*Summary of my contributed essay to the worskhop organized by the Third World Studies Center of the University of the Philippines-Diliman and the Conflict Research Group of the Ghent University. The workshop’s theme is “Politics and Power in the Philippines: Towards a Contemporary Research Agenda” Political forces vie for national dominance but it is in…
A week before the global celebration of Human Rights Day in 2016, various people’s organizations in the Philippines conducted a solidarity fasting campaign to press for the release of 400 political prisoners. In response, a government peace negotiator described the action as counterproductive and that it is putting undue pressure to President Rodrigo Duterte. Never…
1. Open Secrets, Alice Munro. I think there is a Munro Effect: A reader is initially lulled into thinking that a storyline is dull but it is only when the short story is about to end that he finally begins to see how he is completely immersed in the Munronian world. 2. Discontent and Its…
The enduring legacy of the sixty-eighters is hope.
The spirit of resistance is alive in Mindanao.
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com The untold first mission of many activists does not involve the smashing of the bourgeois state or the ‘bombarding of the headquarters’ of the repressive government; their first instinct is to go home and confess their political conversion to their parents or guardians. It is a delicate and difficult duty.…
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com There are competing conceptions of the good life, but mainstream institutions bombard us with the dangerous ideology that the only way to achieve happiness and success is to acquire material possessions or gain fame in society. In schools and workplaces, we are told to get ahead of others or else…
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com Lahat ng rehimeng nagdaan ay nagtangkang buwagin at talunin ang New People’s Army (Bagong Hukbong Bayan). Lahat ay nagsabing sila’y magtatagumpay. Lahat sila’y nabigo. Ano ang nasa likod ng misteryong lakas ng NPA? Paano ito nagpunyagi sa nakalipas na limang dekada? Walang sikreto maliban sa puspusang pakikibaka habang sinusulong ang…
QUESTION EVERYTHING By Mong Palatino Like the sun that sustains life on this planet, it is Maoism that inspired the rise and spread of the National Democratic movement in the Philippines. That political slogans such as ‘Serve the People’ and ‘Learn from the Masses’ are still openly advocated by Filipino progressives today reflect the enduring…
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com 1. A civil war has been raging in the countryside since 1969. Landlessness, feudal exploitation, state brutality against the poor and marginalized – these are some of the issues that led to the formation of the New People’s Army. An armed force of the poor, by the poor, and for…
QUESTION EVERYTHING Mong Palatino Bulatlat.com In the hierarchy of political evils, single issue activism does not figure, and rightfully so. There’s less barbarism in the world because of the heroic work of individuals who never gave up fighting for their chosen advocacy in life. But we cannot deny the rise of a particular brand of…