THE FIRST SKIRMISHES BETWEEN THE AQUINO administration and the media flared up on the first day after his inauguration on June 30, heralding an early end to the traditional honeymoon period during the first 100 days.
The tensions stemmed from President Aquino’s Memorandum Circular No. 1 that declared vacant as of last Wednesday the positions of [...]

The era of flogging to death the Arroyo administration came to an end on Wednesday with the inauguration of the hugely popular Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III. The inaugural lifted the oppressive weight of belligerence that blighted the Arroyo regime.
During the past nine years, Arroyo-bashing has become a flourishing cottage industry in the Philippine media, which [...]

PRESIDENT BENIGNO AQUINO III RETURNED power to the sovereign people upon his induction into office on Wednesday.
“You are the boss, so I cannot ignore your orders,” he said in his Inaugural Address. “We are here to serve and not to lord over you. The mandate given to me was one of change.”
In a 23-minute speech [...]

THE NEW CABINET THAT PRESIDENT-ELECT Benigno S. Aquino III will present to the nation at his inauguration today is an ill-conceived assortment of new faces and holdovers from the departing administration of President Macapagal-Arroyo. With this composition, the Cabinet does not represent a complete rupture from the past regime and is bound to disappoint those [...]

WITH A SAD FACE, almost frowning, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo bade farewell to the nation on Wednesday.
In a five-minute address on national television a week before she hands over power to President-elect Benigno Aquino III, she said, “I feel confident that we are leaving this nation much stronger than when I came to office, but I [...]

The Malacañang Press Corps is uneasy over the unaccustomed chumminess of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as she prepares to hand over power to President-elect Benigno Aquino III in her attempt to make the transition appear as seamless and smooth as possible.
A week before the ritual changeover on June 30, the Palace reporters were taken aback by [...]

PRESIDENT-ELECT BENIGNO AQUINO III HAS thrown overboard a few traditions to define his administration and emphasize its contrast with the departing government of President Macapagal-Arroyo.
He will take his oath of office before Supreme Court Associate Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales, the first woman justice to swear in a president, in a sharp rebuke of the “midnight appointment” [...]

The votes received by ousted President Joseph Estrada and Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay in the May elections represent a thunderous voice from the Filipino urban poor calling attention to the existence of a vast electoral constituency that populist politicians can exploit to catapult them to the commanding heights of political power.
The nation was stunned when [...]

IN A BID TO CONSOLIDATE SWIFTLY HIS power base, following his landslide election on May 10, the laid-back president-elect Benigno Aquino III shifted his focus from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to the Department of Interior and Local Government, two weeks ahead of his official induction on June 30.
Within the one-month transition from the [...]

WHAT TO DO WITH VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT Jejomar Binay is the toughest problem confronting President-elect Benigno Aquino III as he forms his Cabinet.
Immediately after Binay’s proclamation as vice president, he aggressively declared his desire to be named secretary of interior and local government, speaking as if the DILG was a natural birthright after he trounced Sen. [...]