Imprisoned journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio is 2026’s Wallis Annenberg Justice for Women Journalists Award given to reporters unjustly detained, jailed, or imprisoned, the International Women’s Media Foundation (IWMF) announced.
Like a thief in the night. This Biblical metaphor was exactly how Senator Ronald de la Rosa slipped back into hiding after appearing at the Philippine Senate after six months of being absent and gaining protective custody from an arrest order from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Will changing lawyers before actual trial help Rodrigo Duterte whose alleged crimes have been unanimously confirmed by the ICC pre-trial judges?
“We are under attack. Anyone watching this, we are the Senate of the Philippines…” Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano said in a brief online video message before he was cut off.
This is the second time in successive years and under two different Congresses that the controversial political figure had been impeached. Last year, Duterte had also been impeached by a vote of 215, more than two-thirds of the Lower House.
On the day that the House of Representatives meets to vote on the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte, her allies have successfully moved to remove Sotto and allies from the leadership who are seen as pro-impeachment.
The Duterte Panagutin Network in the Netherlands said Kaufman’s withdrawal indicates that Duterte’s case is “practically indefensible.” “Kaufman’s tactics to file several appeals questioning the ICC’s jurisdiction and, most recently, his critique of various technicalities involved in the handling of the case have all fallen flat following the unanimous decision of the ICC judges to set aside his arguments,” the Network said in a quick reaction to the development.
Duterte-allied legislators are expected to object and drag the process to a lengthy debate. But they are likely to fail given that they number less than a dozen at the moment.
Ateneo de Manila University vice president for higher education Maria Luz Vilches called on the Commission to reconsider its plan, proposing instead for the restoration of liberal arts courses “which are essential to holistic higher education.”
“First, inflation could have been significantly tempered if the government had cut oil taxes, regulated overpricing by oil firms, and implemented a stricter and non-voluntary price freeze,” IBON said. “The situation fully warrants these emergency interventions and would have prevented rising fuel costs from fully cascading across the economy,” it added.
