Decline and fall
No trace of either Nene Pimentel’s or Ninoy Aquino’s progressive, anti-authoritarian legacy, which once distinguished it from other political formations, remains in PDP-Laban today.
Policing the police
Public perception of the police has not always been as low. Many Filipinos of a certain age have fond childhood memories of policemen. Clad in plain khaki uniforms, in the 1950s they resembled the postmen who delivered the mail, and were regular neighborhood figures who in many cases watched over the same places where their own families lived.
In context: block-timing and truth-telling
ABS-CBN has cancelled its block-timing agreement with Chinatown News TV apparently in reaction to the spate of criticism it had been getting in Twitter and Facebook. If it had continued, it would have detracted from the heightened credibility of the network and the renewed public confidence in it that were among the positive consequences of the government’s denial last year of its application for the renewal of its franchise.
Vaccine-plus vacuity
A lethal mix of government ineptitude, economic need and insufficient information has made the Philippines the country with the most number of COVID-19 cases in Southeast Asia.
