Sarah Raymundo is a full-time faculty at the University of the Philippines-Center for International Studies (UP-CIS Diliman). She is a member of the National Executive Board of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and currently the External Vice Chair of the Philppine Anti-Impeiralist Studies (PAIS). She is also a member of the Editorial Board of Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements.
By SARAH RAYMUNDO BLOOD RUSH There are many ways that opinion-writers, soothsayers, and gatekeepers of lifestyle might assess the year 2014. By way of a year ender, this writer tackles ALBA vis a vis US-dominated global politics. More than two weeks ago, she learned about what ALBA means for peoples who are part of it.…
BLOODRUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO It was 1964. The roots and consequences of the Cold War that began in the 50s were spiralling out of control. Meanwhile in the Philippines, the Anti-Subversion Law that was crafted in 1957 to fight the ideology of Marxism and the Communist movement became an object of dissent for freedom loving…
BLOODRUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Our struggle for independence and sovereignty negates sectarianism in the embrace of all the oppressed and exploited. But reformers from Akbayan— a political bloc that prides itself for changing the system form within by forging an alliance with President Noynoy Aquino in the pursuit of a monolithic national agenda— like former…
By SARAH RAYMUNDO BLOODRUSH Bulatlat.com It seems clear, especially now that we have yet another Aquino for a president, that the dream of a democratic political field is still a tough and necessary task. The pork barrel system is still alive and well in government despite a year of people’s incessant clamor for its abolition;…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com Where autocrats rule, they call on the living. How do contemporary forms of subjugation operate? For over two decades, the (Focauldian) critique of biopolitics has gained currency in explaining modern forms of subjugation. Biopolitics involves the control of an entire population through subjection of bodies under disciplinary apparatuses in…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com So They Won’t Disappear for Concepcion Empeño* The work of death in an island of cheap matters, like raw resources and warm wageless bodies, does not require gas chambers and crematory ovens of Holocaust proportions. They are needless and so out of fashion in the current book of human…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com It is no longer a matter of revelation to say that the crisis of governance plaguing the Aquino regime is brought about by a political system that Aquino himself preserves. Is the Aquino regime looking like it is beyond social redemption? It is because of its slow and inefficient…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com In his book “The Nervous System” (1992), Anthropologist Michael Taussig equates maleficium to state fetishism. If ever these concepts sound obscure, Taussig laments that it is because they have been “so studiously, so dangerously ignored… (1992:11).” Marx renders fetishism plain and clear. “By fetishism, Marx was referring to the…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com Communist leaders, “certified high-ranking,” were captured last Saturday in Cebu City. Something for your banner story, no? A quick look at the top dailies on Sunday confirms that the news is supposed to elicit a frisson of curiosity possibly from people of different persuasions and interests: from foreign direct…
BLOOD RUSH By SARAH RAYMUNDO Bulatlat.com A young woman of 26 had just finished her postgraduate degree in the Humanities. A very promising academic career awaited her application to the faculty of the humanities in a reputable public university known for its radical tradition. Her knowledge and grasp of feminist theory and literature have earned…
The current economic crisis under global capitalism is worsening at a speed that even its most shrewd and sneaky economic managers have not succeeded in slowing it down. But its cultural managers scattered in key institutions still talk of the existing order as if it were a result of some divine ordination. For them, the present can only be deemed as the end of a historical progression that has reached its ultimate peak so that an alternative vision can only be a threat to civilization.