Some 34% of Filipinos see nothing wrong if candidates belong to political dynasties and would vote for them in the coming May elections. The Pulse Asia January 24-to-25 survey also showed that 32% of 1,200 respondents reject dynasty candidates, while 34% were undecided. Among those running for national positions, Vice President Jejomar Binay has family members who occupied several government posts. Binay, during the first of 3 presidential debates on Sunday, February 21, said that “qualified” candidates should not be barred from joining the elections.

Read more on survey on dynasty bets

The first of the Commission on Elections’ presidential debates, held Sunday, February 21, was less about policy than it was about personality.

Rappler editors judged the performance of each bet per round. Round 1 went to Roxas; Round 2 went to Poe; and Round 3 went again to Poe. This was based on the following criteria: 1. Truthfulness (values, consistency 2.Overall impact (vision, leadership, ability to articulate thoughts) and 3. Knowledge/facts on file. Rappler readers also joined our online polls as well as advocacy group Movement for Good Governance (MGG). Their scores give a different view of the debate – the first from an online standpoint while the latter from a policy and governance viewpoint.

Read more on the summary and highlights of each round

Using data and analytics coming from social media monitoring tool Radian 6, analysts looked at the social media footprint of candidates in the last CDO debates. When it came to social mentions, Duterte came out on top, with a 32.3% Share of Voice (SoV), which measures how well a brand, keyword, or name fares against its competitors. This takes into account mentions in Facebook posts, tweets, blogs, forums including replies, and mainstream news. Mar Roxas came in a close second, with 30.4% of the online conversation. The vice president and former Makati City mayor Binay got 21.6%, Senator Santiago with 8.7%, and Senator Poe with 7%.

Read more on the online analytics of the CDO debate

Former party-list lawmaker Walden Bello filed a petition on Monday urging the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to decide if Sarangani Representative Manny Pacquiao’s boxing match in April will violate election rules. Bello – who, like Pacquiao, is running for senator – said his plea on Monday is “not a disqualification petition.” Bello explained that he simply wants the Comelec “to make a decision” on whether Pacquiao’s match with Timothy Bradley, scheduled on April 9, violates the poll body’s limits on candidates’ publicity. Comelec Chairman Andress Bautista said Pacquiao’s promotion of his April fight with Bradley in Las Vegas was a “grey area,” given the cap on radio and television airtime for candidates during the 90-day campaign period that started this month.

Read more on Bello’s petition

The University of the East (UE) released a letter on Monday saying that its Board of Trustees dismissed the high school students involved in the Philippine flag-defiling video. The video, which went viral around February 9, showed a student with a Philippine flag on a stick, using it to clean the floor of a classroom. Dr Ester Albano Garcia, UE’s President and Chief Academic Officer, said in the statement that the students were dismissed “in view of the gravity of their infraction,” with the act said to be an affront to the UE community and to the ideals and traditions of the country.

Read more on the students in the viral video

The EDSA People Power Revolution in the Philippines brought several personalities onto the path of fame and politics. Topping the list is Vice President Jejomar Binay who started out as a human rights lawyer and was later appointed officer-in-charge of Makati City. Binay owes his political break to the mother of the man whose administration he now attacks. Running for president, his running mate is Senator Gringo Honasan, who played a pivotal role in toppling the dictatorship of the late Ferdinand Marcos. The tough-talking mayor of Davao City, Rodrigo Duterte, began his foray into politics post-EDSA, when he was appointed officer-in-charge vice mayor of the city from 1986 to 1988. The late interior secretary Jesse Robredo did not owe his political break to a post-EDSA appointment, but the desire for reform triggered by that historic uprising set the wheels in motion for Robredo’s entry into politics – and that of his widow, Leni, who is now running for vice president. Others in the list: Senate President Franklin Drilon, Former MMDA chairman Francis Tolentino, Former Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim now running for mayor of the city of Manila.

Read more on political figures from EDSA days

A central argument made against same-sex marriage is that children born into these marriages will be disadvantaged. But In 2010, American researchers published results from a meta-analysis of 33 studies comparing the well-being of children raised by opposite-sex couples with children raised by same-sex couples. The study found no evidence that children raised by same-sex parents fared any worse than other children on a range of behavioral, educational, emotional or social outcomes.

The researchers also concluded there was no evidence that children raised by a single parent or same-sex couples were less competent or well-rounded than other children.

Read more on same-sex parenting

The last book from Italian literary giant Umberto Eco, who died last Friday, will be published this coming Friday. Pape Satan Aleppe. Publisher La Nave di Teseo said Chronicles of a Liquid Society is a collection of essays that appeared in Italian weekly L’Espresso since 2000. The main title is the first three words of Canto 7 of “Inferno”, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s 14th century epic poem Divine Comedy. The book was originally due for publication in May, but the date was brought forward after the writer’s death. Eco, the literary and intellectual phenomenon who wrote medieval thriller The Name of the Rose, died at his Milan home at 84.

Read more on Umberto Eco’s last book

The number of people worldwide with Internet access reached 3.2 billion at the end of 2015, but the remaining 4.1 billion still could not get online. According to Facebook’s  annual “State of Connectivity” report, 200 million people gained Internet access in 2015, due to “more affordable data and rising global incomes.” The report said the remaining world population needs help to gain access to the Internet and the economic opportunities it enables. The report added improving access “is a major challenge that will require the cooperation of many stakeholders through innovation and investment.” The report also said if there’s no significant change to current trends, more than three billion people will remain offline by 2020, nearly all in developing countries.

Read more on connectivity report

At the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said he was “sympathetic” with Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook in his stand-off with the US government over breaking into the iPhone of a mass shooter. The controversy emerged earlier in February when Apple refused to help the FBI break into an iPhone belonging to the late Syed Farook, who along with his wife went on a deadly shooting rampage in California’s San Bernardino in December. Apple claimed that cooperating with the probe would undermine privacy and security for its devices, while the US government counters it is a one-time request that will aid an important investigation.

Read more on Zuckerberg on privacy controversy