blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

"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...