Baste: My sister did what? No, no, no

Blood thicker than politics?

Politics is a difficult job. Human relationships are at the center of it.

Friends become allies. Families become dynasties. None of this is a secret. What we do not always see is what happens when those relationships enter government, where public money and public trust are involved.

In this administration, the relationships are visible: Marcos and Romualdez, the Dutertes, Remullas, Cayetanos, and more. They remind us that accountability is never entirely removed from the human instinct to protect our own.

Is blood thicker when public trust is at stake? Perhaps that is the question.

Because power carries responsibility. And responsibility should mean asking, “Who should be held accountable, regardless of who they are?”

We cannot see what happens behind closed doors. We can only see what emerges from them.

Aristotle wrote that in a democracy, the majority is supreme. The power ultimately belongs to the people who must decide what to do with it.

Names matter.

But they should not matter more than records. Corruption will always be there. Choose the lesser evil.

— Jason Mago

Traffic, just one floor higher

San Miguel Infrastructure and the DPWH appear determined to make the same mistake again: Treating more road capacity as the cure for traffic congestion.

The latest addition is a 407-meter, single-lane ramp giving westbound EDSA motorists direct access to northbound Skyway Stage 3, bypassing Osmeña Highway below.

It sounds convenient until you consider where those cars go. Anyone regularly driving north from the South knows the Skyway already slows badly from Bicutan toward Magallanes. Now another stream of vehicles will merge near the Don Bosco exit, creating another point for weaving, braking and congestion.

We are moving traffic upward, not solving it.

Meanwhile, cities from Seoul to San Francisco have removed urban expressways or redirected road space toward transit, walking, and public spaces. Transport research has long warned about induced demand: increasing road capacity will encourage more driving until congestion catches up again.

Metro Manila cannot keep building its way out of traffic with infrastructure that encourages more cars.

Finish the damn rails.

— Carl Magadia

I love you, Ate

Baste walked into the Senate court dressed in black, doing the familiar Duterte swagger.

The hand gestures. The finger under the chin. The clipped answers. The “maangas” (arrogant) delivery.

We get it. The bad-boy aura runs in the family.

But beneath the performance was a remarkably simple defense: I don’t know.

GenCorp? He said he only became familiar with it through the impeachment trial.

His sister’s business interests? He didn’t know. Why? “Privacy.” That is an interesting word for siblings.

Families talk. Over dinner, in cars, during birthdays, between fights. Work, money, business, problems — things no one else is supposed to know.

But apparently, with the Dutertes, corporate interests are where intimacy politely ends.

Baste said Sara never intervened in Davao City’s GenCorp procurements and never asked anyone to give the company special treatment. He also said he would not have allowed the contracts had he known of his sister’s interest in the company.

So the mayor’s position is curious: He would have acted had he known. He just didn’t know.

The cool. The cold. The clueless.

Maybe that really is how the Dutertes do family: fierce loyalty, strict privacy.

Because siblings have many ways of showing love. Sometimes they call you out. Sometimes they take the scolding for you. Sometimes they cover for you.

But one thing Baste made perfectly clear: He loves his sister.

And when you love your sister, sometimes the best thing you can remember is nothing.

— Vivienne Angeles