Monthly Archives: June 2007

To say that Unsay and his fellow villagers are used to a life of constant displacement is inaccurate. “We are forced to lead this kind of life,” he said.

Kristie Kenney was the first female United States ambassador to Manila, a fact that endeared herself with Filipinos during her diplomatic tour in the Philippines from 2005 to 2009. After all, what male American ambassador would go on national television and do the papaya dance, a popular – if silly – routine that involves jiggling of the bottom?

Four days after President Benigno Aquino met in Tokyo with leaders of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the main Muslim separatist group in the Philippines, a series of firefights between the rebel group and one of its breakaway factions broke out in the southern Philippines, killing at least 14 people and displacing thousands from their homes.

Islamic rebels in the southern Philippines have rejected a proposal by the Philippine government to offer what it calls “genuine autonomy” for Filipino Muslims, saying Tuesday that it “does not address the real issues” that have fueled the separatist rebellion in the country’s south over the past 40 years.

It was an unprecedented moment in Philippine art history. There it was splashed on national television, a huge phallus attached to a wooden ashtray – the kind that is sold by sidewalk vendors in tourist destinations – sitting squarely on the face of an image of Jesus Christ.

Officials shut down a controversial art exhibition on Tuesday following a storm of public protest that included criticism from President Benigno S. Aquino III, who called the artwork offensive to the country’s Christian majority.

When citizens of the small Mediterranean nation of Malta voted in a referendum last month to legalize divorce, they reignited debate in the Philippines, one of the last countries, along with Vatican City, where divorce is still banned.

Brocka Lives from Carlos H. Conde on Vimeo.

A look back on the legacy of filmmaker Lino Brocka, 20 years after his death.

Written and directed by Carlos H. Conde.
Shot and edited by Ayi S. Muallam.
An InterAksyon.com production.

Click here for more on the 20th anniversary of Lino Brocka’s death.

“You cannot explain the rise of the women journalists without talking about martial law,” said Inday Espina-Varona, a journalist since the Marcos era who now runs the citizen-journalism program of ABS-CBN, the country’s largest broadcast network. “When the men were struggling back into journalism, the women were already there.”

What happened to two tribal schools in Surigao are emblematic – and in some sense an extreme case study – of a phenomenon in the Philippines and elsewhere of government and rebel forces occupying schools, disrupting not only the learning process of the students, but the lives of whole communities as well.

MANILA, Philippines – For the longest time, the World Bank had been the favorite whipping boy of Filipino activists and nationalists. From the Marcos dictatorship to this day, hardly a street demonstration goes by without the bank being excoriated for its “structural adjustment programs” in which the bank grants millions of dollars in loans to the Philippine government but with huge strings attached. These are conditionalities that, for better or worse, have shaped the country and affected our lives in profound ways.

Read the full story and listen to full Q&A with the World Bank’s Nigel Roberts