This Halloween got almost every parent preparing for a party that the children "want" to attend. Costumes that range from horror to action heroes-inspired are available everywhere. Trick or Treat became the main thing with children getting loads of sweets in the end.
The debate sparked by the Apo Whang-od, Kalinga tattooing, and Manila FAME expo controversy is a long time coming in a country like ours which is still striving to find a unifying identity in the face not just of local cultural diversity, but acute social inequality.
We, Filipinos have an odd way of commemorating the loss of our dear departed. If one takes a cursory look over the world.wide.web, during the past two days, it would seem that we are the only “Christian” world that spends so much time over lost opportunities.
Nothing can stop now the selfish ambitions of the imperial power Which the Reptilian Junta and Haribon are loyally implementing— The most effective way to reap the land’s blessings for the Greedy, Even if the little creatures be consigned to sink deep in the mud.
The sentiment motivating “I am from Mindanao” is largely antagonistic to the Imperial Manila gaze, under which Mindanao is solely Moro country, and the supposed settlerjacking is in fact a way by which Settlers remind the Moro community of their shared space, and the Settlers’ means of sharing the struggle of anti-terrorism with them. This only becomes truly settlerjacking if the Settlers remain ignorant of the Moro struggles – something which, given how the matter has been foregrounded by the Marawi crisis and the reactions of thinkers like Mangansakan and Braga, seems much less likely, and will only happen if there are active efforts to perpetuate ignorance and division.