THE world economy faces its worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United Nations warns amid complacency in the international community about the impact of the global financial crisis on poorer countries.
The United Nations expects world economic output to shrink by as much as 0.4 percent in 2009, due to a slump [...]

THAILAND’S Constitutional Court ended the blockade of that country’s main airports by opposition party protesters on Tuesday when it banned Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat from standing for office for five years, and dissolved three of the parties of his ruling coalition after finding them guilty of vote-buying in the December 2007 elections.
The removal of Somchai, [...]

AS the country approaches closer the constitutional termination of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s presidency in 2010, the more audacious the attempts to extend her stay in office become.
The most brazen of these attempts is a resolution filed by Batangas province’s Rep. Hermilando Mandanas in the House committee on constitutional amendments seeking to extend her grip on [...]

THE bombshell dropped by former House speaker Jose de Venecia exposing the alleged bribery attempts by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to buy congressional support to kill a “sham” impeachment complaint invites comparison with the exposé of former governor Luis “Chavit” Singson of Ilocos Sur province on Oct. 4, 2000, accusing then-president Joseph Estrada of taking bribes [...]

IN less than a decade of its ratification, the 1987 Constitution encountered in 1997 the first serious proposal to amend it.
That ill-fated proposal sought to lift the constitutional term limits of elected officials through the method of “people’s initiative” called Pirma (People’s Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action). It sought to allow then President Fidel [...]

THE coup staged by backers of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile to depose Sen. Manuel Villar from the Senate presidency places Enrile in a strategic position that has historically been the staging ground for a challenge to presidential power.
In at least two instances, the incumbent president who was seeking reelection faced challenges from Senate presidents. In [...]

THE new majority that ousted Senate President Manuel Villar on Tuesday delivered the Senate presidency to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile with a carte blanche.
Enrile claimed he didn’t seek the presidency, but took the offer of the majority “seriously” if the group had the numbers (14) to replace Villar. It would then appear that the presidency [...]

THE Philippines last week sought refuge behind an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report that the country was “not immune” to the worst financial crisis to hit the global economy since the Great Depression, but was “less vulnerable” to it because it had taken fundamental macroeconomic reforms following the Asian financial crisis in 1997.
In a press [...]

UNDER WAY at the University of the Philippines Jorge B. Vargas Museum until Nov. 16 are exhibits of the paintings and works of Fernando Amorsolo during the war years, from the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in 1941 to the liberation of Manila in 1945.
The exhibits are part of the seven-museum Amorsolo Retrospective to celebrate [...]

THE PHILIPPINE National Police stirred a hornet’s nest when Director-General Jesus Verzosa banned on Oct. 20 public access to the police blotter, the most sacrosanct public document to police reporters monitoring crimes involving the public safety of citizens and the security of their homes.
For the first time in the history of crime reporting since the [...]