Balik-Tanaw | Called to become bread for a hungy nation
The Feast of Corpus Christi invites us to reflect not only on what we receive at the altar but also on how that gift transforms the way we live in the world.
COMMENTARY
AT GROUND LEVEL
SATUR OCAMPO
Phl now open to ICC probe on ‘war on drugs’
The Marcos Jr. administration now says it’s willing to sit down with the International Criminal Court to discuss “certain areas” of cooperation on the latter’s investigation, started in 2018, on former president Duterte’s “war on drugs.” The timeline goes back to the time he was Davao City mayor.
Corruption top concern for businessmen in 2025
As the new year begins, it’s the flourishing corruption that the country’s business executives are most worried about, according to a survey towards yearend 2024 conducted by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).
Two bits of good news lighten up the start of 2025
Surely, the increasing number of self-declared poor among our people is a cause for national concern. The government’s poverty-reduction program definitely needs serious evaluation, what with the contributory negative causes such as calamities, both natural and man-made, that come aplenty every year. This negative trend notwithstanding, two positive developments at the beginning of the new year provide us reasons to cheer up.
BALIK-TANAW
PROMOTION OF CHURCH PEOPLE’S RESPONSE
Balik-Tanaw | Called to become bread for a hungy nation
The Feast of Corpus Christi invites us to reflect not only on what we receive at the altar but also on how that gift transforms the way we live in the world.
Balik-Tanaw | Pag-asa sa gitna ng hirap
Sa Ika-anim na Linggo ng Pasko ng Pagkabuhay, muling bumabalik sa atin ang isang simpleng tanong na may mabigat na kahulugan: Paano ba natin minamahal si Kristo?
Balik-Tanaw | The inconvenient life: Radical solidarity in the era of polycrisis
?In healing and science, the “greater works” are manifested when the human community collaborates to cure diseases, discover ways to food security, and innovate technologies to heal the planet. Jesus’ healing was local; modern “greater works” can be global.
BALIKSAYSAY
FRANCIS GEALOGO
Baliksaysay | GOMBURZA, Hanggang hangganan
Ipinahayag ng 1872 na ilusyon ang reporma at liberalismo sa kapuluan. Ang pagkagarote sa tatlong pari ang simbolikong paalala ng lupit at dahas ng kolonyal na kaayusang hindi kayang tapatan ng ilusyon ng ideyalismong liberal na isinulong ng mga naglalayon na maging kapantay lamang sila ng mga mananakop.
Baliksaysay | Sina Chad at Rizal sa Mindanao
Gaya ni Rizal na nagsanay sa agham ng medisina, matapos ang kurso sa Computer Science at palagiang nakikilala sa kanyang katalinuhan mula pa ng pagkabata. Gaya ni Rizal, nakita ni Chad na higit na malawakan ang kaalamang maiaambag sa mga katutubo – pagbasa, pagsulat, pagkilala sa kalikasan, paglalapat ng mga konsepto sa aktwal na produksyong agrikultural at paglinang ng kapaligiran.
BLOODRUSH
SARAH RAYMUNDO
Dead souls in the sugarlands: Counterinsurgency and the moral life of solidarity in Negros
One cannot sit with peasants shaped by generations of landlessness, listen to mothers narrate massacre, watch children learn the ordinary disciplines of fear, and still believe history may be resolved through technical adjustment alone.
Missiles, markets, and massacres: Balikatan, ASEAN, and the war logic of US imperial decline*
As regional leaders convene under the Philippine chairmanship’s theme,“Navigating Our Future, Together,” the summit presents itself as a forum for peace, economic resilience, and regional stability. Yet beneath this diplomatic language lies a deeper contradiction: ASEAN’s increasingly visible accommodation to U.S.-aligned security and monetary frameworks, even as the region claims strategic autonomy.
Balikatan: Colonial foundations and the rebranding of U.S. military domination
The Philippines is not merely caught between powers, but incorporated into a hierarchy of production and control in which labor, land, and resources are subordinated to US imperialist interests.
FIRST PERSON
BULATLAT CONTRIBUTORS
First Person | Lyle, son of Negros
We both share the same violence from the State.
First Person | ‘No luxury bags, only yearning for justice’
The fight for TRUTH, Justice and Accountability cannot be trivialized with designer bags and fake news.
Merong Dalawang Klaseng Luha: KaPASKUHAN 2025 sa NBP
Simple lamang ang layunin nito: mapataas ang moral ng mga bilanggong pulitikal, maipadama ang pagkalinga at pagpapahalaga, at maghatid ng pag-asa sa gitna ng pagsubok.
KALIBUTAN
KALIKASAN-PEOPLE’S NETWORK FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
To demand climate justice is to fight against corruption
A popular quote thrown around to inspire the youth is Jose Rizal’s ‘Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan,’ but what will the youth do if there is no future to hope for—no planet to call home?
30 Years of Mining Plunder: A Comprador Capture of the Philippines
Oligarchs wielding vast political and economic influence have exploited the Mining Act to expand their empires, amassing immense fortunes at the expense of displaced communities, polluted water sources, and deforested landscapes. Enabled by bureaucrat capitalists—corrupt officials who manipulate regulations, grant permits, and overlook environmental violations for personal gain—these mining operations thrive with little accountability.
Red lines for the Global South at COP26
Save as PDF
KONTEKSTO
DANILO ARAO
Senatroll
Para sa mga senatroll na kaaway ng peryodismo, sarili lang ang iniisip at halatang halata ang ambisyong manatili sa puwesto.
Kumusta?
Huwag tularan ang maraming senador na nagpapakita ng galit o luha bunga ng sama ang loob. Ganyan talaga umarte ang mga bistado.
Maleta
Kung susundan ang ilan pang pahayag ng mataas na opisyal ng NBI, nais nilang paghiwalayin ang mga tunay na peryodista sa mga pekeng peryodista. Iba ang responsable sa iresponsable. Iba ang etikal sa hindi etikal.
LAB NOTES
Advocates of Science and Technology for the People
Lab notes | Can tree-planting replace decades-old urban trees?
From an ecosystem service and climate mitigation perspective, mature trees cannot be treated as equivalent to newly planted seedlings.
Whose bay is it, anyway? Unmasking the politics behind Manila Bay reclamation
Instead of absorbing excess water, reclaimed areas narrow river mouths, eliminate wetlands, and reroute natural flood pathways into urban spaces. The CIA confirms what many communities already experience: flooding is no longer just seasonal, but a structural one.
On the nature and dispersion of heated and radioactively-polluted effluent from an activated Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
Not enough attention has been given to the important fact that the normal operation of the plant would extract large volumes of seawater coolant, heat and radioactively pollute it and release it back into the littoral environment.
OPINION
BULATLAT EDITORS
Asia Pacific: The primary front in inter-imperialist contradictions
The monopoly bourgeoisie in the major capitalist powers has failed to resolve the crisis of overproduction despite decades of neoliberal restructuring, financialization, and militarization.
Left turn
But, in the same breath, there is also a strength in the symbols that our comrades become and live on to be—symbols of inertia but also movement, of loss but also triumph. Symbols of truth and freedom.
Negros after the gunfire: what the blood on our soil is telling us
It is tempting to reduce this to a “security success” or a “counterinsurgency incident.” But such language hides more than it reveals. Armed conflict in Negros did not begin with guns. It began long before, in conditions that have shaped the lives of generations.
ON THE FRINGES
BULATLAT STAFF
On the Fringes | Journalists remain unsafe
Long, overlapping questions may have short, decisive answers.
On the Fringes | Our silver anniversary quilt
We look forward to the day when we would have to transform the text into “Freed Frenchie.”
View from the barricades (and One Piece banners and flying rocks)
The situation escalated further when police deployed tear gas.
QUESTION EVERYTHING
MONG PALATINO
Taon ng baha, panahon ng protesta
Save as PDF
Island chains of domination and resistance
The island chain is not a novel concept but a recalibration of a Cold War strategy aimed at containing Soviet expansionism in the past, and undermining China's rise as a superpower today and in the near future.
Mga di-pangkaraniwan sa Utrecht, West Philippine Sea, at Cagayan Valley
Mga Pilipinong rebolusyonaryo sa Netherlands. Mga mangingisdang nakikipagtagisan sa iba't ibang pwersa sa West Philippine Sea. At mga aktibistang tinarget ng karahasan ng estado sa Cagayan Valley.
ROOT ACCESS
COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS UNION
Root Access | Fraud in the 2022 elections and our ways forward
One year after the elections, the Computer Professionals' Union takes a look at everything that's gone wrong in the automated elections system, and puts forward recommendations.
Root Access | Pursuing digital justice in the Philippines
Filipinos have the right to be properly informed of and have control over the collection, storage, processing, and transmission of their data. The government must prepare and equip the people with the knowledge, tools, and safeguards against possible ill effects of digitalization, automation, AI, and other social and technical changes.
Ubuntu GNU/Linux sa araw-araw na computing
Save as PDF