Author Archives: admin

The rise and rise of Manila’s informal settlers

By admin | March 20, 2014

Written for Bulatlat The government is always claiming that the number of poor is decreasing but it cannot deny the phenomenal growth of informal settlers across the country, especially in Metro Manila, in the past decade. According to a study cited by the government-funded Philippine Institute for Development Studies, about 5 percent of Metro Manila […]

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Why Rice Is Heating Up Politics in Thailand and the Philippines

By admin | March 5, 2014

Written for The Diplomat Rice is a staple food in Southeast Asia, which explains why many politicians panic when rice farmers are agitated or when consumers complain about high prices. Today, rice farmers in Thailand are protesting after the national government repeatedly failed to pay them under the rice pledging program. In the Philippines, the […]

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How the Left didn’t lose

By admin | March 3, 2014

Written for Rappler Not again. Not another formulaic diatribe ridiculing and prophesying the decline, obsolescence, and inevitable doom of the Philippine Left. The Left was supposed to have disintegrated many, many years ago after the fall of Berlin, the internal split in the 1990s, and the rise of neoliberal globalization as the supreme doctrine of […]

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Waray as battlecry

By admin | February 23, 2014

Written for Bulatlat Waray, which refers to both the lingua franca and the people of Samar and Leyte, literally means nothing. It is interesting and also quite strange that this term is also used to signify nothingness. But can there be something out of nothing? Can nothing produce something? Today, the word Waray is both […]

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Labanan ang Mataas na Singil sa Kuryente

By admin | February 19, 2014

Panday Pira, Tondo, Maynila Mawawalan na ng bisa ang 60-day TRO na ipinataw ng Korte Suprema sa dagdag singil ng Meralco. Bago dumating ang araw na ito, nangagailangan ng malakas at maingay na protesta upang itulak ang korte na maglabas ng desisyong tuluyang ibabasura ang sobra-sobrang paniningil ng Meralco at power companies. Tayong mamamayan ang […]

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Thailand Election by the Numbers

By admin | February 18, 2014

Written for The Diplomat Thailand conducted a “peaceful” election yesterday amid worsening political tension in the country. Let us first review some essential numbers: Thailand has 48 million eligible voters out of a population of 65 million. According to the Election Commission, voting took place in 89 percent of 93,952 polling stations nationwide. But the […]

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Has Manila Forgotten Japan’s War Atrocities?

By admin | February 8, 2014

Written for The Diplomat Several Asian nations reacted harshly when Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the controversial Yasukuni war shrine last month. But in Manila, which was the second most devastated Allied city during World War II, Abe’s visit almost went unnoticed. Yasukuni is Japan’s monument to honor citizens who died during the Second […]

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Gross National Survival: A Proposal

By admin | February 6, 2014

Written for Bulatlat Despite its high Gross Domestic Product in recent years, the Philippines has remained a backward nation. Poverty numbers didn’t change although wealth disparity has worsened especially between the rural and the urban. It’s clear that the GDP is an inaccurate and inadequate measure of the real state of the economy. Its use […]

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Malaysia’s Kangkung Meme

By admin | February 5, 2014

Written for The Diplomat Kangkung, or water spinach, has been trending in Malaysia since last week after Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak cited it as an example of a commodity that has become less expensive over the course of his administration. Najib was responding to protests against rising prices caused by the government’s decision to […]

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Inspiring stories of 2013

By admin | January 23, 2014

Written for Bulatlat Despite the calamities that brought unprecedented devastation in the country, there were several inspiring stories in 2013 that gave much needed joy and hope to many Filipinos. They were moral boosters at a time when tragedies seem to overwhelm our islands. Hopefully, the future will not simply remember 2013 as a terribly […]

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