Martial law by presidential default
THE PHILIPPINE government marked the 43rd anniversary of the declaration of martial law with the usual mantras about the need for everyone to see to it that “never again” will there be authoritarian...
View ArticleHistory as tragedy, history as farce
FERDINAND MARCOS, JR. (“Bongbong”) was talking “revolution” last Saturday, October 17. The occasion was his formal declaration during a ceremony in Manila’s Intramuros (walled city) that he’s running...
View ArticleLet the dead bury their dead
“CEMETERY OF HEROES” is the English translation of “Libingan ng Mga Bayani,” where burying the remains of the late Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. has been resisted for years by most of the victims of the...
View ArticleEarning credibility
Ferdinand E. Marcos, the Philippine government’s Official Gazette’s social media post finally said in its third revision of the caption accompanying the late dictator’s September 11 birthday photo, was...
View ArticleRefuge of scoundrels
TO Samuel Johnson (born 1709; died 1784), poet, essayist and author of A Dictionary of the English Language (published in April, 1755), do we owe the observation that “Patriotism is the last refuge of...
View ArticleThings fall apart
The 31st anniversary of EDSA 1986 was marked — the government didn’t exactly celebrate it — with both chaos and indifference. The disorder was evident in the differences in the various groups’ and even...
View ArticleA coup of his own
Is President Rodrigo Duterte preparing a coup d’etat ala Marcos against the Republic and himself as a democratically elected president? It was a joke, but like Mr. Duterte’s other off-hand remarks and...
View ArticleThe past in the present
IF those who fear martial law are “living in the past,” it is because much of that past, with or without martial law, is still very much in the present. Human rights defenders are still under threat,...
View ArticleImminent danger
Never mind the 2017 Duterte State of the Nation Address, which was replete with profanities, self-serving claims of current and future progress on various fronts, among them the regime’s brutal and...
View ArticleKilling hope
The killing of young people, minors and children that have been blamed on the police of the Duterte regime is not without precedent. The same atrocities were committed by the then PC-INP (Philippine...
View ArticleVillain in hero’s guise
The Libingan ng mga Bayani is not, as it name suggests, literally a heroes’ cemetery. Soldiers, policemen, and former Philippine presidents can be buried there, apparently on the tenuous presumption...
View ArticleTwo countries called “Philippines”
There are two countries that go by the name “Philippines.” The real, historical one is home to the Filipino millions, nearly half of whom are poor and powerless because they’re ruled by one of the most...
View ArticleSurveillance state
Upon the declaration of martial law in 1972 and in the 14 years that followed, the Marcos terror regime arrested, abducted, and detained over a hundred thousand political activists; artists, writers...
View ArticleThe ignorance that kills
Within months of his coming to power in 2016, President Rodrigo Duterte’s profanities, tirades, threats, outrageous remarks about women, human rights, heads of foreign states, and what he was actually...
View ArticlePhilippine train wreck
Living in the Philippines has always been challenging and difficult for many Filipinos. But never since the Marcos dictatorship has it been more dangerous than today for Lumad, dissenters, women, human...
View Article“Moving on”
Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., then an outgoing senator, ran for the vice-presidency in 2016. He has refused to concede defeat to Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo and is contesting her...
View ArticleThe trouble with dictatorships
No matter their official justification for being — whether “so the trains will run on time,” “to save the Republic and reform society,” or “to rid the country of crime and illegal drugs” —...
View ArticleMethod in its madness
Despite the bluster of President Rodrigo Duterte and his equally loud lieutenants, yes-men and accomplices in the Cabinet, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, his regime is...
View ArticleWith friends like these…
In the evening of February 22, 1986, then Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Vice Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos announced that they were withdrawing their support...
View ArticleEnrile before history
What the media described as an “apology” last October 24 from former Marcos Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile was in the same league as that of Marcos’ daughter Imee’s and son Bongbong’s. But unlike...
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