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1 day ago | 
thenationalnews.com | Richard Javad Heydarian
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr casts his ballot in Batac City on Monday. Marcos Jr has three years left in office. AP
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3 days ago | 
opinion.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Arguably, the biggest takeaway from Philippine elections in the past decade is that our opposition didn’t have much of a takeaway from its successive defeats. In all mature democracies, besieged opposition forces are expected to engage in three fundamental actions: (1) learn to build coalitions beyond narrow cliques and electoral niches, (2) hold the line beyond and in between elections, and (3) produce a proper “postmortem” after any major electoral setback.
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4 days ago | 
plus.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Arguably, the biggest takeaway from Philippine elections in the past decade is that our opposition didn’t have much of a takeaway from its successive defeats. In all mature democracies, besieged opposition forces are expected to engage in three fundamental actions: (1) learn to build coalitions beyond narrow cliques and electoral niches, (2) hold the line beyond and in between elections, and (3) produce a proper “postmortem” after any major electoral setback.
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1 week ago | 
opinion.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Just over a month after pro-Duterte troll farms and aligned traditional politicians tried to silence yours truly for factually pointing out the unfathomable Human Development Index disparities in the country, yet another set of statistics confirmed my basic hypothesis.
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1 week ago | 
plus.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Just over a month after pro-Duterte troll farms and aligned traditional politicians tried to silence yours truly for factually pointing out the unfathomable Human Development Index disparities in the country, yet another set of statistics confirmed my basic hypothesis.
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2 weeks ago | 
opinion.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Signs of crisis were everywhere: declining Mass attendance, large-scale conversations with evangelical Christian groups. The stream of scandals torpedoed the reputation of countless priests and fueled all sorts of conspiracy theories about the Church. There was growing chasm between the Vatican and its exhortations, on one hand, and the global mainstream culture and transformative legislative developments across Catholic-majority democracies, on the other.
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2 weeks ago | 
plus.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
Signs of crisis were everywhere: declining Mass attendance, large-scale conversations with evangelical Christian groups. The stream of scandals torpedoed the reputation of countless priests and fueled all sorts of conspiracy theories about the Church. There was growing chasm between the Vatican and its exhortations, on one hand, and the global mainstream culture and transformative legislative developments across Catholic-majority democracies, on the other.
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2 weeks ago | 
asiatimes.com | Richard Javad Heydarian
MANILA – In the clearest signal yet of policy continuity from Biden to Trump in Asia, the US and Philippines have kicked off their largest-ever joint Balikatan (shoulder-to-shoulder) military exercises, including drills simulating “full-scale battle scenarios” with China. As many as 6,000 Filipino soldiers will join 12,000 US troops for the 40th edition of the exercises, scheduled to run from April 21 through May 9.
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3 weeks ago | 
chinausfocus.com | Richard Javad Heydarian
The recent tariff episode shook global economic confidence in a way that’s only been seen in the aftermath of major catastrophes, despite relief coming in the short-term. Has the damage been done to America’s trade hegemony?
Click to watch the video: Singaporean Prime Minister and Minister for Finance Lawrence Wong on the US tariffs and their implications, 8 April 2025.
“We must be clear-eyed about the dangers that are building up in the world.
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3 weeks ago | 
opinion.inquirer.net | Richard Javad Heydarian
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function,” F. Scott Fitzgerald famously argued, emphasizing the inherently dialectical nature of genuine intellect.
