Category Archive for: sarili

komentaryo

Freedom*

One rarely thinks about one’s freedoms until one feels it is being impinged upon, where one is being told of the price you pay for insisting on your right to free speech and independent thought.

In the course of this government’s reign in Malacañang, and despite its grand proclamations about how this is a democracy – for look at how they let critics critique and rallies happen! – I have thought more and more about the mortality of the freedoms we hold dear.

I realize that sometimes we so believe that oppression and repression can only wear the same clothes, invoke the same proclamations, that we fail to see how our freedoms are sacrificed as a matter of course, every day, in the more insidious ways that we do not talk about, sometimes, can’t even imagine. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

for Joelle: how are these days?

i’ve been out of this blog, mostly because i was writing like crazy for most of March and April, and i mean working on four columns a week (!!!) for The Manila Times. and yes it was as crazy it sounds.

i’m glad it’s over. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

Lola Nita, 1923-2014.

“At a certain time of day, between the high heat of noon and the cool afternoon, the streets of Casay have a strange quietness — of a leaf arrested in its fall, or of a vacuum from which air and life have suddenly been drained — a quietness which seems to bide its time. Very infrequently, a car, a truck, or a cart may disturb the stillness, raising brown dust in its trail and sowing screeching echoes into the silence. But a minute after, the dust settles, the noise fades away, and it is quiet again. Even when the wind blows and rustles leaves, sways branches, scatters blossoms, it is still quiet. (more…)

radikalchick.lit

on friendship and sisterhood #beforeiforget*

there are friendships that happen later in one’s life, even with people whose names you’ve known for years, that girl who was always just the girl-who’s-the-ex-of-a-friend, or that one you’d see at gigs. you could’ve studied in the same university and college, but remain as nameless faces, or faceless names. a measure really of what else we were doing, how friendships can be as limiting as they are liberating. and how sometimes age and timing — if not twitter — might be exactly what one needs to find kindred spirits. (more…)

kultura

the 2013 kick-off

thank yous are in order, and while Angela and i always difficult to go all me! me! me! or I! I! I! on our blogs, almost two months into 2013, it would seem wrong to not fall back on that i, if only so i can talk to a you and articulate gratefulness.

the year kicked off with being offered a regular Opinion column over at The Manila Times. i had hoped i could get away with putting a logo instead of my face on it, but no dice. so every Thursday, my literal paper trail continues. let’s see how long i can keep it up — or how long The Times can handle me. hehe. (more…)