Opinion and Commentary

Ledesma: Of motives and options of ABS CBN

May 7, 2020, 12:39 pm

LET'S set aside the COVID -19 pandemic first and talk about the shut down of ABS CBN. The emotional outbursts of some characters have breached a modicum of civility I cannot imagine that some avid oppositions and their minions would dub those identified with Pres. Rodrigo Duterte as demonic or in… Read More

Nieva: Robust disease surveillance and ‘outbreak drill’

May 4, 2020, 12:48 pm

AS the Philippine government continues to expand it's testing capacity and isolation facilities, building a national COVID-19 surveillance and outbreak preparedness system is critical for containing transmission of the virus now and preparing for potential waves of the infection in the future. … Read More

Laurel: China recovers, West and minions mope

May 1, 2020, 2:50 pm

LAST April 15, 2020, Kenneth Kang deputy director of the Asia and Pacific Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) told the media that “News of the widespread re-opening of (Chinese) firms and the return of employees to work give us hope that we will see a recovery in the second… Read More

Ledesma: Balik Probinsya

April 30, 2020, 4:29 pm

I HAVE been following the activities of Sen. Bong Go at the halls of the Senate since day one. Davao journalists know him quite well. A quiet worker who served as executive assistant to then-City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte. For more than 23 long years Bong served as his records custodian, telephone… Read More

Ledesma: Some good news

April 25, 2020, 8:06 pm

FOR days we have been reading morbid stories about the death tolls from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It hit China, European nations, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Japan to name a few. As the casualty increases the economy plummets, engines of heavy industries come… Read More

Ledesma: Karl Kendrick Chua

April 23, 2020, 2:38 pm

KARL Kendrick Chua, the new Secretary-designate of the National Economic Development Authority may be young in the eyes of his critics but he has proven his mettle when he pushed for the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act. The TRAIN law was doubted by the opposition to bring reforms in… Read More

Ledesma: Don’t taunt a Duterte

April 19, 2020, 8:32 pm

TO obey or to defy, that is the option. Whether it is sane to suffer the slings and arrows of the ‘stay home’ order and by opposing we will all stay longer locked in our homes. This could have been the question posed by the bard of Avon if he were alive today. Across the archipelagic divide… Read More

Laurel: ‘Please don’t politicize this virus’

April 16, 2020, 1:21 pm

ON April 8, 2020, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus made the appeal, “Please Don’t Politicize This Virus” which this article uses as title. He was referring to the novel coronavirus of the SAR-CoV2 that causes the disease called COVID-19. Ghebreyesus made… Read More

Ledesma: A panacea more effective than a vaccine

April 14, 2020, 3:57 pm

OUR government is in dire need of cash, and no less than President Rodrigo Duterte is telling us that. Those who think otherwise and tell us that Congress had just approved a budget that runs to trillions of pesos might be thinking that that huge sum is available in government's bank vaults. It is… Read More

Ledesma: A letter to Pres. Rodrigo R. Duterte

April 9, 2020, 9:39 pm

TODAY, I am giving way to a letter sent to me by a certain Mark Adie. Since we neither know each other from Adam nor are we Facebook friends, he sent his letter to one I know and who in turn sent this to me. I had posted this on my wall and since then it had been shared by many. I am deeply… Read More

Ledesma: The virulent black propagandists

April 3, 2020, 1:38 pm

WHILE the country is grappling against the scourge of COVID 19 the political opposition and their black propaganda machinery are busy concocting toxins to poison the mind of the people. Their targets are no other than Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and his close confidant now Senator Christopher Lawrence… Read More

Ledesma: Man harbors the enemy

March 19, 2020, 11:21 pm

THESE are trying times. Never was there a period in the history of humankind that we face an invisible enemy almost as invincible as the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19). The plague has traveled across the globe and infects people, rich or poor, black or white, men and women, young or aged. No… Read More

Ledesma: Of Covid, lockdown and Periwinkles

March 18, 2020, 4:37 pm

MARCH for Davao City is a month of celebration. The climax is March 16 when this southern capital, the communication and commercial center of Mindanao and home to the Philippines President celebrates Araw ng Dabaw. This year the city anniversary’s celebration is not only subdued it is altogether… Read More

Ledesma: POGO and Cardinal Sin

March 11, 2020, 12:21 pm

JUST when the government eyes PAGCOR’s revenue to tap for emergency measures that would address the menace of COVID-19 some senators go viral on the senate floor and on TV calling for the closure of POGOs operations. Simon-pure Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chair, Dick Gordon, sermonizes that… Read More

Ledesma: Look who’s behind fake news

March 10, 2020, 4:10 pm

“FB page Confeermed’s fabricated quote card already got almost 5,600 FB interactions and could have reached around 755,000 netizens. The page, plus public FB groups -- SEN TRILLANES POWER and VP Leni Robredo Angel Warriors International -- are the post’s top traffic generators”. This is… Read More

Ledesma: What is Cayetano up to?

March 4, 2020, 1:49 pm

WHAT is Speaker Alan Cayetano up to? Until he shook his own house by removing a strong pillar closely identified with Pres. Rodrigo R. Duterte, there is neither a storm or tsunami that could shake the foundation of the lower house. By the looks of it, he created his own scenario of a conspiracy to… Read More

Laurel: Covid-19 should unify the world

March 4, 2020, 10:04 am

AS the Covid-19 virus jumps vast distances and oceans to other continents, we see how other countries are adopting lessons from China’s responses, including mass “lockdowns” and other preemptive moves. The effectiveness of China’s response has resulted in a reduction of the Covid-19 crisis… Read More

Ledesma: Who are likely to use viral and chemical weapons?

February 28, 2020, 5:19 pm

A NUMBER of xenophobic videos have been going around the social media depicting brutalities by the Beijing government on its own people that had been infected by COVID-19. A trained eye can easily detect that the video clips were fabricated but to others, the news reports and documentaries can… Read More

Badoy: What EDSA means to me

February 26, 2020, 10:31 am

I WAS at EDSA 34 years ago when we successfully overthrew a dictator without a drop of bloodshed. Thirty-four years have since passed and some things I believe about EDSA remain. And some things I no longer buy and even if you held a gun to my head, I would say, “Please pull the trigger.” –… Read More

Ledesma: About freedom and power

February 24, 2020, 4:08 pm

THE problem of ABS CBN is neither about the issue of press freedom, which is being bannered by its defenders, nor about Pres. Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged  personal gripes against the giant Network. The unfair treatment of ABS CBN on then Mayor of Davao City when he joined the Presidential race… Read More