We beg to differ.
As expected, US Marine Joseph Scott Pemberton was a no-show in yesterday’s preliminary hearing on the death of Filipino transgender Jeffrey Laude in which he stands accused. Pemberton’s legal counsel Rowena Garcia Flores reportedly argued that her client’s presence was “not required” and that he “was still studying the complaint against him.” In response, chief…
Sure. As Marrian Pio Roda Ching asserts in an Inquirer article, Jeffrey Laude’s “right” to be addressed by the alias “Jennifer” is all about his “right to identity and to self-determination” as stipulated in a certain body of work called the “Yogyakarta Principles” where Article 3 supposedly stipulates, that these assertions of “identity” constitute every…
It’s the semestral break in the Philippines! Filipino students refer to it by its obvious abbreviation, “sembreak”. With much of the Philippines’ youth now free from the oppression of paper deadlines, exams, and 7 a.m. classes, what are they to do with all this free time? In the age of ubiquitous internet access, social media,…
Read More “#HereWeGo! Stuff to occupy Filipino kids’ minds #NgayongSemBreak” »
Turns out United States Marine Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton is just 19 years old and graduated High School only last year. In a report published by the American news site South Coast Today, Pemberton is described by his uncle as “a really good kid” while a neighbour called him “a friendly person” and…
One thing that the brouhaha over the murder of Jeffrey Laude (allegedly by Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton of the United States Marine Corps) revealed is that Filipino transgenders live in legal limbo in the Philippines. No less than the Philippine Supreme Court is reportedly “confused” over how to regard them. The publisher of…
As expected, gay activists are now all over the case of the murder of transgender Jeffrey ‘Jennifer’ Laude. According to Benjamin Pimentel who wrote about the incident in the context of Gay Pride in his Inquirer piece Death of a Filipino transgender, “Despite progress and victories on many fronts, violence is still a frightening reality…
Of ‘Filipino, German, and Danish descent’. That’s how newly-crowned Miss World Philippines 2014 contestant Valerie Weigmann of Albay is described by the Philippine media. Well, considering she is an ex-Pinoy Big Brother housemate and a one-time host of the noontime variety show Eat Bulaga, there does not seem to be much of the German and…
Read More “Pinoy Big Brother housemate Valerie Weigmann is Miss World Philippines 2014!” »
Literally! No really. As of this writing there are reportedly 50 container vans containing toxic waste imported from Canada sitting on a yard at the Manila International Container Terminal. Somebody in Canada must have finally worked it out in their head. Manila is the place to dump stuff. Metro Manilans have been doing it for…
Read More “The Canadians finally got it right: Manila IS a dump!” »