Mong Palatino

Blogging about the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific since 2004

About

@mongster is a Manila-based activist, former Philippine legislator, and blogger/analyst of Asia-Pacific affairs.

Aquino’s Human Rights Problem

Friday, December 23rd, 2011

Please visit the special page I created about Philippine Airport Terminals. I also edited my profile page The Philippines is often recognized by global institutions for its strong commitment to human rights. Indeed, compared with other countries in the region, where government critics are given insanely long prison sentences and media reports are heavily censored […]

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From Malacanang to Batasan

Friday, July 1st, 2011

June 30, 2010 was the day when Noy became President Noy or Pnoy and PGMA became Congresswoman GMA or CGMA. Today, everybody had something to say about Pnoy’s performance as president in the past 12 months but only few people had taken an interest in reviewing Gloria’s legislative work. So how did she perform in […]

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Philippine politics 1969-2009

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

The year 1969 – Gloria Diaz was crowned Miss Universe and Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. During the same year, Ferdinand Marcos was reelected as president of the republic and the communist New People’s Army was founded in Tarlac. How did Philippine politics evolve in the past 40 years? […]

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Arroyo-Aquino infrastructure projects

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

1. The Public-Private-Partnership program of the Noynoy Aquino government is not an innovation since its framework is no different from the Build-Operate-Transfer model of previous governments. In fact, PNoy recently renamed the country’s BOT Center into PPP Center when he issued EO No.8 series of 2010. The name PPP is also misleading since many of […]

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She-Who-Cannot-Be-Named-in-the-Plenary

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

Privilege Speech delivered on August 4, 2010. The drafting of this speech was a collective effort. Thank you @kabataancrew. Mr. Speaker, distinguished colleagues. I wish to speak about the events this week which I think might affect my duties as a member of this House. We are all adjusting to the new situation: a former […]

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Sona 2010: Notes from the plenary

Tuesday, July 27th, 2010

Speech delivered at the UP College of Law. President Noynoy Aquino or PNoy spoke in Filipino. He addressed the people inside the plenary as “my fellow government workers.” He immediately tackled what everybody wanted to hear from him: the anomalies of his predecessor. He cited the depleted calamity funds, rising budget deficit, and bloated benefits […]

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“When I was still in the Guest House, I asked for the logs which listed those who had visited President Marcos. I compared them with those visiting President Aquino. They were the same people – they came from the same companies, shared the same business views, the same mindset, and they went to the same […]

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Season of mudslinging

Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Written in 2007…. Politics is addition. The longer you stay in public office, the more number of enemies you will attract. There are no permanent friends and enemies; only the desire for power and absolute power. A politician thinks this way: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. During elections, every candidate is a […]

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2009 political words of the year

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

The 2009 Oxford words of the year are unfriend, hashtag, intexticated, netbook, sexting, funemployed, birther, choice mom, and deleb. Many of these words, though familiar to most Filipinos, are not applicable in the Philippines. Unfriending people in facebook, friendster, and other social network sites is not a common internet habit among Filipino netizens. We cannot […]

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Written early this year. In reposting this article, I dedicate it to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton…. Today we condemn the continuation of the joint military exercises between Philippine and United States troops in the Bicol region. The resumption of the so-called Balikatan (Shoulder-to-Shoulder) exercises clearly indicates that President Barack Obama has not fundamentally […]

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