Category: Society

Philippine online activists step up battle versus ‘pwede na yan’ anti-cybercrime laws

September 27, 2012September 27, 2012 benign0 11 Comments

Hysterics around the enactment and implementation of the Philippines’ Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (Republic Act 10175) continue to sweep the country’s community of social media “activists”. The new law itself is just another example of Filipinos’ renowned jeepney approach to facing its challenges — another Pinoy-style pwede-na-yan solution (in my colleague Mike Portes’s words)…

Crime, Lifestyle, Media, Society

Money or love: What do Filipino women want?

September 26, 2012 Kate Natividad 28 Comments

What do women want nga ba talaga? Obviously romance sells. The lot of cheesy movies and telenovelas themed on love and romance attests to this. I haven’t seen it yet (though I plan to see it, time permitting) but the latest kilig-fest The Mistress, I heard, is a big hit. According to the reviews, both…

Culture, Glitz and Glamour, Society

National Press Club, Your Freudian Slip Is Showing

September 20, 2012August 14, 2014 Gogs 20 Comments

freudian slip freud·i·an slip Noun: An unintentional error regarded as revealing subconscious feelings. We don’t know anything for sure (is that libel) but a Freudian slip is what seems to have happened . The National Press Club initially said that the libel portion of the Cybercrime Act was “society’s weapon against bloggers”. They had since…

Culture, Media, Politics, Society

The latest outrage fad: Protests against the new Philippine anti-cybercrime law have become personal

September 19, 2012 benign0 20 Comments

After scanning online forums and social media discussions in the aftermath of the enactment of Republic Act 10175 also known as the Philippine Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012, one thing has become quite evident: the fear mongering that has erupted around the Act (Jojo Robles in a Manila Standard article, for example wrote that “unprecedented…

Crime, Culture, Lifestyle, Media, Society

Time for some nipple activism!

September 12, 2012January 27, 2016 Kate Natividad 17 Comments

I feel sorry for my nipples. Unfortunately for them, we live in a society that frowns upon the sight of female nipples catching a bit of sunshine. Whereas it is perfectly acceptable — no, ordinary — for women in certain tribes in Africa, South America, and in our own country’s mountainous provinces to walk around…

Culture, Media, Society, Tech Talk

Democracy offers Filipinos a mere illusion of choice

September 11, 2012 benign0 19 Comments

The trouble with democracy is that it gives people a false sense of power over their individual destinies. That is a dangerous delusion we are nurturing in the minds of what in reality are an utterly powerless people. The deeper agendas behind entire governments — for example, Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III’s mission…

Politics, Society

Gadget envy: Why Tito Sotto’s plagiarism fails the ‘So What? Test’

September 11, 2012 benign0 7 Comments

Not to put too fine a point to it but Philippine Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III is now the laughingstock of the country. His consistent failure to recognise the errors in the way he allegedly lifted material verbatim from several bloggers’ works to use in a speech he delivered to defend his position against the…

Lifestyle, Religion, Society, Tech Talk

Why do many women go for cheating men?

September 7, 2012October 9, 2014 Kate Natividad 27 Comments

Frankly, I don’t understand women who remain with cheating partners. I have a few female friends who remain in relationships with known palikeros (philanderers). They are quick to get their claws out at women who stray too close to their precious hubbies or boyfriends, or hang on more tightly to them when someone perceived to…

Culture, Glitz and Glamour, Society