Author: Alex Vidal

THE many restrictions imposed by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for the “temporary” reopening of the much-vilified and defective P680-million (plus P200-million for the “repair”) Ungka flyover (UFO) in Pavia, Iloilo can be compared to a newly built but poorly constructed house turned over by the builder to the homeowner and his family for a short-term use.

VICE President Sara Duterte-Carpio probably thinks the taxpayers money grows on trees, and it is in the behest of high-ranking public officials like her who want to custody a big chunk of it “confidentially.”

IF the late Iloilo Senator, Dr. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, was alive today, the furor over the abusive and brazen requests by the country’s second highest elected official for the sordid and astronomical “confidential” and “intelligence” funds or CIF, would have been “settled” right away.

WHEN Iloilo Governor Arthur “Toto” Defensor Jr. abandoned the National Unity Party (NUP) and recently took an oath as new member of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s ruling Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) in Malacanang, he must have been given the opportunity to engage the President in a tete-a-tete.

WHAT greeted the school children and those involved in public elementary and high school education this year was an outrageous and calamitous shortage of classrooms all over the Philippines.