We are back to the basics. Threatened by armies of disinformation, our best weapon is the truth. Reading the truth, deciphering the truth, fighting for the truth. In the age of ephemeral attention, reading is an act we can pursue, promote, and steer towards our other political endeavors.
No one has stopped them from lampooning the CPP in local and international platforms. But they turned their valid right to criticize into a cheap redbaiting ploy to attack activists. It is therefore not a surprise to learn that the state has used their work to develop a propaganda material and even legal evidence to persecute militant activists while praising the politics of the moderates.
Introduksiyon sa aklat na ‘Strengthen the People’s Struggle against Imperialism and Reaction’ na binasa noong Pebrero 8, 2019, UP Diliman, Solair Ang problema kay Jose Maria Sison ay naglatag siya ng mataas na pamantayan kung paano suriin ang pulitikal na kalagayan ng bansa. Pagkatapos mo siyang basahin, tatatak sa iyo ang kanyang kumprehensibo at matalas…
Love also holds the key to survive a ‘Groundhog Day’ in Congress. Love in the form of knowledge that what matters most is the movement of people working for social transformation outside the halls of Congress.
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Utopian vision of society but eerily familiar to those who are living in the 21st century. 2. Utos ng Hari by Jun Cruz Reyes. Stories of the everyman in the urban, survival as resistance, the common tao and his struggles against alienation. 3. Pulang Mandirigma: Images of the…
Of all the films in all the cable channels in all the world, they had to show the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day inside the members’ lounge of the Philippine House of Representatives. Seeing the character Phil Connors enduring an ‘eternal recurrence’ in the movie made me realize that it’s an apt metaphor for Congress…
But a real existing rightist is rendered hidden from public gaze. When citizens encounter a rightist politician, they fail to see a person already succeeding in imposing his dogmatic political beliefs in the bureaucracy. They don’t even see him as a political actor with ideological bias.
Vow of poverty. Activists are encouraged to live simply, but unlike priests, they don’t have a vow of poverty. They don’t fetishize poverty; instead, they work with the poor to fight the structures that engender oppression in society. Indeed, activists renounce material riches and the glorification of wealth but it doesn’t mean they can no…
When you see a rally, you assume it is a hakot crowd. Maybe you think rallies are similar to the assemblies organized by trapos during campaign sorties. But only politicians pay people to attend events and their own self-serving rallies. Unfortunately, too, there are educated people who insist that urban poor rallyists get paid for…
Adulting is commonly understood as an act of taking a new and bigger responsibility in life. It also refers to a millennial who defied expectations by suddenly performing an important task in the household or community. In many ways, it is being self-aware and responsible at the same time with 21st-century characteristics. Teenagers becoming responsible…
After his arrest in 1977, Philippine communist leader Joma Sison was presented to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He could have negotiated his release with his fellow Ilocano by pledging loyalty to the ‘New Society’. He could have altered the course of history by agreeing to surrender his beliefs and disowning the national democratic resistance. But…