TELLTALE SIGNS

In the American magazine Foreign Affairs published in July of 1968, a young Filipino senator introduced his country to the American people as “a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. . . . a land consecrated to democracy but run by an Continue reading →

Facing plunder charges for stealing at least P10 billion ($240 million) from the taxpayers, alleged Pork Barrel Queen Janet Napoles finally released what has been called the “Napoles List” (“Napolist”) of senators who conspired with her to hand over their pork barrel allocations to her dummy non-profit corporations in exchange for fat kickbacks she either personally handed over to the senators or had delivered to their “aides”. Continue reading →

This past week China responded to Pres. Obama’s recent Asian tour by deploying an armada of 80 military and civilian ships, along with support aircraft, to install a billion dollar oil rig in the territorial waters of Vietnam. When Vietnam responded by dispatching 30 of its ships to defend its sovereign territory, China used high-powered water cannons to disperse them and even rammed its vessels straight into Vietnamese ships causing serious damage to the ships and injury to those on board. Continue reading →

To be a nationalist in the 1960s and 1970s meant that one also had to be anti-US imperialist. To be a nationalist now, one has to also be anti-China imperialist. Continue reading →

No community was more shell shocked by the news last week that State Sen. Leland Yee was arrested by the FBI on seven federal felony charges related to public corruption and gun trafficking charges than the Bay Area Filipino community. Continue reading →

The Philippine Daily Inquirer reported on March 23 that “Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin on Saturday twitted activists for their silence on the country’s territorial dispute with China, while they loudly protest the Philippines’ new defense cooperation agreement with the United States.” Continue reading →

We were having lunch while watching “Eat Bulaga”, the popular noontime variety show on cable GMA TV, when someone commented that, according to what he read on Facebook, two of the show’s hosts, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon, were involved in the gang rape of a Filipino American actress named Pepsi Paloma back in 1982. Continue reading →

China’s coast guard fleet, which is illegally occupying the Philippines’ Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) 550 miles from China, recently sprayed Filipino fishermen with wastewater and oil fired from a water cannon to drive them away from their traditional fishing grounds. This new controversy, which has ignited a firestorm of protests in the Philippines, reminds me of a conversation I had recently with two Chinese friends. Continue reading →

After Michael Ray Aquino and Cezar Mancao fled to the US in 2001 following a tip from Sen. Panfilo Lacson that warrants of arrest would be issued for them, Lacson’s lawyers managed to delay the issuance of the warrants of arrest against Aquino and Mancao until 2006 when the Manila Regional Trial Court ordered their arrests after finding probable cause against them and 18 others in the double-murder case. Continue reading →

“Lacson may be a killer but at least he’s honest,” is a comment I regularly heard after my column appeared last week. As proof, some readers cited Panfilo Lacson’s refusal to seek pork barrel allotments during his 12 years in the Philippine Senate. Not so fast. Continue reading →