FIRING LINE

FIRING LINE: Dare to change your mind By Robert B. Roque Jr. l October 8, 2026 Last week, neither I nor probably most of us Filipinos had ever heard of Cale88 Foods Corporation. Today it may be the most dangerous banana chip company in the country. On paper, it is a Tagum City snack maker…

FIRING LINE: Follow the money By Robert B. Roque Jr. l October 6, 2026 Former Senator Antonio “Sonny” Trillanes IV is not the most likeable man in Philippine politics. But when he says Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio owes the country an honest accounting of her wealth, backed by receipts, he is simply invoking what the…

FIRING LINE: Fare is fair? By Robert B. Roque Jr. l September 29, 2026 Monday came, and so did the shock inside pasa-mo-bayad ko rows in jeepneys, e-jeeps, and buses as public transport fares jumped across the board! For ordinary jeepneys, fare is up from P13 to P14 for the first four kilometers; modern jeepneys…

FIRING LINE: Second chances, second thoughts By Robert B. Roque Jr. l September 24, 2026 Good news, perhaps, for those who made mistakes and deserve a societal review like the first-time offender trapped in the turtle-paced legal system; the parent who — out of poverty — broke the law to put food on the table…

FIRING LINE: Drones and criminal ideas By Robert B. Roque Jr. | September 22, 2026 By now, more people reading the news know who Park Wang-yeol is, because of a widely circulated story that he was supposed to escape the Sablayan Prison and Penal Farm in Mindoro by clinging to a $74,000 drone. The 47-year-old…

FIRING LINE: Power consumers catch a break By Robert B. Roque Jr. | September 17, 2026 It’s happening. The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) has turned on its good side and scrapped value-added tax (VAT) on the system loss charge stacked into every Filipino’s electricity bill. Either by political will or survival, the promise President…

FIRING LINE: Time may change the color of justice By Robert B. Roque Jr | September 15, 2026  We have reached Week 11 of Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial, and the Senate Impeachment Court now turns to Article II — the charge of unexplained wealth and false Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs)….