RP Elections 2010

When President Obama decided to release what is touted as the Torture Memos, he was faced with a dilemma: to hold or not to hold those who authorized the memos accountable.
There are those who argue that President Obama should, because it’s an affront to the basic law of the land, the Constitution. On the other [...]

Possibly unprecedented in Philippine politics, the Second Division of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has opened a can of worms when it junked last 11 November the petition of Filipino LGBT organization Ang Ladlad in its bid to field congressional candidates for the 2010 general elections under the party-list system. The accreditation rejection, as promulgated [...]

I don’t mind having these presidential debates. In fact, I find it somehow refreshing to see the presidentiables no longer devoting much of their energies to practicing their jingles and dance steps; to see them participating in serious talks although one of them—you know who is he—would prefer cracking jokes to talking serious stuff.
But what [...]

Last July 10, 2009, ABS-CBN conducted a workshop for its Davao City registrants for their “Boto Mo, Ipatrol Mo: Ako Ang Simula”, the network’s initiative on electoral campaign vigilance. The workshop was held at the Holy Cross of Davao, and had lectures given by the network’s highly reputed newscasters, such as Maria Ressa, Glenda Gloria, [...]

Here’s something that’s new — although not exactly unanticipated, considering the state of online-ness of Filipinos today — in the Philippine political arena. Exactly that, PoliticalArena.com. This “socio-political social networking site” aims to be an Internet venue for Filipinos to interact with presidential hopefuls and other candidates of the 2010 elections.
The site, “developed to promote [...]

The House of Representatives, in a blatantly unconstitutional move, railroaded the passing of House Resolution #1109 yesterday — the resolution to convene Congress as a Constituent Assembly for the purpose of amending the 1987 Philippine Constitution. Majority-rule congressmen insisted that this can be done by a 3/4 vote of Congress, even without the Senate, since [...]

Sen. Manuel Villar (Nacionalista Party), who is expected to run for president of the republic in 2010, is in the public eye for charges of unethical behavior brought against him by Sen. Jamby Madrigal, who has recently brought to light evidence that the former has personally benefited from a public works project.
Apparently, Villar owns or [...]

[The following is an article I submitted to the UP Law Internet Society for publication in their magazine, "DIGITAL" (Digest of Information Technology and the Law).]
The blogosphere––or the newfangled world of Web-based publishing––together with the surfeit of social networking services such as Facebook.com and Plurk.com, has virtually changed the landscape of today’s news-reading and -gathering, [...]