By Francis Allan L. Angelo Somewhere in this republic, a man named Xuniso P. Belat exists, and the official record says the government paid him for information. Belat. Say it out loud. It is the sound a child makes with the tongue out and a finger dragging down one eyelid, the oldest taunt in any
August 25, 2026
Filipinos ranked a woman who says she is not running second in the 2028 presidential field, handed the only declared candidate her commanding numbers in a single region, and left a bloc of voters larger than the third placer entirely uncommitted. Those three findings sit inside the June 2026 WR
August 5, 2026
Three weeks after the mayor signed the Coastal Greenbelt Zone ordinance, a list of 25 proposed amendments landed in front of me. Twenty-five amendments are a lot for a law three weeks old. The ordinance passed on July 1 and was signed a week later. The amendments come from Dr.
August 1, 2026
(Last of two parts) ‘Non-member’ is the firewall, not a way around it The “Traifalgar” piece devotes an entire section to the phrase “non-member Board of Advisers,” under the heading “‘Non-member’ is not an ethical firewall.” It treats the designation as suspicious nomenclature — a formal category that “cannot substitute
July 28, 2026
(First of two parts) A so-called opinion piece titled “Crossing the Lines: ICE, UP Visayas, and the Daily Guardian” has been circulating by email since July 25. It names me in its first sentence and returns to me throughout. It was sent from a Gmail account under the name “Domingo
July 27, 2026
Every barangay captain in Iloilo City has, at some point, heard some version of the same lecture: submit the budget on time, or the whole village runs on fumes for a year. That threat is not hypothetical anymore. As of July 20, 63 of the city’s 180 barangays and 107
July 25, 2026
Let us just cut to the chase. The Senate impeachment court’s decision to subpoena the bank and tax records of Vice President Sara Duterte and her husband, Mans Carpio, is not some rogue overreach. It is exactly how the system is supposed to work when PHP 6.77 billion in flagged
July 22, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo The numbers arrived a week before the impeachment court got to actual evidence. In the June 2026 Social Weather Stations survey commissioned by the Stratbase Group, 57 percent of Filipinos said they have much trust in Vice President Sara Duterte, unchanged from March, while President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. slipped to
July 20, 2026
In 1960, the Philippines boasted a real gross domestic product per person of USD 1,124, sitting comfortably ahead of South Korea. Today, South Korea has skyrocketed past USD 37,000 while the Philippines struggles below USD 4,000. The Filipino household has spent the last six decades acting as the shock absorber
July 2, 2026
Voting in the University of the Philippines Alumni Association elections opened on June 18 and runs through August 6. Most members will not bother to cast a ballot. That apathy is the real story behind this election. The University of the Philippines trains a large share of the country’s judges,
June 25, 2026
Cura personalis – “care for the whole person” – is the phrase Jesuit schools stitch onto their banners and recite at every orientation. On the afternoon of June 8, 2026, two young men in the care of the most famous Jesuit university in the country drowned in the sea off
June 22, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo Go to the La Paz market early, before the heat. The floor is still wet from the hosing and the batchoy stalls are just getting their cauldrons going. I have spent a lot of mornings there over the years, and that is where you actually learn what Iloilo is –
June 20, 2026
