The bemedaled armchair general
In full regalia, Romero looks every bit the man of honor. But the audacity is something else.
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In full regalia, Romero looks every bit the man of honor. But the audacity is something else.
She has said this before
Vice President Sara Duterte has a message for everyone watching her impeachment trial: she still isn’t coming.
The problem? She had already said that.
When the Senate trial opened on 6 July, Duterte chose not to attend, saying that she would be represented by her lawyers and that not personally appearing was a legal strategy and a constitutional right.
Now, weeks into the trial, she is still saying essentially the same thing: her lawyers are enough.
So how are things going?
The trial has moved forward. The prosecution has presented eight witnesses and the Senate impeachment court continues to hear evidence.
Yet Duterte’s defense for her non-attendance remains stuck on repeat. She says she cannot contribute because she is not her own lawyer for her defense. Perhaps.
But nobody is asking the Vice President to replace her lawyers. People are asking why the person facing impeachment appears determined to stay away from the proceedings that would decide whether she remains in office.
Her lawyers can cross-examine witnesses. They can make objections. They can defend her case. But they cannot be Sara Duterte.
And that is precisely why her repeated explanation raises more questions than it answers.
— Jason Mago
Vicious cycle and water cycle
In Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson argue that nations prosper through inclusive institutions and stagnate under extractive ones.
The latter concentrate political power among elites who construct economic systems benefiting themselves. Wealth consequently produces more political influence, which protects the mechanism producing that wealth.
This is their vicious circle.
It explains something painfully familiar in the Philippines. Political dynasties survive elections. Businesses finance politicians who can protect their interests. Contractors secure government projects, accumulate wealth and return as donors and political players. Change the names and parties, yet the machinery survives.
Acemoglu and Robinson reject the comforting explanation that leaders simply do not know better. Often, they know exactly what reforms are necessary. Reform simply threatens those benefiting from the dysfunction.
Consider the Philippines’ vicious “water cycle.”
Rains fall. Floods rise. The government promises reform. Billions are appropriated for flood control. Allegations of ghost projects and kickbacks follow. Another typhoon arrives. The water rises again.
Inclusive institutions can produce the opposite, a virtuous circle where political inclusion strengthens economic opportunity, which further distributes power.
The Philippines knows what must be done. The question is whether those benefiting from the vicious cycle would ever willingly break it.
If the cycle is broken, perhaps a virtuous one can finally begin. But if the institutions fail again, the waters will rise again.
And the Philippine nation fails again. — Carl Magadia
Mikee: Top Gun
Four years at the Philippine Military Academy. Fifteen years with the 35th and 38th Infantry Battalions in Mindanao. G2 intelligence. Anti-kidnapping operations.
He has seen blood. He has seen troops die. Friends die. He has risked his life on the front lines in some of the country’s most dangerous areas.
This is a man I know.
Humble. Quiet. The kind of person who lost years with his children because of his military service, then he became a full-time dad to my high school friend. He would drive her to and from school even when their house was practically next door — just to make up for the time he missed.
Now he lives simply, walking his collie around the mall every afternoon.
Then there is Mikee Romero. Businessman. Politician. Sportsman. Philanthropist. Military reservist.
He has more decorations than many soldiers who spent years in military schools and actual combat — not simply collecting credentials, but living the profession.
This is not an attack on reservists. Reservists serve a purpose. Romero championed AFP modernization and helped secure funding for military capability upgrades during his years in Congress. Applause.
Romero has also proudly talked about going to remote, underserved communities, including in Northern Cotabato, and helping build schools.
But what did he endure to become the most decorated military man today?
There are men like Brawner, Nafarrete, Espelita and Cordura who built their careers through years of command, deployment, and danger. And Romero now wears an Army Aviator Badge alongside them.
Funding the machine is not the same as being part of it. Money does not teach a soldier how to hold a gun in the field. It does not teach him what it feels like to lose a man beside him.
And it certainly does not make four years at an academy—or a few flights—equivalent to a lifetime of military service.
In full regalia, Romero looks every bit the man of honor. But the audacity is something else.
Romero is so invested in projecting his own goodness that he has blurred the line between doing good and seeking recognition he does not deserve. Even in the military, where honor must be earned, favor can still find a place.
Shabbiest salute to Mikee.
— Vivienne Angeles
