A trail of anonymous money
by Karol Ilagan
GERMELINA I. Taylor, Wilbert T. Lee, Danilo E. Suarez, and Teddie E. Rivera were among the 10 biggest donors of then presidential candidate Jejomar C. Binay. The four alone gave Binay P172.3 million altogether – except the money wasn’t really theirs.Taylor, Lee, Suarez, and Rivera were among 24 fundraisers who coordinated meetings, lunches, and dinners […]
The windfall of elections
by The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
FRANCISCO ‘Isko Moreno’ M. Domagoso may have been unsuccessful in his quest to have a Senate seat in last May’s elections, but Christmas still came quite early for the former Manila vice mayor.Once the dust had settled following the polls, Domagoso found himself with millions of pesos in excess campaign funds. To be exact, there […]
Puzzling personal spenders
by Karol Ilagan
IN AN increasingly gloomy world, it may be wise to choose the positive when presented with a myriad of possibilities. So when politicians plunk down considerable amounts of their own fortunes just to run for public office, perhaps it is really because they believe they can make a difference and do a lot of good.To […]
Campaign Finance Office in drift, headless
by Karol Ilagan and Malou Mangahas
THE IMAGE Rodrigo R. Duterte projected of his 2016 presidential campaign was that it was one run on a shoestring budget. It supposedly had no donors with vested interests, and that included big businessmen and mining firms.But the Statement of Contributions and Expenditures (SOCE) he filed with the Commission on Elections (Comelec) after he won […]
Campaign finance and the 2016 elections
by The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
IN 2010, PCIJ reported that only 308 donors contributed in the presidential race that Benigno Aquino III won. In the last presidential elections, where Rodrigo R. Duterte emerged as victor, that number has shot up to 830. Then again, there were nearly 56 million registered voters when the May 2016 elections took place, which makes […]
Sidebar
by The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
BY ALL indications, the May 2016 elections are no different from previous polls in which those donating to the campaign coffers of candidates and political parties turn out to be the same business owners and executives yet again. In past elections, the names of the prohibited corporations themselves were listed in the Statement of Contributions […]
Duterte's war: Breaking bad?
by Karol Ilagan
ON TOP of Bayani Arago’s desk at the Commission on Human Rights National Capital Region (CHR NCR) is a pile of clippings now about an inch thick. The news reports, which Arago began collecting last July 1, tell stories of various police encounters that almost always end up with the same outcome: a drug suspect […]
Duterte's war: Breaking bad?
by Vino Lucero and Malou Mangahas
BANGKAY SA BANGKETA… kasi nga drug pusher ako. This is the sad refrain in a sardonic poem that a young Filipina wrote and read in a video she posted last week on her Facebook page. It does not matter, she averred, that the so-called drug pushers falling by the dozens of late had not been […]
Sidebar
by Vino Lucero
BEFORE Rodrigo R. Duterte became President on June 30, 2016, the Philippine National Police (PNP) had hauled a fairly bountiful harvest from its anti-drug war from January 2010 to June 2016.It had confiscated in the 78-month period a total of P24.9 billion worth of illegal drugs and other substances, including P11.1 billion taken from operations […]
by Free Legal Assistance Group and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
ANUMAN ANG SITWASYON, NANANATILING LUBOS AT HINDI DAPAT YURAKAN ANG ATING MGA BATAYANG KARAPATAN. KABILANG DITO ANG MGA SUMUSUNOD: (In any situation, you do not lose your basic rights, such as….)• Karapatang mabuhay (The right to life);• Karapatang hindi ma-torture o isailalim sa malupit, di-makatao, at kahiya-hiyang pakitungo o parusa (The right not to be […]
