At a global forum in Manila in May, President Marcos Jr. warned that “if by a willful act” committed by China a Filipino is killed in the West Philippine Sea, it would be “very close” to an “act of war” that could cause the Philippines to invoke the 1951 Phl-US Mutual Defense Treaty.
This atrocious prohibition is not at all new. Seventeen years ago in September of 2007, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board under Consoliza Laguardia imposed an X rating on a short indie film titled “Rights”, made to press for the safe release of Jonas Burgos.
Some time ago, a distinguished patriot, someone I am proud to call a friend and noble kababayan, marked his 90th birthday and showed us all that a long life may diminish certain of our powers, but only deepens wisdom and affirms the strength of experience.
That is why I think this is a missed opportunity for a festival to demonstrate how it can protect, through its mandate, a work which, like the rest, claims to reveal truth in the face of power.
Ano ang hinaing ng maralita pagkatapos ng SONA at bagyong Carina?
Throughout his first two years in Malacañang, President Marcos Jr. has stayed silent on the issue of continuing the GRP-NDFP peace talks, which his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, had resumed in 2016 and then backed away from in 2019.
The two dynasties are competing against their track records in terms of corruption, human rights violations and subservience to foreign masters.
Like fishermen struggling in the waters of the open sea after the capsizing of their boats, human rights workers are crying out to be rescued from the Philippine government’s apparent determination to stop them from carry out their legitimate, and necessary, work.
Now operating from Basa Air Base in Floridablanca, Pampanga are MQ-9A Reaper drones from the United States military. Employed primarily by the US Marine Corps for collecting military intelligence, the unmanned aircraft are used secondarily (but even more troublingly) to strike against “dynamic execution targets.”
The NTC memorandum blocking the 27 websites not only violates the right to publish and the right to free expression of the media outfits and organizations but also the right of their readers and subscribers to access alternative information and analyses, including those not found in other websites.
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said last week that he does not see any need to abolish the National Task Force to End the Local Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC). He claimed that red-tagging does not come from the government but from “kung sino-sino” (other people). There is irony in Marcos’s statement. NTF-ELCAC, a task force created by virtue…