By Juan T. Gatbonton

To geezers like me, whose memory runs back to the postwar period, it is striking—and sad—that corruption should remain the main election issue during all this time.  Right now, a presidential candidate, also a real-estate magnate, stands accused of engineering the diversion of an arterial road through his property; and the greatest qualification of another candidate for president is his claim to probity: the moral guarantee that “he will not steal.” READ FULL STORY.

By Marites Dañguilan Vitug

What is happening in two countries not far from us must be giving President Arroyo the chills. Last week, Thailand’s Supreme Court ruled that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra should be stripped of more than half of his contested $2.3 billion fortune. These assets, the Court said, were gained illegally when Thaksin was prime minister. He abused his power to benefit the companies that he owned. Earlier, in January, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the government to reopen cases against President Asif Ali Zardari, citing President Ferdinand Marcos and other heads of state who were taken to court to answer corruption charges. The Supreme Court asked the government to account for $600 million in Zardari’s bank accounts in Switzerland. FULL STORY.