Mong Palatino

Blogging about the Philippines and the Asia-Pacific since 2004

About

@mongster is a Manila-based activist, former Philippine legislator, and blogger/analyst of Asia-Pacific affairs.

Civil society groups, the independent media, and grassroots activists have shown resilience in the past several months, struggling hard to push for reforms in governance, the protection of human rights, and the reversal of laws that are impeding the country’s transition to democracy. Whether Cambodians will vote or avoid going to the polling stations in […]

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Written for The Diplomat Southeast Asia experienced numerous disasters in 2013: oil spills, dengue outbreaks, earthquakes, bus crashes, and massive floods. But the two biggest were the trans-boundary haze pollution that affected Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia; and super typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), which wrought devastation in the central part of the Philippines. The haze was caused […]

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Written for The Diplomat, before the September 11 anti-pork EDSA event. Since last month, Cambodians and Filipinos have been staging massive outdoor rallies in their respective capitals but curiously they are denying that these are protests. After accusing the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of manipulating the July 28 election results, the opposition Cambodia National […]

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