Tag: syria

Changed situation in Golan Heights renders UN peacekeeping mission there irrelevant

September 5, 2014 benign0 20 Comments

It seems the real question that needs to be asked with regard to the role of Filipino troops deployed to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the Middle East is this: Is it our war? As the term “peacekeeper” implies, UN “peacekeeping” missions protect peace within their respective areas of responsibility. When there is no longer…

Government, Politics

Philippine Army keeps cool as Malaysia goes on high alert against Islamic militants!

August 20, 2014August 20, 2014 benign0 38 Comments

For many Filipinos, the fight being waged by Islamic militants to re-establish a Muslim caliphate across vast swaths of the Arab world in North Africa and the Middle East has remained a mere peripheral issue. Recent events however have revealed disturbing insight into how much of the events over there may be resonating among the…

Culture, Government, Religion, The South

Aquino anti-cybercrime law curtailing freedom of speech ruins significance of EDSA people power revolution

February 20, 2014February 25, 2014 Ilda 58 Comments

The celebration for the 28th anniversary of EDSA People Power revolution will be low key according to Presidential Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma. Instead of holding it at EDSA where it was held traditionally, it will be held in Cebu province. The reason given was “because the province was the bulwark of the opposition to the…

Development, Government, Politics

On Syria: Why the Philippines Should Oppose War

September 6, 2013 Richard Javad Heydarian 49 Comments

As we inch closer to a prospective Western intervention against the Syrian regime, many are still confused over its circumstances and justification. And this has, quite understandably, raised a set of uncomfortable questions for many of us here in the Philippines. On the one hand, many have been appalled by the prospects of an embattled…

Crime, Government, Politics

In One with the Gezi Park Resistance: I am also a ‘capulcu’ in solidarity to the Turkish People

June 9, 2013June 9, 2013 Jose Mario de Vega 1 Comment

This is a response to the call of the eminent and radical American Professor Noam Chomsky with regard to his call to the world to support the Turkish Resistance/Occupy Movement. I overwhelmingly concur with the great professor in his stern condemnation of Turkey authorities’ brutal police crackdown on protesters who merely are denouncing the demolition…

Politics

Truth or Consequence

January 8, 2013January 8, 2013 Mauro Gia Samonte 94 Comments

Apropos the stream of comments generated by my article SYRIAN WAR: MARCOS IN RETROSPECT, Iâ€™m prompted to think back on Rashomon, that movie by Akira Kurosawa which won the Best Picture Award in the 1950 Berlin Film Festival onward to winning a similar honor in the Cannes Film Festival. Rashomon tells the story of a…

The Syrian Civil War: Marcos in Restrospect

January 7, 2013January 7, 2013 Mauro Gia Samonte 36 Comments

Given the turmoil obtaining in Syria at this hour, Marcos could be the kindest president the Philippines has ever had. What the Philippines was during those four days, February 22 to 25, in 1986 was what had Syria become first quarter of 2011. Decades-old regimes had begun falling across the Middle East either as a…

Politics