Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

Divorce and freedom #Eleksyon2016

Triggered by The Rundown 2016, an ABS-CBN News Channel and UP Economic Society program that aired live on January 29, here is another issue that one must take into consideration when deciding on who to vote for. The Rundown asked the first batch of its Senatorial candidates about their stand on divorce, and to have had only one senatorial candidate say yes to divorce among the many who were there, is just utterly disappointing.

Of course the show’s format was such that the second batch of Senatorial candidates were not asked the same questions as the first batch, which does make one wonder: how do you choose among these candidates when we don’t ask them about the same issues? (more…)

komentaryo

The Lumad and mining #Eleksyon2016

If there is an issue that should be part of the decision to vote for anyone at all this coming elections, it is the Lumad killings, and the injustice that those who survive continue to live with. Thousands of Lumad are in evacuation centers, living off lugaw if there is food at all, away from the productivity of caring for their land, away from the schools that nurture their children, away from their homes.

The bigger picture we are looking at is that of mining, and how the next President must choose a side: the Lumad and their ancestral lands or the transnational mining firms and the business they bring in.

There is no in-betweens here. One cannot stand for one and not stand against the other.

(more…)

kultura

House On Fire

On an unplanned trip to the Cultural Center of the Philippines that had little to do with art and everything to do with the cultural work of getting cheques so far away, ones that are about a government bureaucracy that does not make things easy for workers—cultural and otherwise—it was a relief to be drawn into “Casa Fuego,” an exhibit by Toym Imao. Because a display of larger-than-life toys renders one necessarily a kid, no matter how critical the stance you take relative to this magnitude.

Size and monuments 
The giddiness over the size of these installations does not last long, which is not a bad thing. The size and scale of artworks—how big something is, how detailed, how beautiful!—has become embroiled in the enterprise of art fairs that use these works as centerpieces of commerce. An artwork or two is chosen as showpiece, becoming the cornerstone of every press release and the most instagrammable attraction, which also makes it necessarily “representative” of all the other art that appears in the fair. Imao’s works for Casa Fuego could just as well fall perfectly within that context. (more…)

kultura

Tungkol sa kultural na paggawa

Walang pagkilos na kultural na hindi nababalot ng kontradiksyon.

Kontradiksyon ang eleksyon at ang pagsampa ng kahit na sinong artista sa entablado ng sortie.

Kontradiksyon ang pagsusulat bilang hanapbuhay para sa pulitiko.

Kontradiksyon ang pagsusulat ng opinion column para sa diyaryong pagaari ng big business o oligarkiya. (AKO) (more…)

komentaryo

#Eleksyon2016: Rage

Walang paglagyan ang aking galit. At lungkot. At galit.

To my mind, there is no reason for farmers to have been killed on April 1. No reason for farmers to have been gunned down. No reason for the violent dispersal. Not today, not on any day.

On radio, some military official said soon after the news broke about the violent dispersal of farmers in Kidapawan: the rallyists started it. They are not real farmers. They are professional rallyists. They have done this before. They threw rocks at policemen, he said. And the police are the ones who are injured.

That the spin didn’t surprise me is telling of what we’ve had to deal with the past six years with matuwid-na-daan. (more…)