Category Archive for: bayan

komentaryo

#DearPopeFrancis*

Today you arrive in Manila.

Unlike Sri Lanka, there will be no elephants dressed in fancy garb to welcome you on our streets.

But I hear the President himself is set to welcome you at the airport, refusing as you have to do a State Dinner at Malacañang Palace. While he might invoke his Catholic upbringing, there have been many instances when he seemed to lack compassion and kindness, when often that is what this struggling and exhausted nation needs.

You might also meet his more famous sister. She will invoke her Catholic upbringing as well. But she has also single-handedly created a celebrity culture in this country that is about all things superficial, and she has made a career out of a shameless display of her wealth.

You will meet, too, the every-politician. In this country, religion can be a matter of convenience – if it can win them elections they will wear their Catholicism on their sleeve. It is not a measure of how well they serve the people.

Today you arrive in Manila and all the streets you pass will have been cleared of dirt and debris. You will see a Manila and later a Leyte Province that have no semblance of the cities we live in dangerously every day. That can only be a measure of how well our leaders have been able to hide what ails this nation. It’s a measure of how well they have silenced the people. (more…)

komentaryo

The human rights report card

Matuwid na daan—the righteous path—has always been more than a campaign slogan for this government. It is the frame for the image(s) of nation that it seeks to sell to the world. It is the ideological backbone of its belief in itself and all the good that it does.

But of course at some point it will seem almost delusional, because there is real life and real people and real injustice that will prove matuwid na daan wrong. This is especially true if what we are looking at are issues related to human rights, and I don’t just speak of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances, not just Hacienda Luisita and the military deployment in Mindanao. Though of course we can but start with these. (more…)

komentaryo

Kuya Joseph, Brgy. Burayan, San Jose, Tacloban City

Kuya Joseph. From Brgy. Burayan San Jose. Interviewed in early December 2013, less than a month after Typhoon Yolanda. He drove us around when we volunteered with Kusog Tacloban. His experience in his own words, just re-organized as this happened in various conversations. Will translate at some point, though will gladly let others do it. Because I still think there is no writing people’s stories that will do justice to their voices. Making it pretty is not just an injustice, it also effectively silences. (more…)

komentaryo

Balangiga, Eastern Samar

there is a general sadness to this space, so historically vibrant, and such a measure of how we do not care about this history. the bells are missing from the church’s bell tower, and the church itself is closed and under renovation. in May its doors were open, masses were being celebrated, a choir practiced in between. in the plaza in front of the Church there is a monument by Napoleon Abueva showing how 500 Filipino revolutionaries launched a surprise ambush on Company C of the 9th U.S. Infantry Regiment on September 28 1901.  (more…)

komentaryo

Quinapondan, Eastern Samar

the show was missing an audience when we arrived. a huge tent had been set-up at the barangay hall’s basketball court, the monobloc chairs for a hundred arrived, but there was no audience. in Guiuan where our first shows were, our venues were filled to the rafters, many women arriving with their children who wouldn’t understand the show, and would be crushed in the crowd. it took one show to realize that unbeknownst to us, these women were required to watch the show as part of 4Ps — Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. it meant registering to watch the show would be equal to a cash dole-out of P500 pesos per child — which explained too why they had brought their children. they were proof of how many children each woman had.  (more…)