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EDITORIAL - JAN'26
Meet 2026 with dread and apprehension
By Mariano A. Santos
Publisher / Editor
MESSAGE of hope and cheerful greetings usually fill the air as we say goodbye, this time, to year 2025.
We wish. But bidding “good riddance!” to this one that’s due to end, is not as final as we want it to be.
Things happened this past year will haunt us even more in 2026.
The prophecy of “1984” has taken upon us. The dystopia of George Orwell’s futuristic fiction is now our reality.
War is not war anymore. War is peace.
Consider this. A mighty country USA is committing reprehensible acts of piracy against a Third World Country. That is, after obliterating a number of boats and their riders without due process and outside the rules of engagement that civilized nations have adhered to.
These infractions are endorsed by one who audaciously clamors for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Chief Executive recently addressed the nation and claimed economic prosperity and record employment for the Americans while their lives are actually hit by high cost of everyday necessities and scores of jobless workers.
Thanks, but no thanks, for his minions and enablers who willingly implement his lopsided tariffs, massive layoffs, unjust economic policies that negatively impacted vulnerable families but increased the net worth of his already superrich tribe.
Thousands of Federal employees were indiscriminately let go while the Department of Education other essential government agencies dismantled. These were claimed as achievements even as the havoc they created is now apparent.
USAID, the venerable and longtime arm of U.S. outreach to end widespread diseases, hunger and poverty, was summarily banished, and thousands of needy people had died or now dying because of this unconscionable decision.
Yet, the boast persists that the country remains the leader of the family of nations.
Justice is alarmingly administered in the most corrupt ways. Prosecutors and judges who faithfully follow the constitution are now harassed, prosecuted and maligned. Convicted felons, fraudsters and criminals are being pardoned under suspicious terms.
Freedom of Press has never been more severely attacked and fake news has gained currency leading to widespread conspiracy theories and even criminal activities. Public Broadcasting System and VOA were defunded.
Environmental concerns have taken a hit amid the occurrence of natural disasters brought about by climate change. Actions like abandoning alternative sources of energy while resuming oil drilling and coal mining have taken the upper hand.
The belief that immigrants are instrumental to the progress that America has enjoyed for many years was junked. Instead in 2025, an adverse and belligerent treatment of foreign workers and innovators that industries have courted and recruited is now policy.
Laborers that worked on the farms, meat factories, restaurant kitchens, nursing homes, hotels—became easy ICE targets for incarceration and mass deportations. No wonder, businesses cried foul—protesting the assault on immigrants and their businesses.
Yet those in power, saw the condemnable effects as trophies of their chaotic misdoings.
The polls show the numbers of the people’s dissatisfaction. Those in-charge are deaf to the din of complains, proud even of their heartless approach to the challenges of the country.
Given this administration upside down take of what is happening to the country, a clarion call to the civic-minded citizens is on to take the cudgel of righting the wrong. Taken for granted for an extended period of time, it’s high time to fight for democracy.
It is about protecting voting rights, writing to legislators, supporting causes that end injustices and abuses and be quick in exposing falsehood—being involved in this challenging times.
The United States marks its 250th year of its founding in 2026. It was determined by the Founding Fathers early on that “Democracy is the best form of government” that the new nation should embrace and to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin—if we can keep it.
The U.S. survived it for all these years—including the bloody Civil War of 1861-65 when 600,000 Americans perished to keep it united. The last century brought in the Great Depression, two World Wars and the divisive Vietnam War.
The 21st Century opened with the 911 Attack, followed by the Iraq War, then the long involvement in Afghanistan. U.S. even weathered the COVID plague. All these came to pass. But Americans should now wake up to the present challenge that creeped up that assaults the very foundation of democracy in this country.
The year 2025 leaves the world gripped with uncertainty and the nation reeling from the havoc wreaked by a reckless president who continues to undermine and destroy the very foundations of our democracy.
There are forces that are out to undermine the important doctrine of the separation of the state and religion as well as the separation of power—where the executive, legislative and the judiciary—are to govern equally, respecting each other’s area of responsibilities.
Apparently, there are proofs that racism and bigotry are now made into play to gain an advantage to control power on running the country.
The Greatest U.S. President, Abraham Lincoln, should still be our noble guide on how we are to proceed as a nation—it should remain—a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
Yes, Democracy should live on, so help us, Divine Providence!
EDITORIAL - FEB'26
A superpower gone rogue
FLEA MARKET OF IDEAS
By Joel Ruiz Butuyan
Guest Editorial / Inquirer.net
EVERY day, we see a new scene of violence in the United States committed by government agents against American citizens and residents. On a daily basis, we hear the US president or his deputies hurling threats to invade a country, overthrow a foreign government, or bomb another nation.
From being the beacon of democracy and avowed champion of civil and political rights, the US has become the newest member of the gang of rogue states. From the kind of noise and optics coming from President Donald Trump himself, the US has overshadowed Russia, China, and even North Korea as the number one threat to world peace.
It wasn’t long ago when it was totally unthinkable for American security officers to roam the streets wearing masks to conceal their identities. It wasn’t too long ago when it was completely unimaginable for Americans to be arrested, even physically maltreated, without any court-issued warrant or outside of the context of a crime being committed in public view.
Mistreatment of Migrants
We see peaceful demonstrators exercising their freedom of speech or freedom to protest, and yet, they are taken into custody and detained for days. We see people being arrested even if they are merely caught legitimately taking photos or videos of actions committed by security agents in full public view. It is appalling to see immigration agents going to grocery stores, gas stations, parking lots, and even schools to interrogate people—targeted because of their race or accent—who are instantaneously asked to show proof of their American citizenship, failing which they are summarily arrested and detained. It’s also horrendous to see the same immigration agents knocking on house doors and forcing themselves in, even without court-issued warrants.
It is horrible that even American citizens are unlawfully being arrested by immigration agents. It is also dreadful to learn how undocumented migrants are maltreated under subhuman prison conditions. Even Pope Leo XIV has been prompted to publicly condemn the mistreatment of migrants by the US government.
Might Makes Right
How should the world react to a superpower that has become the world’s villain-in-chief and tyrant of the world? How should the people of the world respond to the mightiest nation on Earth that maltreats its own people, and bullies, oppresses, and exploits other countries? How should countries deal with a world power that is creating economic and security chaos?
The world should make Americans feel that until Trump is replaced, it is a winter season to cringe in shame as a US citizen on the world stage. Trump and his “Make America Great Again” supporters have the notion that the world revolves around their country. To a certain point, they may be correct, but only because the rest of the world allows it. America must be made to feel ostracized by the rest of the world for as long as it is ruled by Trump and leaders of his kind, who subscribe to the creed that might makes right. It must feel the revulsion of the rest of the world with a worldwide chorus of online protesters who will constantly shame the Trump regime. The ostracism and revulsion may not matter to Trump and his cabal of bullies, who all brim with arrogance and conceit, but it will be felt by a US citizenry that can deliver the ostracism and revulsion that will impact and affect Trump and his minions. Americans must make their members of Congress feel that they will be soundly booted out of their kennels if they continue to be docile Trump poodles.
Fomented De Facto Wars
It will be hard to decouple economically from the US because many of its outputs and its huge market are deeply integrated into the world economy, but every effort that makes a dent in the US economy will reverberate with impact for the Trump administration that made rosy promises to its citizens. Avoid the US as a destination. Patronize alternatives to American products, if feasible. Concerned and disturbed Americans are also calling for these kinds of boycotts by the rest of the world.
The Trump administration has forsaken its shared responsibility with the rest of humanity to help communities in desperate need of health and food assistance, even if it profits tremendously from its trade with many of the countries in dire need of help. It has abandoned its responsibility to mitigate climate change by escalating business practices that worsen environmental tragedies in different corners of the world. It has withdrawn from international institutions that are platforms for consensus in advancing humanity’s shared concerns.
The Trump regime has fomented multiple kinds of de facto wars on the home front and on the global front. It is spreading hate, scattering violence, and making the world an even more dangerous place for all of humanity.
Comments to fleamarketofideas@gmail.com
MAILBAG
Open your eyes
before it’s too late
Dear Editor,
Filipino Americans, I need to speak to you plainly: you are not as safe as you think you are.
Too many of us live with an illusion of exemption. We tell ourselves, “It will not happen to me.” I am a citizen. I have papers. I am married to a US citizen.
My husband is white. He is a veteran.
My husband is in the military. We are respectable. We are not the kind of people ICE comes for.
But hear this clearly: Proximity to the white privilege high horse is not safety—it is an illusion of borrowed power.
What happened again in Minneapolis should shake you awake. Alex Pretti,
a 37-year-old ICU nurse, a US citizen,
a white man, was shot and killed in a federal enforcement operation.
If citizenship could not protect him,
what makes you think it will protect you?
This is how racial profiling works.
It does not begin with documents.
It begins with bodies. It begins with perception—brown skin, foreign features, an accent, a moment of being in the wrong place. The system does not pause to ask who you are.
It assumes. It targets. It escalates.
And ICE increasingly operates with impunity—testing limits, normalizing brutality, spreading fear as a tactic of control. This is not simply immigration enforcement. It is a machinery of fascist terror that expands outward.
First, the undocumented. Then those merely suspected. Then the inconvenient, such as those who care for their neighbors. Even your MAGA affiliation, as some of you are, will not save you.
So let me tell you directly: your marriage certificate will not stop a weapon.
Your husband cannot arrive fast enough when the system has already decided you are dangerous. Even whites are not safe in a country drifting into authoritarian lawlessness—how much more for you?
Wake up from the colonized mind: brown outside, white inside. Wake up from the desire to be the exception, the good immigrant, the compliant minority who thinks safety comes from silence.
I pray this never happens to you.
That would not be my delight.
But you are not safe in indifference. Open your eyes before it is too late.
Do not close your eyes and pretend you did not see, especially the morally revolting footage of the killing of Alex Pretti.
Let what you saw convict you of what must not be normalized.
Prof. Eleazar S. Fernandez
Minneapolis, Minnesota
EDITORIAL - MARCH '26
Reckoning time for coperpetrators
Guest Editorial
Inquirer News Services
MALACANANG has struck the right tone in urging Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa and Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go to face the charges looming against them at the International Criminal Court (ICC), and not try to hide once the arrest warrants are out for them.
“If they know they are innocent … they should face the matter and be courageous in going through the necessary processes,” said Palace press officer Claire Castro in a briefing.
While no warrants of arrest have yet been received by the Philippine government, Go and Dela Rosa have been officially named as coperpetrators, along with six others, in the crime against humanity case for murder filed against former President Rodrigo Duterte at the ICC.
Their names appear in the lesser redacted version of the document containing charges submitted by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor. In that document, the prosecution alleges that Duterte and his coperpetrators shared a “common plan” to “neutralize” alleged criminals in the country, particularly those they suspected of involvement in illegal drugs, by killing them. The murders covered by the charge sheet happened from 2011 to 2019, during Duterte’s term as Davao City mayor until the first three years of his presidency.
‘Oplan Tokhang’
Dela Rosa, the former director of the Davao City police and eventually Duterte’s first chief of police, was the main enforcer of Duterte’s flagship domestic policy—dubbed “Oplan Tokhang” or the war against drugs—that saw more than 6,000 alleged suspects killed through summary executions by police. Human rights watchdogs and independent observers believe the death toll could be as high as 30,000.
In March 2025, he had boldly declared that he was “ready to join the old man” in The Hague, referring to Duterte, and that he hoped the ICC “would allow me to take care of him.”
But that bravado is apparently gone. Dela Rosa has not been seen in the Senate since November last year, even as he continues to draw a salary and his office remains funded.
Go, who served as Duterte’s personal aide and eventually his presidential special assistant, was an inseparable presence from his boss, acting as Duterte’s steadfast gatekeeper, the “little President” through whom everything meant for Duterte first passed. In May 2019, at the height of the drug war that was by then already drawing international scrutiny and condemnation, Go said he was ready to accompany Duterte even to prison.
Duterte’s shadow
“President Duterte said he is ready to go to jail. I told him, I will go with him to jail. That is how much I love the president,” he declared.
Like Dela Rosa, however, Go now seems reluctant to fulfill his promise. His reaction to the ICC charges was to plead ignorance—that he knew nothing, and had nothing to do, with the bloodshed Duterte had unleashed on the nation.
The man who was practically Duterte’s shadow described the charges against him as “entirely unfounded, one-sided, unfair,” and that “at no time did I have any involvement in, knowledge of, or authority over these allegations.”
Go’s protestations of innocence will go up against the testimony of, among others, Royina Garma, the former police officer and state lottery chief who testified before the House that a quota and reward system existed for “tokhang,” and that the system and money dole outs were handled by Go.
According to Garma, the “Davao model” implemented nationwide saw police officers receiving rewards ranging from P20,000 to P1 million for killing drug suspects. She relayed reports of such killings to Go, who then disbursed the reward money.
Moment of reckoning
Go will even have to contradict himself. In September 2019, in a TV interview, he casually mentioned that Duterte was promising a reward of P1 million for the killing of a “ninja cop” (a policeman reselling drugs), and P500,000 if the suspect cop was captured alive. The implication was chillingly clear: Under Duterte, killing was the preferred and more lucrative way to address crime.
Since Malacañang insists that Go and Dela Rosa have to resolutely face the charges against them, it must likewise hold itself to the same standard by strictly enforcing the law in this matter: It must promptly implement the arrest warrants once these are out, and deliver Go and Dela Rosa to the ICC to face accountability for their participation in Duterte’s crimes.
Should they still be made to pass through a Philippine court? For law dean Mel Sta. Maria, “it is no longer needed,” because “the Constitution, the law, and jurisprudence allow the arrest,” stressing “Let us choose justice over technicalities.”
Likewise, the Senate should rise over partisan and vested interests and not stand in the way of Go and Dela Rosa facing their day in the international court against impunity.
Justice is about to catch up with Go and Dela Rosa. The Marcos administration should ensure they will be present where they need to be for that instructive moment of reckoning.
Furthermore
Duterte Meets Justice
A decade after former President Rodrigo Duterte launched his scorched-earth drug war, the arc of history is finally bending toward justice… …Despite hiring one of the best-paid law firms—one equipped with a superb public relations arm—the Duterte team repeatedly failed to thwart the proceedings. A year into his detention, it must have dawned on the former president that he is no longer dealing with local courts that he so deftly manipulated and intimidated throughout the decades. I don’t know how Duterte affords his extremely pricey ICC legal team after his lifelong employment as a provincial mayor, but he must have gradually realized that usual antics won’t make a dent in a true court of justice. He has to face the music…
… Despite reassuring the public of his commitment to ”metamorphose” once in office, Duterte doubled down on his most menacing instincts just hours after his first State of the Nation Address. Soon, Manila’s streets turned into killing fields. Critics of the drug war were systematically targeted in the most vicious manner, with outspoken human rights advocates, such as former Sen. Leila de Lima, serving as a test case for Duterte’s ”reign of terror” tactics. When then Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno tried to save our constitutional democracy, she was summarily dismissed on the most dubious grounds. Other opposition leaders were forced into exile or bludgeoned into de facto political silence. Our democratic checks and balances collapsed almost overnight…
… After Kian delos Santos’ cold-blooded murder by Duterte’s henchmen, I found myself one night just breaking down. While helplessly sobbing and staring into the roof, I shouted, with tears rolling down my cheeks: “What could I have done? Why are we so helpless?”
… For all of us who care about human rights and believe in the inalienable rights of every single Filipino, regardless of class or creed, to see Duterte finally facing a measure of justice meant the whole world. To see victims’ families getting their chance to hold the perpetrators accountable—that was soulfully rejuvenating.
Richard Heydarian
- @inquirerdotnet