blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

China's claim to territories in the Sea of Southeast Asia [I refuse to call it what the Europeans named it as "South China Sea". THE SEA DOES NOT BELONG TO CHINA]  and its deployment of an oil rig to the Vietnamese territory of the Paracels has changed the military balance in Southeast Asia. (South Vietnam once occupied these islands but faced with imminent defeat from the Communists with no American support, lost these to the Chinese in a naval battle in 1974) Vietnam however challenged the intrusion to its sovereign territory by deploying coast guard ships which exchanged with Chinese ships water cannons. While this could be one of those spats in a similar league to India and Pakistan's border guards doing their martial struts to the delight of a partisan tourist crowd, it is not. Vietnamese workers started burning factories owned by Taiwan, Singaporean and Chinese interests. China had no choice but to evacuate its nationals from Vietnam. The Beijing's pr...

Cadets in formation. From the Philippine Military Academy website The case of Cadet Cudia has brought into public (a.k.a. civilian) discussion what values the armed forces value and how this relates to the civil sector of society. In this country, the civilian authority as embodied by the President of the Philippines acting through his/her civilian defense secretary, is supreme. The constitutional tradition we inherited from the Roman Republic says " Cedant Arma Togae " or Arms give way to the Toga, only means that civilian authority is supreme. However, t he civilian unless constitutionally given the right, is not supreme over the soldier . Thus social media warriors cannot claim supremacy over the soldier unless the constitution gives them authority! Social media civvie warriors at best have their own duty and the soldier his/her own.  Philippine Military Academy (PMA) mistahs say that "civilians will never understand". Perhaps yes, if only the real ideal of...

All Philippine Presidents have faced disasters and catastrophes in their terms, be this man made or natural. Manuel Quezon faced his greatest trial during the Japanese invasion. The president installed by the Japanese occupiers, Jose P Laurel faced his greatest trial trying to protect his people from the Japanese. Quezon's successor Sergio Osmena faced his by trying to rebuild the Philippines from the war's damage. The other presidents faced earthquakes, numerous typhoons and droughts and floods and they were able to rise to the occasion. And this even included Mrs Cory Aquino, who had to face the RAM coup disaster aside from the great earthquake, a big volcanic eruption and of course a series of deadly typhoons. She rose to the occasion even if many did not agree with her policies. Why did these presidents of the Philippines rise to the occasion? Perhaps before they were elected, they realized that the Presidency is no PR cakewalk and that it involves a certain gravitas whic...

"So often have we been haunted by the spectre of subversion which, with some fostering, has come to be a positive and real being, whose very name steals our serenity and makes us commit the greatest blunders... If before the reality, instead of changing the fear of one is increased, and the confusion of the other is exacerbated, then they must be left in the hands of time..." Dr Jose Rizal "To the Filipino People and their Government" Jose Rizal dominates the Luneta, which is sacred to the Philippine nation as a place of martyrdom. And many perhaps all of those executed in the Luneta, with the exception of the three Filipino secular priests martyred in 1872, have read Rizal's  El Filibusterismo . Dr Rizal's second novel is a darker and more sinister one that its prequel but has much significance across the century and more after it was published for it preaches the need for revolution with caveats,  which are when the time is right and who will in...

"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...

Satire as genre in visual art, performing arts and in literature is used to ridicule society's shortcomings, vices, mores and conventions. While it HAS to be FUNNY, it's main goal is constructive, to give chance to the satirized to REFORM themselves. Satire in the Western Canon is from the Romans like Horace and Juvenal whose styles set the standard for satire throughout history. My favourite satirical work is Petronius Arbiters' The Satyricon which I first read while attending the University of the Philippines. It is a major work of literature for the single reason that it satirizes Roman society of the first century AD as well as giving linguists a clue on how colloquial Latin was spoken. The chapters on Trimalchio's Dinner Party are hilarious to the extent that F Scott Fitzgerald once considered "Trimalchio" as a possible title to his novel which eventually became "The Great Gatsby" Satire ridicules the pompous and the holier than thous and i...

This is the flag of the relevant Philippine Left Susan Quimpo published on Rappler.com an essay "Why we dismiss the Left" that has generated a quick response from the New Philippine Revolution on 'Why the Left remains relevant". The thing is that both points of view are correct! The Left is both relevant and irrelevant. That depends on what Left you are looking at. Quimpo who lived through the PH Communist Left's self destruction in the 1980s has the right to say that the this Left has become ideologically petrified. Just look at the social media reactions to Jose Maria Sison's latest internet broadcast! The other Left is willing to advance its political fortunes within the space provided by the 1987 post EDSA Constitution. In a sense they have been successful but not yet successful enough to capture national power. There is another Left (which has been largely ignored by 21st century mainstream and social media) that has its incubator in the Arme...

The tragic suicide of UP Manila freshie 16 year old Krystel Tejada, a daughter of a cab driver and a homemaker, allegedly due to her family's inability to pay the fees, has caused generated rage from the students, alumni, faculty of the publicly funded national university. And rightly so. A retired professor emeritus exclaimed "That's because UP has become the university of the rich" "UP has to look into its soul which appears to have been lost" The particulars of Ms Tejada's death and family's financial status has publicly come out and it is beginning to appear that she just fell through the bureaucratic net. And throughout this the issue of STFAP pops out. Here I won't be speculating on her psychological state prior to her death. For that is not the major issue here and since I am not privy to her psychological condition. I will leave that to the professional psychologists and counselors, should they wish to elaborate on these. My quest...

The conviction of Carlos Celdran on the Philippines Revised Penal Code article 133 “Crimes against religious worship” for "offending religious feelings” has led to some asking if there is such a thing as “offending secular feelings” . The answer is both a “yes” and a “no” depending on what angle you look at it. It is a qualified “yes” if the secularists (and the Freethinkers) say their position is based on faith and therefore is under the constitutional provisions on religious liberty. The answer is a qualified “no” if the secularists insist theirs is not a religious position and so they should have a thicker skin with respect to offensive ideas since much of the perceived offence is in the secular sphere , considered as protected speech (unless it incites to violence) and the laws on defamation and libel should offer enough redress of grievance and protection. Like in Roman Catholicism or any other religious tradition for that matter, there are adherents with a di...

I would agree with many that the Revised Penal Code's Article 133 on "offending religious feelings" may sound archaic. It may have to be reworded. The code punishes disruption of worship services which offends the congregation  with a prison term. Carlos Celdran, history tour guide par excellance was meted out with a jail term for raising a "Damaso" sign inside the Roman Catholic cathedral of Manila during an ecumenical service on the Bible attended by Catholic priests and bishops and clergy of non Catholic churches. Celdran makes history by being the first person to be convicted under the statute although in 1934 a suit was brought before the courts on claimed offense to religious feelings involving a local Roman Catholic congregation celebrating a para liturgical "pabasa" and  property owners who built a barbed wire fence around the chapel. The court acquitted the persons who put up the fence. The Penal Code punishes crimes against religious wor...

The only known photo of Bonifacio (from Philippine government website) Starting November 30, 2012 and to climax on November 30, 2013, the Philippines will be marking the sesquicentennial of the national hero Andres Bonifacio. Bonifacio is the founder of the revolutionary society Katipunan which organized itself as a military force to prosecute the Philippine Nationalist Revolution in August 1896. As part of the celebrations, Malacanang Palace has created the Bonifacio sesquicentennial portal wherein events and essays appraising and reappraising the role of Bonifacio in the Revolution and beyond it will be posted. Andres Bonifacio unlike Rizal had only one known photograph and its shows a revolutionary in a suit and not in the iconic white camisa and red trousers raising a bolo and the flag in a revolutionary cry. This representation forever characterized Bonifacio as one of the peasant class. The first Bonifacio statue which became the quintessential icon was sculpted by Manu...

Dr Jose Rizal in the 13 th chapter of his “El Filibusterismo” “The Class in Physics” describes the state of science education in late 19 th Century Spanish Philippines. The Physics classroom cum laboratory at the University of Santo Tomas, then the Philippines’ only centre of advanced learning, was equipped with the latest teaching and research lab equipment but according to Rizal was hardly ever used for the intended purpose. In fact Rizal satirically writes that only the janitor and the doorman who out of curiosity, played with the instruments, ever benefited or learned science from the investment on those pieces of lab equipment. A closer reading of Rizal beyond the satire shows the state of science in a society that places a greater importance on superstition and a perverse kind of Catholicism. Rizal writes a damning indictment in the last paragraph of the chapter “ He who weighs the value of a second and has ordained for His creatures as an ele...