My column today argues at its core, a weak presidency cultivated an image of strength enough to sap the vitality of national institutions including parties. Local parties filled the resulting power vacuum changing the political landscape. opinion.inquirer.net/146772/barons-… 
When the history of this admin's written, one will see how its chest-thumping disguised its inability to actually effect political change. Example: like all admins, it postponed barangay polls, but failed its ultimate objective, to appoint barangay OIC's. opinion.inquirer.net/107441/go-grow…
Another element that will prove to have mattered politically was the President's own limited attention and support to candidates: he only ever truly cared for a few at a time, which ensured they'd be outnumbered in the end. opinion.inquirer.net/119512/all-roa…
Related to today's column, it was in 2019 that I first suggested national parties were permanently in decline while local or regional ones were rising. opinion.inquirer.net/120524/mimicry…
While in that year I suggested there was also a slower, but inexorable, unraveling of our being a nation with institutions and a people striving for Western-oriented modernity; we were backsliding instead into a premodern state of affairs. opinion.inquirer.net/120923/devolvi…
In this column I proposed there were really two visions of political rule competing, the reformist and the business-as-usual, with the administration of today like that of 2001-2010, facing political and financial disaster if it should lose power. opinion.inquirer.net/121366/today-b…
It was also in this, and earlier columns, that I used the term "baron" to refer to local leaders to reflect their mindset and role. opinion.inquirer.net/125810/big-bus…
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