We beg to differ.
Most mainstream news reports and opinion pieces about University of the Philippines (UP) Manila student Jo Lapira who was among the dead following a clash between the Philippine military and the New People’s Army (NPA) in Batangas the other day report who she was to friends. Rappler, for one, cites how Lapira was “a tiny…
Read More “Jo Lapira: ‘tiny activist with big dreams’, or ENEMY casualty?” »
Yesterday I wrote about Hataw columnist Mat Vicencio and took issue over his deafening silence when it comes to even just mentioning the name of the suspected mastermind of Bislig radio broadcaster Christopher Lozada. Friends noted that while Vicencio ran a series of columns criticizing then viciously attacking Presidential Task Force on Media Security Executive…
Read More “On The Real Enemies and Traitors Of The Fourth Estate (Part Two: Syndicates)” »
(Disclaimer: While I am no longer part of the Presidential Task Force on Media Security or PTFoMS, I continue to support its mandate under President Duterte’s Administrative Order 1 which is to protect journalists from harassment, threats, and violence.) Friends from the larger circle of people I go around in tipped me off that a…
Read More “On The Real Enemies and Traitors of the Fourth Estate” »
The irony in the clique of “social media influencers” who hosted an event dubbed a forum on “Truth, Trust, and Democracy in the Age of Selfies, Trolls and Bots” just flies over people’s pointed heads. The event was organised “by the Journalism for Nation Building Foundation (JNBF), Rappler, and other stakeholder groups”. This is not…
Read More “Facts matter in the Philippines, but only the facts that favour its elite” »
Indeed, Filipinos need to be reminded that “facts matter”. That’s because Filipinos were not raised at home nor trained in school to build factual bases for what they believe in. In most cases, Filipino kids are told what to think rather than taught how to think. It is challenging too considering that Philippine society is…
Read More “Filipinos can overcome ‘fake news’ by developing more CURIOSITY #FactsMatterPH” »
In the days after the declaration of Martial Law, merely criticizing former President Ferdinand Marcos could get one picked up and there are claims that many of those picked up simply disappeared. Fear of speaking against Marcos back then was such that a friend’s mother (a college professor at a state university) buried several books…
Now that the Philippine government will be in an “all-out” war against the New People’s Army (NPA), the terrorist arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, it is worth exploring some lessones learnt from the recent war that liberated Marawi City from similar terrorist elements. To be sure, a war against the NPA will…
The impeachment “trial” of Supreme Court Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno is an exercise that is political in nature — because it is a process conducted in and governed by Congress where popularity holds currency (in contrast to trials done in a court of law where standards to ensure logic and reason prevail are higher and…
Read More “CJ Lourdes Sereno faces the wrath of a Filipino public clamouring for her impeachment” »
