By Malou Mangahas and Floreen Simon RICH MAN, poor man, Mayor, President. Back in 15thcentury England, this was how a traditional nursery rhyme and fortune-telling game ran. Later in the United States, it became a popular counting song of children playing tag as they called out who would be “it.” In the Philippines today, it […]
WHO have run for senator and won in the last five elections since 2004?As of the May 2016 elections, how many of the registered voters actually voted, and in which provinces, towns, and cities of the country? How many are women, how many men? How big, how small, are our voters, by age group? How […]
Money and the May 2019 Elections
UNDER ELECTION laws, they were not yet officially considered to be candidates, and therefore not yet incurring campaign expenditures, until after the official campaign period had started.But under anti-graft and anti-corruption laws, several candidates in the May 2019 elections may be unable to escape legal liability for incurring millions of pesos of pre-campaign ads.Indeed, incumbents, […]
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| Posted Wednesday, February 13th, 2019
'Build, Build, Build' hits chokepoint
by Malou Mangahas
IT’S AS GOOD as it gets for Davao Region, home and bailiwick of President Rodrigo R. Duterte. And by the government’s own data, it’s as bad as it gets for many other regions of the country in terms of the spread of monies for civil-works projects, although a few have also managed to receive slight […]
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| Posted Wednesday, September 5th, 2018
People, paper behind PCIJ's report
by Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism
Editor’s Note: PCIJ’s multi-part report on civil works projects under the Duterte Administration is the composite work of seven PCIJ editors and reporters, and three student interns, over the last eight months. It builds on 11 gigabytes of documents and data that PCIJ has gathered from at least nine government agencies; reply letters and comments […]
'Build, Build, Build' hits chokepoint
by Karol Ilagan
THE GOVERNMENT awards a contractor-bidder a contract if its bid amount has been evaluated and found to be the “lowest calculated bid.” The bid will be subjected next to post-qualification, which involves verifying if it has complied with the requirements listed below. Complying with these prerequisites makes the bid “responsive.” A bidder is declared the […]
'Build, Build, Build' hits chokepoint
by Karol Ilagan and Malou Mangahas
THREE HAD been suspended or blacklisted, including one for submitting fake tax clearance certificates. One had its corporate registration revoked. The officers of four others are facing trial for alleged graft. Two have direct connections to politicians, some others had sealed deals via financial favors exchanged with certain politicians. All share a record of incomplete […]
PCIJ Primer: Unpacking Federalism
by Malou Mangahas, Justin Oliver Fiestada, and Crystal Joy de la Rosa; Infographics by Ojie Sarmiento and John Reiner Antiquerra
A “SELF-EXECUTING” ban on political dynasties is supposedly one of the crown jewels of the draft constitution for the pitch to shift to a federal system of government. It is paired with a proposed ban on turncoatism, or candidates changing political parties between elections or during election campaigns.These are supposed to limit the opportunities for […]
A PCIJ Primer: Unpacking Federalism
by Crystal Joy de la Rosa, Justin Oliver Fiestada, and Malou Mangahas: Infographics by Ojie Sarmiento and John Reiner Antiquerra
ONLY THREE of the proposed 18 federated regions have revenue collections larger than the fund transfers that they are getting from the national government in terms of Internal Revenue Allotment or IRA. The rest of the 15 regions remain largely dependent on their IRA shares to sustain their most basic operations.The three regions with strong […]
A PCIJ Primer: Unpacking Federalism
by Justin Oliver Fiestada, Crystal Joy de la Rosa, and Malou Mangahas; Infographics by John Reiner Antiquerra and Ojie Sarmiento
THE POOR abound in this country — Filipinos who cannot earn or raise the minimum income to meet the basic food and non-food requirements. The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) clusters them among citizens living below the poverty threshold.Across the nation, the PSA says that some 21.9 million Filipinos, or nearly one in every five, do […]
