Writing this piece on the eve of the national elections on May 9, I think all will agree that the presidential and vice-presidential contest has been the most bitterly fought since the 1986 snap elections.
The fight has been a no-holds-barred grudge fight. Chances are it will continue that way until Election Day, and probably even beyond. Several factors have created this situation. Mindful of column space and time limitations, I should mention at least three highly influential factors. Continue reading “Nurturing mass-based politics online”
To my utmost satisfaction, Conrad reprinted my letter in full a week later in his column. I had misplaced my copy of that issue. This morning, however, it reemerged, yellowed and brittle, from a closet of old files that I was cleaning out. Its contents might be of interest not just to the younger generation of PSHS scholars, but to student activists who, I hear, are still doing the same kind of mass work among the squatter colonies of North Triangle as we did 40 years ago.
I hear The Bourne Legacy is shooting a few sequences along Agham Road in the North Triangle area of Quezon City’s central district. I suppose some film scenes will utilize the communities’ slum-housing conditions, which represent perhaps one of the starkest contrasts between abject poverty and cosmopolitan glitz this side of Metro Manila.
Portions of this sprawling area have now been cleared of so-called squatter communities and replaced by sleek malls, carparks, and office buildings. But there remain urban poor pockets that continue to remind us of how this part of the city looked ten years ago.
Nay, twenty years ago. Nay, forty years ago, when the road now known as Agham (“Science”) Road was just a gravelly dirt track that led to God knows where.
I know it’s tragic enough that Charice’s estranged father had to catch up with the November 1 memorials to the dead, lying inside a coffin with an ice-pick stab. But it’s doubly tragic that an ABS-CBN news item early this morning had him killed “with a 12-foot icepick.” What did the writer have in mind, a bamboo skewer for lechon vaca?
And it’s triply tragic for media showbiz reports to spread vile rumors about Charice’s alleged reactions about his father’s death. What do showbiz reporters wear for Halloween night anyway, a repulsive bat’s face? Or do they simply come to the party as they are? What is it with Metro Manila media these days anyway?
I know it's tragic enough that Charice's estranged father had to catch up with the November 1 memorials to the dead, lying inside a coffin with an ice-pick stab. But it's doubly tragic that an ABS-CBN news item early this morning had him killed "with a 12-foot icepick." And it's triply tragic for media showbiz reports to spread vile rumors about Charice's reactions about his father's death. What is it with Metro Manila media these days anyway?
