blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

"If you want Revolution, you have to do it like Bonifacio did, face to face" So much has been written in the academic to the non academic literature about what triggered and why the Arab Spring revolutions eventually restructured the political landscape of the Middle East. This has been one of the topics in our Science, Technology and Society (STS) courses in the University of the Philippines. Then in PH, came the horrible scandal of the pork barrel funds mess. One woman on Facebook suggested that the people come to Manila's Luneta Park to express their disgust to what their lawmakers and the Executive did to their tax money. And the call became viral. At first based on the data we have for social media access, political mobilization across the social economic classes of PH society may be harder than expected. While 30-40 million Filipinos may have accounts to any of the social media platforms, the nature of their access is class defined. Social media in PH is essen...

St Theresa's College in Cebu (STC)  defended its decision to bar five of its girls to attend their graduation for donning swim wear that "amply showed" too much of their bodies. STC is a Catholic school and as such has the right to set standards of modesty for their students. Even the secular University of the Philippines still can set a standard for modesty and no Board of Regents (BOR) over the last 104 years has rescinded this right. This might be surprising for today's students of the national university but UP in the 1920s did have standards of modesty and the State University had a Dean of Men and a Dean of Women to make sure these standards were observed. Then as now UP had a lack of proper dormitories and most students boarded in flophouses in Ermita and Intramuros where they were exposed to vice. A few "dormed" in facilities run by churches. My grandmother who was a nursing student during that time boarded in a dorm run by Protestants. (At least we...