Category: Uncategorized
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Change the conversation
The President is the highest and single most-powerful official in our system of government. We may have co-equal branches of government, but the President is on top, both as Head of Government and Head of State. The President is the Chief Executive: appoints his alter-egos to the cabinet who lead agencies in the performance of…
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Plot twist
It is as if we’re in 2009 again, when false prophets were pitching the idea of an immaculate, God-given, and incorruptible savior who could lead the country to the Promised Land. These false prophets demoted the Proclaimed Candidate to Second Fiddle, spread necropolitics, and proceeded to destroy the savior’s foe and his reputation through a…
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Dear Congress, #betterinternet now!
Here are my prepared remarks and presentation for the meeting of the House Committee on Information and Communication Technology, held on May 20, 2015: Honorable chair and members, good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to attend and speak at this meeting. All the measures now being heard in this meeting deserve hearing, study, and…
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Kentex fire: Who knew making slippers is a “killer job”?
Most of us have slippers, some even have more than one pair. They are mainstays in our homes. We wear them all year round, and we bring them when going out on vacation, here or abroad. Going to the beach or the provinces this summer is incomplete without our favorite slippers or flip-flops. But we never imagined that making some…
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#MaryJaneLives: Setting the record straight — and 10 action points
The execution was stopped and Mary Jane Veloso is alive today. This is the happy outcome after countless people in the Philippines, in Indonesia, and across the world never gave up and fought up to the last hour. These efforts paid off, with President Joko Widodo making the decision at the 11th hour to spare the life of…
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BS Aquino’s platform vs reality: ‘Weighed but found wanting’
Prologue: President BS Aquino’s 2010 platform of government, titled “A Social Contract with the Filipino People”, badly needs updating to keep up with the times and with reality. Thus: Our national leadership needs “transformational change.” Its ability to govern is under question. It punishes the wrongdoing only of its perceived foes. It invents new forms…
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‘Binola nya ako’ and the discourse of trolls
If we want to know where the Internet trolls get pointers on how to make the most unintelligent, most rotten and black as pozo negro commentary, look no further than the nation’s leaders and their apologists and how they “explain” themselves to citizens. Here’s one outstanding example: “Binola nya ako”, the latest attempt of President…
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A future without BS
Come to think of it, the single, most compelling argument in favor of President BS Aquino’s resignation is this: We will get rid of the biggest stumbling block and most gigantic hindrance to attaining justice and accountability. And as a big bonus, we could embark on a period of vital reforms we need as a…
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Feb. 25 unity statement: We demand truth and accountability
Here is the unity statement signed by individuals and organizations inviting everyone to an interfaith prayer and symbolic human chain on Feb. 25, 3-6 pm, starting from Camp Crame EDSA Gate up to the EDSA Shrine. Feb. 25 is exactly one month after the Mamasapano incident and the 29th anniversary of the EDSA People Power uprising. We demand truth…
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Real change vs loose change
Quite interestingly, diehard supporters of President BS Aquino ushered in the commemoration of the 29th anniversary of 1986 People Power uprising by rehashing the discredited “Marcos pa rin!” battlecry into an Internet trending topic #NoynoyPaRin. For a whole day, they convinced themselves that there’s no one else fit to lead the country at this time,…
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Past, present and future
“The President should resign,” declared a manifesto signed by a growing number of citizens from across the country. Damage control is in overdrive: But even after addressing the nation on national television, the President still failed to regain the trust of citizens outraged by the incident in Mindanao, among many outstanding issues propelling the protests.
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#PapalVisitPH: Livestreams of Pope Francis in the Philippines
If you’re abroad or cannot go personally to any of the Papal events where Pope Francis is set to go as part of his state and pastoral visit, one option is to catch the “Pope of the Poor” via livestream. The pope will be in the Philippines on January 15-19, in a visit that carries the theme…
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#PapalVisitPH: Jittery Aquino gov’t vs. joyful public
The BS Aquino administration is in many ways botching the single-biggest chance to tell the world that “its more fun in the Philippines. The last time a pope visited the Philippines was exactly 20 years ago. It didn’t matter that the President was a Protestant. It didn’t matter that we still didn’t have much to…
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MRT-LRT fare hike: The Bayan Muna petition
Bayan Muna lawmakers Neri Javier Colmenares and Carlos Isagani Zarate today (Jan. 6) filed a new petition at the Supreme Court seeking to stop the MRT-LRT fare increases. I’m proud to be a co-petitioner in this case, together with other commuters. The 30-page Bayan Muna pleading is a thought-provoking read. It smashes the Aquino government’s…
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Workers, students hardest hit by MRT-LRT fare hikes
As commuter groups Train Riders Network (TREN) and Riles Laan sa Sambayanan (RILES), multisectoral alliance Bayan and Bayan Muna partylist lawmakers prepare to bring the issue before the Supreme Court, let us take a look at the sectors most adversely affected by the questionable and unjustified MRT-LRT fare hikes. The rates of MRT-LRT fare increases are so high: In…
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#ReliefPH ops have started for #RubyPH (Hagupit)
Soon after its first landfall, supertyphoon #RubyPH (international name: Hagupit) made an impact on Eastern Samar, one of the Philippines’ poorest provinces. According to People Surge, the organization of survivors of 2013’s howler Yolanda (Haiyan):
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Take 5 as BlogWatch turns 5
Conventional wisdom today would say that an assembly of bloggers is like cats and dogs put together in one tiny space. We are said to be too feisty and too self-centered to cooperate among ourselves. We value our personal freedoms so much that we cannot be trusted to work together in a common cause. Such…
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#RememberHaiyan Diaries: The new normal after Yolanda
As international NGOs and funding agencies rush to provide more and more temporary and “transitional” shelters across Samar, Leyte and the regional hub Tacloban City, the people are living a life that could be considered as “the new normal”. Only about a week prior to the first anniversary of Yolanda’s epic devastation, President Aquino approved…
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Blogging Nation: Focus on PH
Blogging has become very big in the Philippines — so many communities, achievements, opportunities, challenges. Here is my presentation I shared at a workshop at 4M Forum Jakarta, held on Sept. 24, 2014, at Atma Jaya University: Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
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#NeverAgain: They’re just waiting for us to forget
Once upon a time, a President described himself as the best and most indispensable. He said no one else, except himself, could be trusted to continue his “good work.” He said the country needed to be saved from the “specter of communist takeover.” And so that President implemented what he thought was the formula to…
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UP’s shame: Florencio Abad School of Economics
In separate statements, 23 professors of the the University of the Philippines’ School of Economics and the UPSE Student Council this week brought shame to the University by rejecting its tradition of radical activism in their scandalous defense of embattled Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. They branded UP students who confronted Abad and protested the corrupt pork barrel…