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Political parties, candidates, and other election stakeholders worried at how credible the 2013 mid-term polls will be should take a second look at the preparations being made. Many of them will be surprised to know – or perhaps not at all – at the way election preparations are being botched by Smartmatic and how the whole exercise has become yet again a money-making business.

The undemocratic and anti-progress hegemony of political dynasties can be effectively challenged by a strong “new politics” movement with a critical mass advocating for an end to dynastic politics.

As the country gears for the mid-term elections in May 2013, drawing more public attention is the barefaced display of power by political dynasties. Unlike in previous elections, the outcry against political dynasties has been more pronounced today to the extent that groups of anti-dynasty advocates led by former Vice President Teofisto Guingona, Jr. and anti-crime/corruption figure Dante L. Jimenez have asked the Supreme Court (SC) in a petition to compel Congress to enact an anti-dynasty law as the Constitution requires. Similar moves and sounds of fury are coming from other sectors including the media.

Without social consciousness and the will to change, transformational leadership will remain elusive – not under the present state of the nation anyway. From the way he has shown his “leadership” so far, the country has already seen the rest of Aquino’s presidency. Without even being understood by the people, “transformational presidency” has lost its appeal.

As the Senate impeachment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona took a back seat during Congress break this summer, much of the political news dealt with the coming congressional and local elections in 2013. As in every poll, the next elections – 13 months away -are as critical but more so given that the polls for the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) – considered as a “cheating capital” -will also be synchronized under the country's fragile election system.

President Benigno S. Aquino III’s much-vaunted anti-corruption program barely scratches the surface of the problem and gives no hint on how he will grapple with its systemic roots. Failing to address or worse abetting the fundamental roots that sustain corruption makes his administration’s anti-corruption drive superficial if not a complete sham.

President Benigno S. Aquino III’s much-vaunted anti-corruption program barely scratches the surface of the problem and gives no hint on how he will grapple with its systemic roots. Failing to address or worse abetting the fundamental roots that sustain corruption makes his administration’s anti-corruption drive superficial if not a complete sham.

2012 marks the 20th year of the Local Government Code which took effect on January 1, 1992. The code provided for decentralization – giving autonomy to local governments – and the devolution of basic services. Decentralization was expected to reduce local governments’ dependence on the national government where powers and resources are highly centralized, and make local governance accountable as well as accessible to the people under an LGU- civil society partnership.

Today, however, observations on the impact of the law remain divided. One side criticizes the national government’s farcical transfer of real powers to the local government units (LGUs) while another cites the code’s failure to bring about real development in the local communities. On a positive note, all are one in calling for a revisit of the local government code with the aim of introducing reforms.

The U.S. is now trapped in a global war of its own making. It will be embroiled in more wars possibly in the next 10-20 years as a result of which it will create more enemies and make the use of force a long-term necessity.

Money flowed like water in May 2004, but no one is saying where all of it went and how it was used.

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The seemingly innocuous visit of two American senators to a former US naval base in Central Luzon in the Philippines has stirred a hornets' nest that could revive strong anti-American protests in the country.

March 30 is a sad day for Filipinos. Three overseas Filipino workers Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain were executed after being caught by Chinese immigration authorities and subsequently sentenced to death for carrying heroin into China.

The "war on terror" policy pursued by the past Macapagal-Arroyo administration should be declared as good as dead and should be abandoned by the incumbent President. That policy was based hook, line, and sinker on former U.S. President George W. Bush, Jr.'s neo-conservative theory linking Iraq to the 9/11 bombings. Now, an Iraqi defector who was the primary source of so-called intelligence reports that were used to make a case for Bush's Operation Iraqi Freedom has confessed that he made the whole story up.

It should be remembered that the corruption scandals that involved the Arroyo family were the subject of so many congressional inquiries and were made as basis for the impeachment complaints that were filed against former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. There are already numerous evidences that were gathered. And yet, the Aquino government has not yet demonstrated the political will to run after the Arroyo family.