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what i’ve hated aboutmuch that has been blogged re Melissa Roxas via Filipino Voices is that it dissolves the issue of the abduction and torture of activists into anti-left rhetoric. and this happens, not just because of the bloggers themselves, but the comments that are allowed to take over the discussions. so far, it is benigno who takes the cake. true, he insists we have become desensitized to extrajudicial disappearances and killings because it has become part and parcel of… Continue reading »
it was a joy to find Victor Agustin writing about the issue of U.P. Prof. Sarah Raymundo’s tenure vis a vis Randy David’s announcement that he would run for congress if GMA does so in Pampanga. this was long in coming for mainstream, i.e., print media, and has yet to happen on the pages of the big-time dailies like the ”http://www.inquirer.net”>Philippine Daily Inquirer. but i guess that’s no surprise? other than Randy being a long-time opinion columnist of the Inquirer, it… Continue reading »
It is everything and confusing, this whole enterprise of the Chacha or Charter Change. Because really, you listen to these congressmen and it seems like ChaCha isn’t related to a ConAss or Constituent Assembly isn’t related to GMA staying in power. And where is House Resolution 1109 – which was passed Tuesday night – in all of this? The ConAss is one of the ways through which changes to the 1987 charter or constitution may be made. The ConAss will… Continue reading »
This is a translation of the transcript of Joms Salvador’s comments on the unthinking and insensitive soundbites that have come out of Nicole’s last sworn statement. Click here for the original Filipino version. I could not help but respond to the views this note on Nicole’s “retraction” has elicited. First, on the basis of what’s preferable or not, it is true that it would’ve been better had Nicole and her family not “backed out”, if they didn’t get tired and just… Continue reading »
hindi ko mapigilang magkomento sa ilang mga naging pahayag hinggil sa note na ito. una, sa pamantayan ng ‘preferable’ o hindi, totoo namang mas maganda sana kung hindi “umatras” si nicole at ang kanyang pamilya. kung hindi sana sila napagod at nagtuloy-tuloy na lang sa laban. sa anumang punto de bista — bilang kapwa babae, bilang kapwa Pilipino, o kahit pa bilang biktima — walang puwedeng magkaila na mas maganda at kaayaaya sa mata ng publiko kung hindi inexecute ni… Continue reading »
the real thang is coming out in the Inquirer daw this week. but just had to get this out of my head, about why exactly i’m so sad, and am in fact, in mourning: because FrancisM just might be able to take credit for the kind of activism I found I was open to, having been exposed to him as a rapper and as a Pinoy when i was a 14-year old girl, who thought that rap — among many… Continue reading »
It’s a downright shame that on the year of the University of the Philippines’ Centennial, one that has been celebrated with much publicity and fanfare and cash, we hear many stories of how the university has turned on its own. Students have to deal with a higher tuition fee and the difficult process of qualifying for the STFAP (one full scholar? unacceptable!). Janitors like Mang Meliton are given P.92 centavos as retirement pay after 41 years of service. Where is… Continue reading »
an essay by Ninotchka Rosca, aptly titled The Usual Can Be Criminal, on the ways in which our notions of womanhood and the roles we play, allow for us all to be victims. such an enlightening read, even when we can only truly imagine what our domestic helpers are going through as they sacrifice their own families for a life of discrimination elsewhere. my favorite quotes: “Household work has been historically women’s slave shackles, rendering her a service unit in… Continue reading »
In her last SONA, the one thing that seemed like a good thing was this: Para sa mga namamasada at namamasahe sa dyip, sinusugpo natin ang kotong at colorum upang mapataas ang kita ng mga tsuper. Si Federico Alvarez kumikita ng P200 a day sa kaniyang rutang Cubao-Rosario. Tinaas ito ng anti-kotong, anti-colorum ngayon P500 na ang kita niya. Iyan ang paraan kung paano napananatili ang dagdag-pasahe sa piso lamang. Halaga lang ng isang text. Texting is a way… Continue reading »
Other than the fashion both inside and outside the halls of Congress (which will be topic for another entry), what’s also exciting about the President’s annual SONA are the discussions that lead up to it, where once a year, media actually sort of asks the right questions (finally!). Then again, with a past SONA to diss, and a new one to compare it to, how can any show go wrong? And so on the new TV show Harapan with Korina… Continue reading »
of course this president is torture enough. that grimace that she seems to always have on her face. her capacity at giggling in kilig and laughing at jokes made at the expense of a nation in calamity. and we’re not even talking about her ability to say one thing and do another. and to lie through her teeth. and then this, a perfect example of how torture is but part and parcel of GMA’s presidency. and how people still suffer… Continue reading »
i did say i was aching to write about Rogue Magazine‘s independence day issue, but was overtaken by the NHI’s accusations, Joey Mead’s naked body, and Argee Guevarra’s defense. suffice it to say that it was as i expected of a high-end P180-peso english “literary lifestyle” magazine, and their notion of the “State of the Nation” — the title of the month’s issue. save for Lourd de Veyra’s literary piece on an imagined exchange between two friends, one in Dubai… Continue reading »
i was aching to write about the independence month issue of Rogue Magazine, for reasons farthest from what has made it controversial the past two days. the National Historical Institute’s historians have pointed a finger at the cover and called it “bastos”. and while i’m a flag-loving Pinay – I bought everything that had a philippine flag on it during the centennial celebrations, never mind that it had Ramos’ “Philippines 2000″ as well – i didn’t think anything of that… Continue reading »
Probably the best and the worst that could possibly happen to a rock concert happened this rainy Saturday night. In the midst of an early Flores de Mayo (complete with floats and throngs of people) on the streets fronting the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and the traffic that’s expected of any payday weekend in the metro, Fiesta ng Musikang Filipino (An OPM Chronicle) was celebrating its second night of, well, what they made us believe would be pure unadulterated… Continue reading »
(or laughter as the worst medicine) it was an unlikely but perfect match: a bad stomach, a long rainy, dark and dreary day, and three lessons learned from 4:30 to 5:30 with only coke and very little food in my body. one, you can pretend that you ARE an activist by saying that you WERE one during the first quarter storm and throughout Martial Law. it apparently gains you enough credibility to be invited to talks and have books published… Continue reading »
published in PCIJ i-Report, the investigative reporting quarterly, of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Issue no. 3, September 2005 http://www.pcij.org/i-report/3/filipino-youth.html Too often the Filipino youth is viewed with the conventional eyes of our elders: we are the future of the nation, we are the agents of change. Government counts on us to help save the country, civil society exhorts us to be vigilant, the media remind us often enough that we are the hope of the nation. For the… Continue reading »