Category Archive for: lugar

komentaryo

Guiuan, Eastern Samar

when I was doing reliefph.com at the height of Yolanda / Haiyan last year, one indication I had that things were really bad was the number of phone calls and pleas for help that we received through the site. this was when there was a news blackout about the aftermath of the storm, and very little was getting through to Manila. relatives had started getting in touch with the site to tell us about the last time they had contact with family from Eastern Samar and Leyte, and what they found out before communication lines died. for Guiuan in particular, the news was grim, the first images were of communities by its shoreline had been reduced to ground zero, how Haiyan’s winds and the storm surge had practically taken whole barangays with it.

a year since, this is what I saw of Guiuan in October. it does not capture the anger that is here, and the pain. ruins do not say much. (more…)

komentaryo

Criticism: not (fun) in the Philippines*

The world knows of the Philippines by now, for reasons other than a senator who refuses to admit to plagiarism, being the setting for the bustling Asian city in “Bourne Legacy,” and a cybercrime law that might be the worst piece of legislation against freedom of expression since the world wide web.

There was a time when we could call out the Western eye for gazing at us exotic: the ones who eat duck fetuses, the pretty brown-skinned girls with wide smiles and a fascination for, who fascinate the, white man. In these times of transnationalism and globalized cultures though, these assessments might be closer to being correct. (more…)

komentaryo

about those bunkhouses #typhoonHaiyan #reliefPH

in early December, when i went with my friend Rambie to set-up her soup kitchen for kids in Tacloban, to feed as well in neighbouring towns, we saw what the locals called “housing” along the stretch of the highway. then, even with only skeletal frames, it already looked pretty tight, and one could imagine how congested it was to become. (more…)

komentaryo

missing the point

it is a waste of time, but also utterly insensitive and absolutely unnecessary for anyone at all in government to be talking at this point about looting on the one hand, and proposing a level-up on the punishment against looters on the other, obviously contextualized as it is in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan.

this is what Muntinlupa City Representative Rodolfo Biazon is doing by filing House Bill 3367. he is also missing the point. (more…)

komentaryo

(not) back to business

The people on the plane—mostly men—were straining their necks to look out the windows as we descended toward the Tacloban airport. The site was grim: nothing but endless brown land, with nary a structure, and few trees.

Landing is no different. While the tarmac is clear, to one side is a sea wall now in shambles, in front of which stands an airport facility standing only on its posts. There is no welcome to be had here, and the people in charge are tired. Stepping outside the airport grounds means only dust and heat, and an endless view of leafless trees. (more…)