@mongster is a Manila-based activist, former Philippine legislator, and blogger/analyst of Asia-Pacific affairs.
Asia-Pacific welcomes the new year – with declining freedom. A disturbing regional trend in 2017 is still evident in the first month of the new year, which featured a threat to close down Rappler news website in the Philippines, the revival of criminal libel law in Samoa, and the filing of a draconian espionage bill […]
Written for The Diplomat magazine Internet in the Philippines is bemoaned as one of the slowest and most inefficient in the region. Despite the absence of censorship, Internet freedom in the country is only categorized as partly-free because of the unabated media killings, government intimidation of critics, the existence of state-backed online trolls, and the […]
Written for IFEX Amid the worsening human rights situation in the Philippines, an online news group has been ordered by a government agency to stop operating — a move which many denounce as an attack on press freedom. Rappler assured its readers that it will not back down in the fight for truth and democracy. “We intend […]
Written for The Diplomat Magazine June 12 will be known in history as the day when United States President Donald Trump met North Korea leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore. But for Filipinos, June 12 is significant because it is the day when revolutionaries declared independence from Spain in 1898. June 12 is an official holiday […]
