In my previous column where I tackled the 18 March lumad and peasant barricade in front of the EastMinCom of the AFP in Panacan, Davao City, I said that in addition to sympathy and charity, what the protesting farmers and lumad also needed was that the public understand the political roots and implications of their mass action.
Much has already been said about the lumad and peasant barricade last 18 March in front of the Eastern Mindanao Command Headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Panacan here in Davao City.
What is unwritten is that these changes are being done because of externally-sourced policies, namely, the K to 12, new CHED policies, and ASEAN integration.
I gave this speech just last Saturday (March 5, 2016) at the UP Diliman Film Institute during the world premiere of the music video “Salupongan”, directed by the renowned Carlos Siguion-Reyna.
And in situations when the odds are already clearly against us (such as against a tsunami of popularity), we should do what any real human being of the universe would do, and that is to speak truth to power (or, in this case, to beauty).
I was never a hardcore David Bowie fan, I was born a bit too late for his explosive breakthrough and heyday in the 1970s.
If you cock your head at a certain angle, they sound just like the incessant buzz of cicadas, and if you close your eyes you could almost imagine that you were on the lower Pantaron on that balmy Friday evening with just the right amount of humidity and drizzle.
Not only students, but teachers also suffer from end of sem blues: wrapping up lessons, checking papers and exams, calculating grades, beating deadlines.
This piece was originally part of the UP Mindanao Department of Social Sciences discussion entitled “Flawed Revolutionaries, Anti-Heroes, and the Philippine Left” for the 2015 UP Mindanao Month last February.
What a blighted world we live in when the most popular social media platform Facebook has introduced a “safety check-in” feature in response to terror events.
