kalalakihan – Page 4 – Katrina Stuart Santiago

It was a little over a year ago, in July 2016, when President Duterte first talked about pardoning policemen in the name of the drug war. He had been turning defensive because of constant criticism about the human rights violations of his war on drugs and its contingent, growing body count.

In a speech in front of San Beda batches 1971 and 1972, Duterte spoke of how he is the President and therefore is not required to respect due process. And instead of addressing questions about human rights violations, he talked about how the police could point a finger at him for whatever crime they commit in the name of the drug war, and as long as they did not lie to him about what they’ve done, he would pardon them. (more…)

This is all very simple, really. The Philippine News Agency (PNA) has made enough mistakes, has been in the news often enough for being nothing more than a laughable excuse for a newswire service, and ultimately responsibility falls on Communications Secretary Martin Andanar.

After all, I have personally heard him talking about how much he idolizes China’s Xin Hua News Agency, and how he would like to emulate its technology, its offices across the world, its professionalism. The fundamental problem with this of course is that Xin Hua is a state news agency in a country with censorship, where there is no freedom of the press, or of speech. And unless that’s what Andanar hopes for the Philippines, there is absolutely no reason to even think of emulating Xin Hua.

But PNA’s foreign news section is filled with news taken from Xin Hua, and that can only fall on Andanar’s shoulders. Why are you even thinking this news service to be credible source of news about China, and about the world? (more…)

It escalated quickly and shows no signs of stopping, but the past three days of the Andres and Patricia Bautista show, with a cast of characters of lawyers and banks and bank owners, and don’t forget social / media that can’t quite keep its hands off the oh-so-juicy details slowly being revealed, is just too exciting to let go of.

Or ask questions about.

After all, there is nothing like the unraveling of the elite, this one with millions in their bank accounts, not to mention wads of cash on hand. Tish is almost the archetypal kolehiyala, no strand of hair out of place, speaking eloquently about what she had discovered, issuing warnings to an ex-husband about how much more dirty laundry she’s got on him, while also playing the victimized wife, who knows not what her husband’s been doing. And then there is Andy, the portrait of the government official as husband, powerful and well-connected, articulate and self-assured. He who pushed Smartmatic despite all protests, who was charged for being biased, and whose leadership of the COMELEC was questioned by his own commissioners.

The possibilities for this story’s unraveling are multifarious, but of course while we’re all waiting with bated breath for the next juicy tidbit, one realizes that the question we do not ask is who stands to gain from this scandal at this point in time? (more…)

I have absolutely no reason to like House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez — in fact he has fashioned himself as one of the worst Presidential allies, who spreads about as much false information as government’s social media army, and lays it on even thicker by being an unapologetic misogynist boor.

Now, I do not doubt that he has pushed for Congress to work on the dissolution of marriage bill so that he can get out of his own marriage, and continue living with the woman / women he so chooses — he has after all admitted to having fathered eight children with three different women. But that’s just it: without meaning to, and no matter what he says, Alvarez has revealed how he is in fact the best example of why women need a kinder, more compassionate, way to end marriages that have long been dead. (more…)

If there’s anything we’ve lost the past year, it’s a sense of propriety and order, of just common sense about what the role is of government and our officials when it comes to speaking to the populace. Sure Daang Matuwid had its own share of communications foibles, and yes they were elitist through and through.

And yet the same might be said of the Duterte government, especially his men, who speak with utter carelessness, and then demand us all to see that they were merely being “taken out of context.” See here likes the problem with these times: we have allowed government officials to get away with insisting that everything’s a matter of opinion, never mind right and wrong.

Case in point: Budget Secretary Ben Diokno has promised “hell” given the government’s infrastructure program. (more…)

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Category Archive for: kalalakihan

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