A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

The Vizconde Massacre is still a Case Unclosed. Sadly, the late Lauro Vizconde had false hope when the suspects were identified and convicted. Later on, Lauro broke into grief when Hubert Webb and his  co-accused were acquitted . Sadly, Lauro died without knowing who really murdered his wife and two daughters . I'm going to do a common-sense analysis of the Vizconde Case. The Vizconde Case was often tagged as the "trial of the century" back in my day. I used to believe the narrative of arrogant rich boys caused the crime. However, an arrogant person  is barely subtle. I decided to read the Supreme Court decision in 2010 . Sadly, the same Supreme Court decision is still sticking to the faulty narrative that Francisco Juan G. Larrañaga was guilty. This was probably done to protect Atty. Hilario G. Davide's reputation, who was Chief Justice   at that time in 2004. Looking back at the narrative vs. common sense Instead, I decided to focus on the narrative by Jessica Alfar...

I'm certainly glad that Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan is out of the job as the head of the constitutional amendments, if he's too stubborn to see the reality. This blog post doesn't seek to discredit anything good Kiko has done. I don't like the idea of Senator Robin Padilla as the head of the same committee either. Instead, I'm going to try to enlighten every spectrum by discussing the Broken Windows Theory . What is the Broken Windows Theory? We need to look into it first. This Criminal Justice Know How article by Kelly M. Glenn gives this introduction: The Broken Window Theory was coined by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 and greatly impacted police work in the decades to follow.  The Broken Windows Theory uses the basic metaphor of a broken window to demonstrate how crime and disorder tend to flourish in environments where small problems go unaddressed.  As the environment falls into neglect and disrepair, people responsible for crime a...

Let me make a point that I'm not a lawyer. If you want legal advice, kindly go to any qualified lawyer. I'm just blogging an ongoing frustration . I might be a man but I think the way the Philippine law defines adultery and concubinage, is rather convoluted . I remember being in PolSci class at the University of San Carlos  during Summer of 2003. It's been long but I thought about writing the adultery and concubinage law here in the Philippines.  I referred over to the Respicio & Co. law office for more details, to see where it got wrong : 1. Adultery 1.1 Legal Basis Article 333 of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) defines and penalizes adultery. 1.2 Definition of Adultery 1. Who can commit adultery? A married woman who engages in sexual intercourse with a man not her husband. The man (paramour) who has sexual intercourse with a married woman, knowing her to be married. 2. Essence of the Offense The act that constitutes adultery is voluntary sexual intercourse between a mar...

TV Worth Watching The Regional Trial Court hearing in the Chiong Sisters Case concluded on May 5, 1999 . It makes me feel strange that I knew some people who personally knew the star suspect,  Francisco Juan G. Larrañaga,  and even the Chiong Sisters. One of my friends, as I said, I will not mention names to protect their privacy. Back on June 7, 1998, the Chiong Sisters,  namely the late Marijoy Jimenea Chiong and her older sister, Jacqueline Jimenea Chiong, went missing. Two days later, a body that was assumed to be Marijoy was found in Carcar . However, the defense later disputed the body. Sadly, the body has been cremated, which means any chances of verifying its identity may no longer be possible.  I didn't mind the case too much until someone told me, "Do you still remember Paco Larrañaga? He's innocent!" It blew my mind to know that Hubert Webb was innocent, and so was Paco? What? That one truly caught my mind. I feel like revisiting the case. I watched the co...

Today is the fifth death anniversary of Federico "Toto" Natividad. I didn't want to give him too much attention. However, watching Give Up Tomorrow   reminded me of Butakal , a film released in 1999 that was effectively in limbo. The film was downright not wholesome,  and accessing it requires extreme discretion like any R-rated film. The film remains banned from public screening. It seems he was content to let the film "go unscreened" if Case Unclosed's episode on the Chiong Sisters came out a year after the Supreme Court's final decision on his film. I was only able to see the film uploaded on YouTube, and it's no longer available . Natividad's film didn't advertise itself as the "Chiong Sisters Story". The story was pure fiction  based on Davidson Rusia's testimony . The movie may have been a poke at the popular public opinion at that time, that the Chiong 7 were already guilty before they were proven guilty. It turned out t...

Al Jazeera Today is March 30, 2026. It has been 15 years since the execution of the three drug mules. Their names are Sally Ordinario-Villanueva, Ramon Credo (who was cremated in China shortly after his execution), and Elizabeth Batain (whose face was never revealed, perhaps due to the loved ones requesting more privacy). Contrary to what one might think, the three drug mules weren't a trio. Instead, they were three separate cases that just happened to be scheduled to die on the same day.  They weren't a trio. They had a temporary reprieve when  former vice president Jejomar Binay tried to save them . Villanueva, together with Ramon Credo and Elizabeth Batain, was scheduled to be executed last month but got a reprieve after Vice President Jejomar Binay traveled to China and personally appealed to Chinese authorities. BBC   News even gave such a short news report, that I felt compelled to copy/paste the whole time as a reference here: Philippine Vice-President Jejomar Bin...

The 40th anniversary of the 1986 EDSA Revolution came last month. Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" A. Aquino Jr. said these words: "According to Gandhi, the willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God and man." Basically, EDSA 1986 can't claim to be all too unique. Ninoy had made Gandhi an inspiration. The dictatorship of the First Marcos Administration may be over . However, the Philippines is still stuck in another dictatorship called the dictatorship of the Filipino First Policy . It does sound stupid, but even without Marcos or foreign colonization (please stop mistaking foreign investment with foreign invasion ), there's still some oppression to fight. You can think about decades of overly high taxes and restrictions on foreign investments.  Now, we need to look at the historical context in which Gandhi's "tax evasion" occurred. According to a Jagran Josh   article written by ...

Flor Contemplacion has been dead for more than a decade. However, we still have had 30 years of Flor Contemplacion Crybabies spreading fake news about her "innocence" . The sentiment was pretty much that Flor was innocent, there was some hatred for Singapore going on, and the narrative was that Flor was a saint. I thought about this torture scene (not available in the free edition  on VIVA Films' YouTube channel), but it's available if you either rent or buy the film on YouTube Movies. It's probably because of the Terms and Conditions that YouTube allows for free-for-all movies. You can rent the movie for PHP 180.00 (SD) if you don't want to own the film, but want to see the uncut experience. It's still that clear despite being SD.  For some indicators, if you want to see the paid  movie vs. the free movie, here are some differences between the free movie from VIVA Films vs. the paid version: 1:27:01 timemark (free movie) is also found in 1:27:01--1:27:02 ...

  It's something that I read crybaby comments online where people are saying, "Making EDSA a special working day is making us forget the glory of EDSA." Please, let me remind people that even 10 years later , neither the late Lee Kuan Yew's birthday nor his death anniversary has become a national holiday in Singapore! Singapore simply honored LKY's birthday by working on that day. I was laughing at the toxic Facebook page called We Are Millennials. What truly made me think that these people are stuck in nostalgia is that EDSA 1986 would never have been possible if the Filipinos were stuck in nostalgia . I remember talks about how the first Marcos administration was built on these two pillars. The first pillar was information control . The other pillar was toxic positivity. I remember back in 1995 when the social studies teacher talked about how he thought that Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. was a "good president" due to the long holidays. However, the holidays ...