THE US-BASED, 30-year-old organization Human Rights Watch — the Asia Division of which, incidentally, former New York Times and International Herald Tribune free -lance correspondent Carlos Conde is now the Philippine Researcher — describes itself as “ one of the world’s leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention [...]
Archive for the ‘Vantage Point’ Category
Biting the bullet
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged human rights, Human Rights Watch on January 27, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Fanaticism…
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Black Nazarene, CMFR, Lito Zulueta, religion, UP, UST on January 12, 2012 | 2 Comments »
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless societies.” -Karl Marx EVERY year after the end of the six- kilometer long trek that commemorates the transfer in 1787 of the Black Nazarene from the Recollect seminary in Intramuros (the old walled city ) to Quiapo [...]
Liar, liar
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Corona impeachment, lawyers on December 16, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
THE main complaint by his mostly lawyer partisans against the impeachment of Renato Corona is that it was done too quickly, followed by claims that it’s an attack on the Supreme Court’s independence, and is unconstitutional besides. Minority Congressman and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ally Edcel Lagman is leading the chorus of Corona advocates in declaring that [...]
Forgetting and not knowing
Posted in Vantage Point on December 9, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
IN an attempt to validate his earlier claim that the country is under threat from “creeping martial law” during the Aquino III administration, Senator Joker Arroyo said last Tuesday that the Marcos martial law regime used the exact same argument — that the police powers of the State are superior to individual rights — the [...]
Tragic hero
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Andres Bonifacio on December 2, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
TONDO is in the popular mind Manila’s workers’ district, although some sociologists point out, as they did when Manuel Villar was running for President in 2010 and hoping to win by passing himself off as poor, that it has never been all-proletarian, being home also to professionals and small traders. The myth persists, however, and [...]
Trojan horse
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Hillary Clinton, Marjohara Tucay, VFA on November 25, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
INTERVIEWING University of the Philippines student Marjohara Tucay, editor of the UP student newspaper The Philippine Collegian, GMA7 TV’s Howie Severino implied in so many words that by expressing his opposition to the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) during a GMA7 TV event with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Tucay was in violation of the [...]
The Massacre watch
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged Ampatuan Massacre, extrajudicial killings on November 18, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
WHEN THE Ampatuan Town Massacre of November 23, 2009 occurred and its brutal details were known, it provoked attempts at self-examination among many media advocacy and journalists’ groups, and even in some of the newspapers and broadcast networks that for years had been ignoring the killing of journalists. Among the questions these groups and some [...]
Closure
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged closure, extrajudicial killings, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, human rights on November 11, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
THE NEED for closure was among the reasons Justice Secretary Laila de Lima cited to put in context her denial of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s petition for travel abroad. Closure is what has eluded Filipinos most when it comes to the most critical events and issues that have confronted this country since its independence was restored. De [...]
All-out deception
Posted in Vantage Point on November 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
THE Philippines has a former advertising executive for tourism secretary in Ramon Jimenez. In his TV and other media appearances, Jimenez exudes confidence from every pore as he carries on in his American-accented English about his plans to turn this country into a tourist haven, mostly by hyping its virtues and concealing its vices. That’s [...]
Fiddlers by the Pasig
Posted in Vantage Point, tagged extrajudicial killings, Noynoy Aquino on October 28, 2011 | 1 Comment »
THE Roman emperor Nero was supposed to have fiddled while ancient Rome burned for nine days. But if he did play any instrument at all while much of the city was destroyed, he would have picked at a lute or a lyre, the fiddle, or violin, not having been invented until some 1,500 years after [...]
