Makò Micro-Press held a zine-making workshop for Masipag farmers and urban poor gardeners from Payatas in Santa Rosa, Nueva Ecija, four Saturdays ago, and I remain in awe of how palay seeds and the idea of small, independent presses weave together so well. I must admit that I knew very little of rice farming prior...
Category: Opinion
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Scum returns, to stay?
The ebb and flow of history is such that the scum that was washed away eventually returns to shore. The problem is, unless we are able to clean the Sea of Human Nature, it comes back thicker and in greater volume. A cursory survey of current events makes one realize that everything has happened before....
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Risa, Leni show the way
True to form, Sen. Risa Hontiveros battled mightily to prevent the dignity of the Senate, such as what it has become, from being fully shredded at the start of the inquiry into extrajudicial killings during Rodrigo Duterte’s brutal “war on drugs.” But for Hontiveros’ efforts the upper chamber would have been in complete thrall to...
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Story for our times
Kerwin Espinosa’s testimony at the Oct. 11 hearing of the House of Representatives’ quad committee dredged an 8-year-old case from the swamp of oblivion. The killing by state forces of his father, Mayor Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, while incarcerated at the Baybay Sub-Provincial Jail, was a shocking development in President Rodrigo Duterte’s young administration....
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Transitioning away from fossil fuels must be rapid, equitable and just
September saw high-level meetings seeking to steer the course of human civilization’s future amid multiple global challenges. More than 190 member-states of the United Nations came together for the annual UN General Assembly in New York. In the same city, governments, corporations, and civil society organizations participated in the subsequent Summit of the Future and...
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‘Sa Prisinto Ka Na Magpaliwanag’ and Other Filipino Myths
There always comes a point when those in power make a high-profile arrest, as shown in the current and recent administrations. It was Joseph Estrada in Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s time, Arroyo in Benigno Aquino III’s time, and Leila de Lima in Rodrigo Duterte’s time. Now, under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., we have Alice Guo and Pastor...
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Floods, foreign funds and fiascos
At the House of Representatives’ deliberations on the proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) last Aug. 30, legislators questioned Secretary Manuel Bonoan on why record flooding continues to be a problem despite P1.2 trillion having been spent by the department on flood control projects since 2009. Pinpointed were the Pasig...
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Fight back
Why are we not yet fighting back against China in the West Philippine Sea? Despite the numbing regularity with which Philippine vessels are rammed, blocked, water-cannoned, shot at with flares, and the corresponding injury, deprivation and harassment suffered by our service personnel, as well as damage and theft of our government property and natural resources,...
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Seismic shift for the Vice President
On Aug. 30, even as social media was still abuzz and aghast at Vice President Sara Duterte’s startling behavior at the budget deliberations in the House of Representatives, she was reported as leading her office’s nationwide distribution of bags under its “Pagbabago” (Change) program. The photograph that accompanied the Philippine News Agency report, taken at...
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How do you solve a problem like Sara Duterte?
She is a PR person’s nightmare at the very least. I can imagine her handlers in a state of wild confusion as they try to do some damage control every time Vice President Sara Duterte utters anything remotely resembling a coherent sentence. She is remembered as the barumbada (sadly, I can’t find a word in English to...