because here is a nation where when you think independently, when you think differently even, when you think to critique because you know you must, when you engage in struggle, the first thing you will lose is your freedom.

because here is a nation where even its intelligentsia, its new media practitioners, its educated classes, who might have and espouse real and genuine independence, are tied to the shackles of friendships and togetherness and unity, even when it is to the detriment of critical thought, and change. AND nation.

i don’t know whether i said this in conversation with someone other than Angela: we don’t do democracy well.

1.
the yanks are coming! the yanks are coming! (and are here of course!)

2.
Human Rights Watch: “10 documented cases of killings and disappearances in 2011 happened during Aquino’s term. Not one suspect had been successfully prosecuted.”

3.
there are more than 300 political prisoners in this country. the government denies this completely.

4.
it is easy to dismiss informal settlement demolitions as the rule of law. until you realize that these are whole and complete communities, upon which the local government depends for cheap contractual labor, from which every politician — in power and otherwise — gets his or her votes. ang karapatan sa pabahay, the right to decent housing. freedom from demolition, and discrimination? not in this country.

5.
Ericson Acosta, cultural worker. Detained since February 11 2011.
listen to his prison sessions 1 and prison sessions 2.

6. (added June 13, 12:07AM)
Filipinos are the face of domestic work all around the world. More girls and women leave from the Philippines to find jobs as maids or nannies than from any other country. <…> But when they show up for their first day of work, many find out they’ve been deceived. Locked inside the homes of strangers, their passports taken away, often beaten and sexually abused, Filipino girls as young as 9 years old are caught in the nightmare of modern slavery.