We beg to differ.
Filipinos do not know what they want. In 1986, hundreds of thousands of Filipinos took to the streets to rally against the late strongman, former President Ferdinand Marcos. The three-day protest eventually led to the ousting of the so-called “dictator” and alleged human rights violator. Twenty five years later, Filipinos from the Mindanao region of…
Seems like the whole Media fiesta that is raging around the the Duterte’s of Davao City, specifically on-leave Mayor Sara’s fists and the Duterte father-and-son fingers is opening up old raw emotions about the subjugation of Mindanao to the 100-year-old elephant in the room — the legacy of colonial rule, Imperial Manila. Many Davao folk…
Read More “Should Mindanao secede from what could be turning into a failed state?” »
The longer I write about Philippine society and its politics, the more convinced I get that the country’s state of law and order is a joke. Take Davao City for instance. All this time I thought that the city was a model for what following the “rule of law” could do. It turns out, to…
One wonders now what really motivates Roman Catholic Bishops’ taking certain positions on various matters of the state. Take the issue of Reproductive Health (RH) — an issue where the Church takes a strong anti-modernity stand on. The ends to which the Church took the “debate” and the pitch to which it took its temper…
The imbroglio Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte suddenly finds herself in after she punched court sheriff Abe Andres on the face in front of TV cameras is becoming complicated. It is complicated by her family’s uncoordinated public relations approach as evident in the belligerent stance her father, now acting Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, exhibited when he…
Recently the Japanese pop group AKB48, an “idol” theatre group composed of young girls, created a sensation after a computer-generated “composite” character “joined” the group to appear in a candy commercial. The character, named Aimi Eguchi, became a hit with AKB48 fans who at the time did not know she only existed in a computer….
Read More “AKB48: Computer-generated pop stars and next-gen pop entertainment” »
The alleged assault against court sheriff Abe Andres by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte is now turning into a media circus. But one good thing that came out of this recent dragging of the premier city of the southern Philippine island of Mindanao into the limelight is the renewed interest in the spotty human rights…
Read More “Davao Death Squads – do they deliver results or just more problems?” »
While much Media airtime is given to the abuse of domestic workers employed in foreign countries, not much interest seems to go the way of domestic workers employed by households in the Philippines. Faded star of the 1980s Maricel Soriano provides the most recent of cases that highlight the plight of domestic workers employed by…
Read More “Maricel Soriano’s alleged abuse of domestic workers reflects Filipino society” »