May 17, 2016 edition
President Joko Widodo should not be duplicitous in dealing with the phobia of the authorities and some of the public towards communism. He must be firm in putting an end to the ban on discussions and performances and the confiscation of books and pictures with communist themes that have occurred with increasing frequency recently.
His indecision on the issue was apparent in two statements that seemed to be aimed at trying to please both sides: those who have a fear of communist revival and those who see the ideology as nothing more than past history.
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May 10, 2016 edition
The release of 10 hostages taken by the Abu Sayyaf terror group should not make us compliant. Before we can crow in victory, we must not forget that four more of our fellow Indonesian citizens are still being held by the separatist groups in the southern Philippines.
The tugboat Brahma 12 was hijacked by the Abu Sayyaf group on March 25 as it was pulling a barge-load of 7,500 metric tons of coal from South Kalimantan to Batangas, south of Manila.
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May 3, 2016 edition
The case of Nurhadi is a sign that dark clouds still hang over our courts. The secretary of the Supreme Court is not someone who has the decisive role in the way the nation's highest court dispenses justice, but the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) has revealed another side to the bureaucrat: He has control over how major cases are handled.
In the past, the reform process targeted the corrupt legal system itself when courts from the district level all the way to the Supreme Court were little more than black markets. Case brokers, attorneys, clerks, judges and justices were all links in the chain that bought and sold justice, both criminal and civil.
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April 26, 2016 edition
The government should not remain silent over the names of civil servants listed in the Panama Papers. It is not enough for President Joko Widodo to summon the officials concerned and listen to their explanations on why they own companies in tax-haven nations, as disclosed in the leaked documents of Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca.
The President should be more assertive. He should, for example, conduct an independent investigation to determine the real motives of companies seeking a tax shelter in other countries. Law No. 28/1999 on a Clean Government Free of Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism clearly justifies such action.
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April 19, 2016 edition
It was truly amusing to see the conduct of Ade Komarudin and Setya Novanto in their responses to the tax amnesty bill submitted by the government. The two Golkar legislators busily lobbied faction leaders at the leadership of the House of Representatives (DPR) to determine who would lead the discussions.
DPR speaker Ade Komarudin asked that the tax amnesty bill be discussed by the finance and banking commission, while Golkar faction chief Setya Novanto wanted it to discussed by a special committee. It is fair to suspect that this was the result of the competition between the two men who are currently vying for the Golkar Party chairmanship. But this is not what concerns the public.
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April 12, 2016 edition
The political drama starring the leadership of the Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) and its member Fahri Hamzah is light entertainment at a time when respect for the House of Representatives (DPR) is at a low as a result of the conduct of its members. This matter did not begin with bribery, scandal or a comparative study tour with attendant high costs.
Even though in 'minor league' of problems, the conduct of several DPR legislators has been far from honorable: napping, looking at obscene pictures on a cellphone screen during plenary sessions, or using impolite language. It is this last misdemeanor that led to Fahri Hamzah, known as a vocal speaker in Senayan, to being fired. The chairman of the PKS central executive board dismissed him from the party on April 1. He also lost his other positions in the party, including his seat as deputy DPR speaker.
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April 5, 2016 edition