@mongster is a Manila-based activist, former Philippine legislator, and blogger/analyst of Asia-Pacific affairs.
Written for The Diplomat Singapore’s new licensing scheme for news websites has ignited a flurry of criticism from netizens, press freedom advocates, and human rights groups, who have quickly denounced it as a draconian censorship measure. On May 28, the Media Development Authority (MDA) announced that news websites reporting on Singapore that receive at least […]
Written for The Diplomat Massive blackouts have hit several Southeast Asian countries in the past month, causing widespread panic, business losses, and even political controversy. On May 8, a sudden outage in five power plants in the Philippines plunged 40 percent of Luzon Island into darkness, including Metropolitan Manila. Meanwhile, on May 21, mysterious lightning […]
For a few minutes, I was King of Marinduque. It was in 2011 during a graduation event in Boac when province elders led by Governor Carmencita Reyes welcomed me by holding a putong ceremony. According to my lolo, one branch of the Palatino clan migrated and settled in south Marinduque. After traversing a ‘river highway’ […]
It was the speech everybody had been waiting two years to hear, but few in the international community immediately recognized it. Last month, Thailand Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra traveled to the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies in Mongolia where she discussed the importance of democracy, good governance, and her perspectives on Thailand’s […]
The House of Representatives honored its own members last June 5 by distributing medals, plaques, and other mementos to first, second, and third termers of the 15th Congress. It was the most disgusting selfie moment of the year. What could be a more ghastly way of wasting taxpayers’ money than staging a superfluous pomp for […]
