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.

Candidates belonging to the coalition endorsed by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte won in the senate amid reports of widespread vote tampering and other irregularities documented on election day. Election monitoring groups said there were more cases of faulty vote counting machines this year compared to the 2016 election. Local poll officials solved the issue by […]

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There were several surprises in the election results: First, the landslide victory of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who is now set to become the Philippines’ 16th president. Second, the close race between Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr and neophyte Congresswoman Leni Robredo for the vice presidency. And third, the possible entry into the senate of […]

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The Spokesman as Politician

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

Which is worse: The politician liar, or the spokesperson who willingly and even gleefully lies for him? In the age of hyper communications, the politician must be an expert communicator. But if he has problematic communication skills, the next best thing is to hire a butt double, oops, I mean a spokesperson. The spokesperson must […]

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Electoral reforms

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Written one week after the 2007 elections…. Modernization of elections should be one of the top priorities of government after the midterm polls. We cannot afford to have the same slow, fraud-prone and chaotic manual elections in 2010. The Presidential elections three years from now is looming to be as significant, if not more momentous, […]

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