with a grand chorus of denunciation.
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US President George W. Bush is visiting Asia ostensibly to attend the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Thailand But he’s also in the region to convince the Japanese to support their government’s decision to send troops to Iraq, to boost citizen support for the governments of Thailand and the Philippines, and over-all, to consolidate the US anti-terrorist alliance in Asia.
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The allegation that administration officials close to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as well as her lawyer tried to extort “tens of millions of dollars” from the German company Fraport AG could not have come at a worst time for her.

Mrs. Arroyo’s October 4 declaration that she would run in 2004 has practically killed the People Power Coalition by forcing three of its former member-parties to bolt it. Two high-profile administration figures, Senator Loren Legarda and Vice President Teofisto Guingona, have also quit Mrs. Arroyo’s Lakas-CMD party.
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It’s not easy to like Panfilo Lacson. His effort to talk in what he thinks is tough Americanese (“I’ve had a hell of a week”) is annoying, and there’s something not quite right in that Hitler haircut. There’s also his ambition, the extent of which aptly fits Shakespeare’s description of that vice as “vaulting.” But mostly it’s those 11 murders he’s accused of masterminding.
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In behalf of co-sponsors Aklat ng Bayan Inc., Anak Pawis Party List, the All UP Academic Employees Union, CONTEND-UP and the Defend Sison Committee, I would like to welcome all of you to the launch of Jose Ma. Sison’s US Terrorism and War in the Philippines and the Pilipino version of Jose Ma. Sison and Juliet de Lima’s Politika at Ekonomya ng Pilipinas.

This launch is occurring nine days before the visit of US President George W. Bush to the Philippines, and on the same date when informal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front have resumed in Oslo, Norway.
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By a vote of 8-4-2 (eight in favor, four against, and two abstentions; one of the justices, Renato Corona, was on leave), the Supreme Court re-affirmed the other day, October 7, its April 1, 2003 resolution re-opening for trial the 11 “Kuratong Baleleng” murder charges against Senator Panfilo Lacson.
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It’s not about “word of honor” but about manipulation. Mostly it’s about rank cynicism—the kind that rejects all principle, sees none in others, and believes the electorate to be children too foolish to see through the candidates they’re regularly forced to vote for.
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