ON MARCH 27, Thursday next week, the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) sign the Comprehensive Agreement on the BangsaMoro (CAB), a political settlement between the government and the MILF rebels that hopefully would bring...

FOR TODAY'S Data A Day, we take a peek at the politics in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. Since the ARMM was created by virtue of Republic Act 6734 in August 1989, a select number of families have dominated the local elections in Muslim...

TRANSPARENCY is at its most effective when it is institutionalized, and not dependent on the whims, or even the good nature of whoever is presently in charge. This appears to be among the significant discoveries among community journalists who took...

THE COMMISSION ON AUDIT (COA) may be the ultimate watchdog or guardian of the public purse. But who watches the watchdog? This question was raised by participants in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism's (PCIJ) advanced investigative...

COMMUNITY JOURNALISTS have raised the alarm over a growing trend among many local government officials to use public funds to buy airtime or print space to push their personal or political interests to the public. This was one of many concerns raised...

PROVING TRUE TO ITS WORD, the Philippine Senate on Monday passed on third and final reading its version of the Freedom of Information bill. According to National Union of Journalists of the Philippines chairperson Rowena Paraan, twenty-two (not 12 as...

LEGISLATORS pushing the decriminalization of libel are just correcting "a historical flaw" that has remained in the statute books for eight decades and made "a mockery" of the concepts of democracy and freedom of expression. In a statement read by...