Category Archive for: the elite

komentaryo

The urgency of the environment #Eleksyon2016 #EarthDay2016

I had started on this series on the environment – from urban development to climate change – because the early press releases on today’s debate declared that the topics would be about disaster preparedness, climate change adaptation, health care, education, and fighting corruption. Since last Sunday though, I’ve heard otherwise, and if the grapevine is correct it will be a free-for-all (yet again!) as far as topics are concerned.

Also, if my news is correct, today’s #PiliPinasDebates2016 will include a section where candidates will be required to raise either a yes or no paddle with regards issues, instead of, oh I don’t know, giving them time to explain where they stand on each issue. I hope a candidate decides to raise both paddles, or just refuses to raise the paddles, because choosing a president should not be based on yes or no answers, but on clear platforms and programs.

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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.

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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…)

komentaryo

Lumad, first

Work kept me from visiting the Lumad Camp in the University of the Philippines Diliman early in the week. On Tuesday evening, their second night, I arrived close to midnight to bring a cash donation for the camp’s food fund and some medicines from a doctor.

Feeding 800 Lumad at P50 pesos per head is P40,000 pesos per meal after all. From the moment I heard that they were coming, this was what I wanted to raise funds and get donations for.

Thankfully, my network of real and virtual (i.e., social media) friends were ready and willing to donate, depositing varied amounts into my bank account and hoping it will help in any way. A writer-musician friend got the product he endorses to make a huge tocino donation, with some hotdogs for the kids to boot.

At the tail-end of the week, Art Relief (the heavens bless them!) was coming in to put up their mobile kitchen and feed the Lumad. Many food and water donations came in, too, throughout the week, and one can’t help but be glad that so many are rising to the occasion of the Lumad. (more…)

kultura

The portrait of a columnist as plagiarist

It has been confusing to say the least. But also it has been quite fascinating, this whole case of Ducky Paredes versus the broadsheet Malaya.

Because it’s such a public display of what goes through the mind of a man who has been accused of plagiarism, and the kind of defensive stance he’s decided to take. How the decision to turn this story around — in fact get ahead of the story — and claim that one had been oppressed and un-paid, therefore that would explain whatever actions he was to be accused of.

To be accused of. Because in fact we heard about how things went down between Paredes and Malaya only at the point when the paper found the need to defend itself against Paredes’s accusations as posted on Facebook.

That’s the thing: we found out about the story when it was deemed over by Paredes — he was moving on to the next thing. So the loudest voice we’re hearing is his, not at all acknowleding the serious allegation and crime that is plagiarism. (more…)