blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The Philippine Daily Inquirer should be commended for reprinting Senator Benigno Aquino's essay "What's Wrong with the Philippines" for Ninoy Aquino's martyrdom anniversary today. Aquino must be tossin an turnin' in his Manila Memorial Park tomb. For the Presidency of his wife, Corazon is also one answer to his question. The barest summary of Ninoy's question is this. There is an acute need for redistribution and access to education is the major peaceful way this can happen. The Americans may have wanted to mold the Filipinos in their own image and thus their institution of public education which is now remotely being seen as a liberating force, having fallen for crass profiteering. This is also extremely true for the Roman Catholic Church and the schools it operates. Holy Mother Church cannot escape blame here. She must be put in the dock too for the ills of Philippine society and not hide forever from the separation of church and state curtain for which ...

Mrs Corazon Aquino, once President of the Philippines passed away before dawn of Saturday morning. In the family we always referred to her quite formally, calling her Mrs Aquino and never "Tita Cory". It was as if she was our next door neighbour, a gracious lady. Mrs Aquino has passed on from being democracy's icon to democracy's legend. The martial law baby that I am, my and countless others of my generation's political awakening paralled her catapult into politics. There are four images of Mrs Aquino that will be burned into my mind. The first one is her standing by her husband Senator Ninoy Aquino, when the death sentence was read by a military tribunal. The second is during her victory rally after the Marcoses have flown the coop to Hawaii. The third is when during the "God save the Queen" plot against her. She said "this queen need not be saved!" And the fourth is during Fidel V Ramos' inauguration when she left the grandstand for th...

Books! National Bookstore oftentimes has surprises on sale. The bookstore we first can remember (recall that mom bought cartolina, notebooks, crayons here when we were bright eyed pupils) has over the years diversified its selections, especially books. During cut price sales you can find classics. After all where can you buy interesting science books like Tim Flannery's "Weather Makers" at around PhP 400 each? or Amir Aczel's science biography of Teilhard de Chardin "The Jesuit and the Skull" at PhP 700? or Pedro G Ferreira's "The State of the Universe" at PhP 300 ? Best of all Arthur I Miller's tome on how black holes were hypothesized and observed in "Empire of the Stars" at PhP 299! The books can be had in some branches but one has to go through the pile of cut priced books. To do this one needs lots of time. The branches at Greenbelt, Rockwell, Quezon Avenue and Katipunan across Ateneo has very good finds. That's why I sta...