by E. SAN JUAN, Jr. Philippines Studies Center, Washington DC, USA Less augury than symptom, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic betokens a profound crisis of the neoliberal capitalist global order. Over four million people worldwide have died, 609 thousand in the U.S., 539 in Brazil, and 413 in India (as of July 15, 2021). Variants are…
By Justin Umali, Esquire Philippines, 15 April 2021 Lino Brocka, the maestro of Philippine cinema, championed justice and freedom. There is little doubt that Lino Brocka is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Filipino director of his age, or any age. To this day, his films Bayan Ko: Kapit sa Patalim, Ora Pro Nobis, Maynila sa…
By Aie Balagtas See / Manila March 15, 2021, Time Magazine online Edd Gumban sleeps on a foldout bed in an office in central Manila. The 57-year-old photojournalist has a wife and a home in Bulacan, part of the commuter belt 14 miles north of the Philippine capital, but he is too afraid to go…
Justin Umali, Esquire Philippines, March 31, 2021 A colonialist lens paints Magellan’s arrival 500 years ago as the start of Philippine history when it was just another chapter in our country’s rich historical tapestry. In Philippine history classes, students are usually taught about March 1521 as one of the most important events of our shared…
By Mario Alvaro Limos, Esquire Philippines Five hundred years ago, Antonio Pigafetta preserved snapshots of the lives and culture of the precolonial Filipinos. Pigafetta was an Italian scholar and explorer who chronicled the first circumnavigation of the world led by Ferdinand Magellan. The voyage was so significant because, finally, it proved the world was not…
This requested write-up on our love story almost didn’t come to be. For how does one compress almost 50 years of being each other’s “significant other” in a few hundred words and with a few remaining hours to the deadline? And what would be worth other people’s short attention span in this digital age? Hopefully…
Allan Severino, Esquire Philippines, December 20, 2020 A lot has been said about the recent turn of events which involved policemen killing, detaining, and apprehending various types of people in broad daylight. We can even point out that in this pandemic, they have been given a carte blanche to do such acts, often with bureaucratic approval….
“Pieces of gold, the size of walnuts and eggs, are found by sifting the earth in the island of that king who came to our ships,” chronicled the explorer, Antonio Pigafetta, about Raja Siagu upon the Spaniards’ arrival in Butuan during the Magellan expedition. “All the dishes of that king are of gold and also…