By Jose D. Escartin

The moments a government executive has enjoyed his best effectiveness are those when he mobilizes public support for his policies and programs. A corporate executive would have felt also similar enjoyment when his target customers patronize his company’s product and services.

Given the realities of political and corporate world where a political or corporate leader functions, it is to his interest that he has the means for reaching his publics and rallying their opinion. His effectiveness would substantially depend on his ability to generate public support to promote the interests he represents.

Discovering public opinion is…

Read more: Power of Public Opinion

Last week, Monday, we were greeted by the news that the satisfaction and trust ratings of President Rodrigo “Digong” Roa Duterte had fallen. These happened in the quarterly surveys of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) between the second and third quarters of this year.

Critics and the Opposition were quick to grab the above as signs that the Honeymoon with the Duterte Administration was over and that the beginning of the end had started. However, we should caution everyone to study the matter closely first before drawing such conclusions.

The SWS system subtracts the negative from the positive. Then, it…

Read more: The Power Of Rebound

I feel sorry for Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, the man on whose shoulders rests the responsibility of leading the attack against a seemingly soaring crime wave in general, and Pres. Digong Duterte's war on drugs in particular. Yes, there is a "seemingly" soaring crime wave, for in actuality, crimes have appreciably been reduced since Mr. Rodrigo Roa Duterte became president last year.

So it's just logical to suppose that, without law enforcers, the incidence of crime would rise, chiefly in the hands of drunken and drugged malefactors, not to mention riding-in-tandem vigilantes, terrorists, rebels…

Read more: Bato's Frustrations

Impeachment is a quasi-judicial process of removing from office certain government officials for culpable violation of the Constitution, breach of public trust, bribery and/or other high crimes. It's a political enterprise engaged in by members of the lower house acting as prosecutors, and by senators  acting as judges.

It is "political" only in the symbolic sense that the people are represented when their congressmen and senators do their impeachment chores, the technical appreciation of evidence being the concern of the legislators, not their constituents. It would thus be wrong for the solons to succumb to the pressures of public opinion,…

Read more: Impeachment