Category: History

Lack of a strong national identity makes for dog-eat-dog Philippine politics

May 29, 2021 Ramon Ortoll 8 Comments

For a political and social scientist, Professor Antonio Contreras surely is naive. But he can also be pragmatic when it comes to his own self-promotion. Borderline personality disorder? Maybe. In his Manila Times piece he rails against the “dirty politics” of these times… Popular culture has reinforced the image of politics as devoid of virtue….

History, Politics

Looking back: Marawi City may have been sacrificed to allow US military interests to remain in the Philippines

May 27, 2021 Ramon Ortoll No Comments

The tangled web of the Philippine police and military which links the latter to criminal gangs and other lawless elements has long been whispered about specially in the provinces where it’s mostly an open secret. Friends who have close friends whose relatives are officers in the police and military establishments have informally confirmed these links….

History, Politics

The Opposition wastes time lying to themselves and to Filipinos about history and about Duterte

May 21, 2021 Ramon Ortoll 1 Comment

The Opposition can’t disabuse themselves of the notion that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is a Chinese puppet. PhilSTAR columnist Boo Chanco, for example, is fixated on the concept as is evident in yet another one of his pieces, today’s “Is China losing Duterte” where he suggests that “China will likely finance a candidate next year….

History, Politics

Opposition pleas to “remember” the “horrors” of the “Martial Law Years” starting to sound pathetic

September 26, 2020 benign0 56 Comments

Listen. Can you hear that? It’s the sound of the wailings of the Martial Law Crybabies. One wonders why they need to wax crybaby ad nauseum over the “horrors” of them “Martial Law Years” to anyone who cares to listen when they’ve already spent hundreds of millions of pesos on monuments, statues, two Aquino presidencies,…

History, Politics

Battle of the Heroes: NAIA name change vs. Ferdinand Marcos Day

September 4, 2020 zaxx 6 Comments

Whether you refer to heroes here as with or without the quotation marks, “heroes” in the Philippines appear to be defined by how well you can get history to side on you. And what better way to do that than name recall? So for anyone wanting to be remembered as a hero, naming roads and…

History, Politics

Thank Ninoy for the holiday, I guess

August 21, 2020 PulbuRonn 3 Comments

The greatest “heroic” act Ninoy Aquino did was to die face down on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport. Other than that, he was all optics and hot air, reminiscent of the vice-president today. He didn’t die for the Filipinos, he died for his ambition. And it paid off for his wife and son….

History, Politics

The world will not wait for the Philippines to recover from COVID-19

July 31, 2020July 31, 2020 benign0 3 Comments

“Humanity” and all the goodness around empathy and charity sound nice on paper but, eventually, people and the rest of the world with clear pathways to the future move on. Those that are at risk of being left behind — the chronic poor, the sick and dying, and the not-so-smart — while entitled to some…

History, Society

Catholic churches should be demolished because pagan people’s lives ALSO matter

June 10, 2020 benign0 7 Comments

While people are in the business of tearing down monuments to slave traders and brutal colonisers, why not go further and turn people’s ires on Roman Catholic Church buildings and statues? After all, the Catholic Church has as blood-soaked a history as any other global imperial empire. The crucifix, for example, was a potent symbol…

History, Religion