MANILA, Philippines – In more than half of the country’s 80 provinces, the major candidates for governor—like in other levels of local government—are old faces.

What’s more interesting, however, is that many of them are current or former congressmen, obviously seeking promotion as chief executives of larger geopolitical turfs.

THREE MORE. The SC saved 3 additional partylist groups from being disqualified by Comelec.

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court stopped the Commission on Elections on November 20 from disqualifying 3 other partylist groups from the 2013 midterm elections.

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Their patriarch and major members of the clan are in jail for the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre of political rivals and journalists, but the Ampatuans will be very much around come campaign season in Maguindanao.

MANILA, Philippines (3rd UPDATE) – Voting 4-2-1, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) has allowed the pro-Aquino group Akbayan to run in the May 2013 elections amid criticisms that the group is no longer marginalized due to its political ties.

The news of officials in Mindanao misusing their local government units’ share in the internal revenue allotment (IRA)—in this case, to invest in the ponzi scheme by the Malaysian-run Aman Futures Group—is not new at all. It is “as old as the Local Government Code itself,” which established a fixed rate for the IRA share of LGUs, according to a report first published in the Dec. 28, 2007 special edition of Newsbreak magazine.