We beg to differ.
Almost 54 percent of Filipinos are under the age of 24. They were all born after 1990 and some of them became voters after 1996. By 2016 a big chunk of this group (5-10 million of them) will turn 18 and be eligible to vote as well. This is a new generation calling the political…
One wonders why people are still surprised that Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III’s call to his people to wear a yellow ribbon in support of his personal war against the Philippine Supreme Court had fallen flat on its face. It is a fact, that his and his family’s whole “Laban” (‘fight!’) thing had…
Read More “Why PNoy’s call for Filipinos to wear the yellow ribbon was an EPIC fail” »
I’ve come to realise that much of Philippine history was really all about a monumental effort to counter centuries of butthurt. The Philippine “revolution” of 1898 was an epic reaction to 400 years of butthurt in the hands of Spain. The arbitrary re-defining of the 4th of July, 1946 from “Philippine Independence Day” to “Philippine-American…
Read More “Much of Philippine history was motivated by Filipinos’ kneejerk butthurt reactions” »
I don’t pretend to know much about the nitty-gritty of military life. In fact, the closest I ever came to experiencing it involved being an officer in the Citizen’s Army Training (CAT) program in high school, and being a normal cadet in the Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program in college. If anyone cares to…
Read More “Why cadet Cudia’s case has played out on social media like an EDSA revolution” »
Year 28 since the EDSA People Power revolution and the special working holiday has passed even more uneventfully as the previous one. I am reviewing my post from the previous year entitled “Getting Over the Yellow Fever”. Sadly many of the points I have raised in 2013 remain unchanged. Some of these points include: Non-Inclusive…
Outrage in the citizenry continues erupting over the recent ruling of the Supreme Court regarding the online libel clause in Republic Act 10175, A.K.A. the Cybercrime Law. Due to the online libel clause not being declared unconstitutional, social media is abuzz with discussion that the end of “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression” draws…
Read More “Online libel, freedom of information, and what Filipinos have done with their freedom” »
Fact is, one will be hard-pressed to find a totally objective account of history. Though ultimately historians either avoid bias to the greatest extent possible or purposefully show it, individual accounts will never truly be free of it. Ultimately each individual’s account passes through a filter which is composed of his/her philosophies, belief systems, experiences,…
Read More “Is there a right or wrong point of view of history?” »
A friend of mine had shown me a post on the ABS-CBN Facebook site. It read “Cory Aquino. Democracy icon. How do you #RememberCoryAquino?” I was half expecting people who would leave comments there to still shower praises upon the former president and icon of the People Power Revolution here in the Philippines. And like…