Opinion and Commentary
Balanza: Silent Guns
November 21, 2017, 6:37 pm
Critics of the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte are on a continuing holiday of silence since government forces in late October obliterated the Maute group and freed Marawi City from the grip of the IS-linked local terror group after five months of a bloody siege that killed more than a… Read More
Ledesma: The death of an infant
November 21, 2017, 5:41 pm
The treachery and ambuscade of the New People's Army on a police patrol and a civilian car seemed to have been stonewalled and consigned to oblivion. The Commission on Human Rights, the garrulous cabal of leftist political fronts and their allies in the streets are eerily quiet. A four-month old… Read More
Ledesma: Oxford researchers cheated?
November 18, 2017, 4:06 pm
With the astounding success of the ASEAN Summit and the Philippine economic growth now surging at 6.9 percent, the administration critics are fishing for issues to degrade Pres. Rodrigo Duterte and his management team. An opposition stalwart found one. Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice… Read More
Mediante: Making a difference among ASEAN leaders
November 17, 2017, 9:30 pm
Just this week, Pulse Asia came out with the result of its survey declaring President Rodrigo Duterte as the most approved and trusted president among the last four chief executives of the Philippines. Getting an 80 percent rating, Filipinos’ trust and approval on President Rodrigo Duterte… Read More
Ledesma: My country today
November 12, 2017, 2:15 pm
Welcome delegates and guests to the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and the ASEAN 50th Anniversary. The Philippines is populated by over 105 million people of diverse ethnic tribes and cultures, religious affiliations living in unique harmony. We are an archipelagic… Read More
Ledesma: The dying ember of the Yellowtards
November 7, 2017, 7:58 pm
The Human Rights Watch in an apparent effort to redeem itself from the embarrasment and the discombobulated political front has managed to wangle an award for jailed Sen. Leila De Lima. The former Commission on Human Rights chairperson was deliriously happy but 10 thousands plaques proclaiming her… Read More
Ledesma: Success trumps dissent
November 1, 2017, 9:32 am
Newly-appointed Palace spokesperson Harry Roque warned dyed-in-the wall Duterte bashers not to try their luck too far saying "for every stone that the critics throw at the President he will throw back hollow blocks". Well, with the bull-headedness and desperation of the Yellowtards and their… Read More
Mediante: Social media is citizen journalism
October 31, 2017, 1:19 pm
“Traditional academic assumptions say that traditional media is "all that is good and holy" and the new media/bloggers/etc. are, at minimum, highly suspect and probably poor quality…,” was a remark I read from a media analyst. He essentially talked about how news… Read More
Ledesma: Duterte, Trump, Jinping together in drug war
October 30, 2017, 5:02 pm
US Pres. Donald Trump has declared an all-out war against drugs. Shocked by the recent death statistics attributed to drug addiction, Trump announced before an assembly of medical practitioners, lawmakers, state governors Federal law enforcers an unprecedented campaign against drug… Read More
Ledesma: What great leaders are made of
October 27, 2017, 9:29 am
There is something diabolically dubious and desperate in the political opposition strategy to discredit and demonize Pres. Rodrigo Duterte. On the heels of the success of the government to decimate and permanently neutralized the vicious Maute ISIS which earned the Philippine Armed Forces and… Read More
Ledesma: Battlefronts
October 26, 2017, 7:05 pm
The Commander in Chief and his brave soldiers and police forces have won a decisive war against one of the most vicious terrorist band in the world — the Maute ISIS. The cost is not cheap. We lost scores of our own brave soldiers, policemen and innocent civilians, women held captives raped and… Read More
Ledesma: Beauty in New Zealand
October 18, 2017, 5:21 pm
New Zealand is not all about sheep and cattle. The major industry in this land in the deeper south of the globe is tourism. I saw this in a dinner-cum-cultural show of Maori tribe in Rotorua, New Zealand. Tourists from 21 countries gathered in rustic settings. Except for the fork and spoon and… Read More
Mediante: Net satisfaction guaranteed!
October 12, 2017, 7:32 pm
While the President’s net satisfaction rating from June 2017 to September 2017 dropped in the Visayas, Luzon, and in Metro Manila, it remained steady here in Mindanao. “It stayed excellent in Mindanao, at +76 (82% satisfied, 6% dissatisfied) in September 2017, hardly moving from +75 (83%… Read More
Ledesma: Who and what abets child slay?
September 29, 2017, 7:33 pm
The moribund opposition may have lost their mass base and the middle class support but they have not actually ran short of money. From day one, in the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, they have not given the new administration the so-called honeymoon period. Their propaganda machinery has not… Read More
Ledesma: Rallies fizzle for who can quarrel with success?
September 23, 2017, 4:35 pm
They marched and rallied to beat a long dead horse called Marcos martial law and dictatorial regime. They came from various political persuasions and agenda. The most vociferous of them are the assemblage of the usual bunch of professional street parliamentarians and some characters… Read More
Ledesma: The Senate Fluke
September 8, 2017, 8:38 am
I find it rather odd that tattoos and bank deposits will have any relevance to the Senate investigation on a PHP6.4-billion drug shipment, part of which had been recovered in Bulacan. Odder still is the attempt of Senator Antonio Trillanes to impute that (Davao City) Vice Mayor… Read More
Ledesma: Who silenced Kian?
August 24, 2017, 1:17 pm
For nearly two hours now since we left Aleco, Nevada en route to Utah, there's these endless panorama of arid desert lands. Bare earth and rocks as far as my eyes can see. All I can see now and then is the face of a grieving father of Kian, the 17-year-old boy who just hardly became a man. But… Read More
Ledesma: Department of Water
August 7, 2017, 4:23 pm
Water is life. This is an indubitable universal fact. For Filipinos water is almost everywhere as we are an archipelagic country. The Philippines is made up of 7,641 islands (no longer 7,107) scattered of the vast seas. Don’t you know that 70 percent of the Earth’s surface is water but that… Read More
Ledesma: Duterte warns and implores
July 27, 2017, 5:13 pm
The euphoria over President Rodrigo Duterte’s 2nd State of the Nation Address has reverberated outside the plenary hall of Congress and has not quieted down. The message, delivered in plain and simple terms, came from the emotion of the heart and mind of a man full of passion, dedication and… Read More
Ledesma: Testing the patience of Digong
July 12, 2017, 5:51 pm
The political opposition had made it a childish habit to conjure issues and scenarios and put the blame on President Rodrigo Duterte to demonize him. On the heels of his State of the Nation Address (SONA), there is a perceptible crescendo of critical items and decibels this time coming not only… Read More
