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today, the workers of a Coca-Cola plant in Sta. Rosa Laguna have started their strike. that is, Coke’s drivers, haulers, fork lift operators, and pickers, almost 300 of them, have refused to go to work, effectively stopping operations in two plants (as i write this at 9AM today), as they call for their most basic rights as workers be respected by Coke. that is, just wages, workers benefits and job security. and ironically, this strike demands that workers be given… Continue reading »
my issue with this list of partylist organizations that are sure to get a seat in Congress at this point in time, is that it is so so easy to prove that they are not for or about the marginalized, and neither are most of these about some underrepresented sector. late last year, when my friend Aries began being asked to endorse candidates for the election, i had done research on some of these partylists, and could quickly tell which ones shouldn’t… Continue reading »
I do not know Teddy Casiño And when I say that, I mean that I do not know him personally, and at a random meeting he wouldn’t know me from Eve. I’ve been asked by friends if I’m endorsing him though, and the answer is yes, because for someone I do not know, I trust Teddy. I trust him for exactly the reasons you have been made to think he is not worthy of your vote. I trust him because… Continue reading »
If you had the chance to have the entire Philippines hear what you want to say about the coming elections, what would you write? For one day let’s all blog, tweet and post about our hopes, aspirations, reminders and challenges for the Pinoy voting public.
What the UP Administration and the governments who have supported that 300% tuition fee increase have created here are the conditions for the poor’s discomfort and embarrassment, in a space that should be the bastion of equality and sameness. In the 90’s, paying at most a P5,400 tuition fee, one of us was not better than another, and in fact, discomfiture was for the rich who were even there at all. In the 90’s, the best and the brightest from… Continue reading »
as i continue to wrap my head around the aftermath of Kristel’s death, as one grapples with what ultimately is an injustice, one is also forced to respond to the most insensitive comments cloaked in notions of being “more objective” or being “scientifically, medically correct.” and while we mourn, we are also fuelled to fight. and as many others are out on the streets, are boycotting their classes, i fight the best way i know how: with words. at a… Continue reading »
because as i try to wrap my head around this, the more urgent task has been to respond to what to me are the more unthinking and insensitive assertions about Kristel Tejada’s suicide, in relation to her unpaid tuition fees at the University of the Philippines Manila. and because if there’s anything that is even sadder here, it’s that those who assert that this is no political issue, are those who fail to see that their mere articulation of such… Continue reading »
In January, the Department of Tourism (DOT) celebrated the 6.09% rise in the number of tourists to the Philippines. That’s 25,000 more people who have come to visit this country where everything’s more fun. That’s 436,079 tourists who landed in good ol’ Pinas in January alone. It gives me goosebumps. Far from the good kind. Because it would take an amount of delusion to think this all good, and only the naïve would think those numbers equal to development or… Continue reading »
Over on Twitter, Teddy Boy Locsin claims credit for suggesting that actor Robin Padilla be brought to Sabah to help resolve the conflict. Locsin’s take on Robin of course is somewhat limited: he is charismatic, he is handsome, he can make people stop doing what they’re doing, Locsin says. But in fact Robin’s iconography, his history as icon, reveals how while he might be all these adjectives, what is far larger than his charisma and looks is what he’s done,… Continue reading »
in light of your dot.gov website being hacked, Andrea Pasion-Flores has said: “We are an agency that promotes books, instruments of expression. I cannot express enough how much we value the act of expression. Now I have to redirect public funds to fix this problem. It delays the announcements we have to make, such as a fabulous subsidy grant to a regional conference I wanted to tell you about soonest. I guess you’ll just have to watch the NBDB’s FB… Continue reading »
“My wife and I are now both very old – my wife just turned 80 and I am turning 80 next year. We would willingly spend this coming Christmas with our son as we did last year, if not for our failing health. We may have but a few years left and our only wish is to see Ericson walk free again.” — Isaias P. Acosta, father of Ericson Acosta, detained cultural worker and activist.
because to me the ultimate kabastusan, what is truly disgusting, is to pretend to be of the marginalized, when you are so obviously already in prized posts in Malacanang, and at this point are coming off as a presidential sister, too. you might imagine your kabastusan the acceptable kind, but you are no better than Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo making her son and allies run for partylist rep. for all your anti-GMA rhetoric PNoy, you are becoming like her in many ways. complete… Continue reading »
notes on day 1 of the Cybercrime Law’s enforcement: or is gov’t paying attention? 1. no, because the senators who are now for amending it are only talking about the libel clause. that is not the only problem with this law. 2. no, because while i’ve done it for my social media accounts and other blogs, i know it is easy to ignore the blacked out sites and the blacked out profile pics and cover photos on twitter and FB.… Continue reading »
What to do with Imelda’s embarrassment of riches
because you have to know that there was nothing as exhilarating, nothing that has gotten me grinning ear-to-ear since this darn Cybercrime Law was signed by our wonderful President, until #AnonymousPhilippines came along and started this gig Wednesday night (around 10PM on my twitter timeline) with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas website. which for a good long two hours or so appeared as this:
“Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently.” – Rosa Luxemburg.
August 9 2012, 6:00AM The dams are all at limit, so says Mareng Winnie on GMANews. The Marikina River is beyond BEYOND its highest alert. Navotas, Malabon, Muntinlupa, Marikina, Valenzuela, San Juan, Manila, Pasay, Pasig, Pateros are all under a State of Calamity.
i do not understand this insistence that PNoy calling out Noli de Castro and TV Patrol on doing commentary instead of straightforward news delivery, is like the emperor’s new clothes. is like a kid having the temerity to tell the emperor, you’re naked sir, everyone — including yourself — has been duped into thinking you’re wearing something.
i’m sure there is truth to much of what PNoy said in that SONA — propaganda after all, as with press releases, have the facts that we need so that a google search should reveal those to be true. and of course the State of the Nation is the nation according to the government’s statistics, numbers always look better than real life, and that isn’t new either. PNoy should really just stop pretending that he is different from GMA, when… Continue reading »
It’s difficult to imagine childhood without Dolphy, even when all he was to me was the image of a father on television, even as who I identified with was Maricel Soriano or Claudine Barretto playing his daughters in two different sitcoms, across two different generations. At some point this father image became interwoven with that of Enteng Kabisote, father to Aiza. The images are real to me, the characterization of fatherhood that was protective but had difficulty providing, that was… Continue reading »
because here is a nation where when you think independently, when you think differently even, when you think to critique because you know you must, when you engage in struggle, the first thing you will lose is your freedom.
two things: (1) so PNoy can get those votes in Congress, he can rock it with the Senators, when he wants something done. (2) so sensationalist and unapologetic media can get away with being exactly those two things because they are on the side of “public opinion.” #thestateofaffairstoo