TOMORROW, we go to the polls to vote for candidates who we believe can make a difference in our lives in the years ahead.  Such is the norm for each election – to cast our votes for individuals who we believe can shape our country and our communities for the…

AS the country prepares to go to the polls next week, mistrust of the election system continues to be felt by most. After all, the charges of cheating involving Smartmatic were never resolved and the Comelec officials who governed were never held accountable. Not a few have come forward to…

FOR decades till now, local political contests have been defined by the incumbents vs. former officials, incumbents vs. new wannabes but have always been with one common denominator: they were all residents from the same town or city. Incumbents vs. former officials contests are what we are seeing in Dagupan…

AS the country approaches mid-term elections, both our politicians and their constituents find themselves completely engrossed in talking about what can be expected – largely about how much one can receive from the campaign dole-outs until election day, not about changes in their lives after the elections. Indeed, how could…

LAST week, former DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., an advocate for transparency in computerized vote-counting, posted four (4) measures that he said Comelec should adopt to ensure transparent, clean and honest May 12, 2025 election. While it is unlikely that Comelec will do so as he recommended, there is nothing…

WHOEVER expected that this year’s midterm elections would be tame and subdued upon seeing the politicians who filed their certificates of candidacies quietly participate in the signing of the covenant and the parade of “decent, civilized” candidates, must have been truly naïve and desperate to see meaningful changes in the…

THE Red flag is up! The 2025 Midterm elections is not going to be just like any other in the past. What it is, and how it will end will be a test of our individual and community moral character. It will not be a mere election of another set…

THE Mother and Child Hospital that would have brought immeasurable relief to mothers and their children in Dagupan City over their health concerns is lost. The credit for it belongs to the seven councilors who were dead set on stopping it for the past three years. Celebrating city’s loss today…

THE arrest of Past President Rodrigo Duterte by International Criminal Court via Interpol was not exactly a surprise after the apparent flip-flopping by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. no less. While our fellowmen are discussing and digesting both the future scenarios for FPRRD while under detention in The Hague, and the…

SOON after Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took his oath as president of the Philippines in 2022, he announced the appointments of cabinet members, except a secretary for the Department of Agriculture. He said he would be the DA’s concurrent secretary. The agriculture sector wondered if, indeed, he had the experience or…