Think Pieces

Using the ways of the old to fight for the new is like becoming the enemy you want to defeat

Yes, there is something positive too about what we are going through – and how we can harvest these gains and use them to move forward will spell the difference for reforms in the country

'Is there another way to achieve the same result and make drug addicts or users surrender or cooperate with authorities without capitalizing on the threat of death?'

If we are to elect Duterte to the presidency, we must first ask ourselves: how different is present-day Philippines from Davao City of the 1980s?

There are 4 gaps that leave critical questions hanging and issues unresolved on the DAP controversy. This is how the decision could be wanting for non-lawyers

The decision on the PDAF should be appreciated as the start of even bigger fights ahead

His resignation shows how a person can reconcile the tension between his individual political disposition with his responsibility to a cause, a collective or a party

The pork barrel is a scam fueling a patronage-based political culture and perverting the political system

Robredo said he expects bad people to be smart and to fight hard; so to defeat them, good people should not only be smarter, they should also fight harder.

There is still much room for improvement in citizen participation in local education governance

The government's over-emphasis on the right of the person with the gun over the right to life and due process of presumed innocent civilians can easily be abused and misused

This Complaint should be our opportunity to show we can hold power to account. It should also be an opportunity for us to bring the integrity of our political system. This Complaint should strengthen our call to ABOLISH PORK!

G-Watch Localization aims to engage the local level to develop a G-Watch application that is attuned to local context and realities. It takes into account the decentralized policy context, the situation and condition of citizen participation in local governance, the nature and practice of the local government unit and the backdrop of socio-cultural realities prevalent and strong at the local area like primacy of kinship, prevalence of patronage and machismo, to name a few. It situates itself in the areas of monitoring and evaluation which remains weak despite the mandated avenues for citizen participation due to sheer lack of resources for it, the lack of capability and its seeming lack of urgency in comparison to other concerns.

ASoG’s brand of education is the marrying of theory and practice where academic knowledge is used in order to solve practical problems of our time. It tries to achieve that balance between the realm of ideas and the concrete realities that ideas must contend with to make a difference in real time, real space.

Our approach to change and development is what we call a mosaic approach where scattered efforts and actors working towards change and development are facilitated by the School to come together as pieces of the puzzle that if put together would form an alternative picture of the country.

This seminar serves as another classroom of ASoG. It will be a microcosm of what we endeavor to achieve all over the country.

But more than losing, we have gained much through his life and through his death. A loss as big as Jesse Robredo involving a person that has touched so many lives means God is sending messages wholesale. There is a common message for all, for groups, for collectives, but there is also a unique message for every individual who would be blessed to find the message especially for them. This big a loss will be big a gain if we discern in our hearts and soul the meaning of this loss in our individual and collective lives and the message He wants to tell us. That's one way this loss will serve the good for each of us and all. That's the way Sec. Jesse will be with us forever.

Society should have a soul—authority. This authority should have a sense of reason that guides and directs—the legislative power. A will that acts and implements—the executive power. A conscience that judges and punishes the bad—the  judicial power. Those powers should be independent in the sense that none of them should infringe on the authority of the other. However, the latter two should submit to the former, as will and conscience submit to reason. The executive and judicial cannot separate themselves from the laws passed by the legislative, but the latter does not have any other judge except public opinion, or the people themselves.

However, while acts of resistance do occur simultaneously at various points of the social system, these actions (to be truly effective) require various instruments of resistance—such as local associations, civic organizations, social movements and even political parties. But a party is just one among a variety instruments that would have to be used in the struggle for democracy and socialism. This is so since the party must not be allowed to permeate all aspects of a person’s life, nor can it be seen as the most appropriate vehicle in addressing issues concerning “life politics.” 

Such a situation would therefore have a profound impact on our understanding of a political party, for it would no longer have to be viewed as the vanguard of the masses and pivot of revolution, but as mere participant in a still on-going global discourse.

Of all the books that I have managed to read, none is as deeply personal or as emotionally poignant as Subversive Lives 1. Written as a collective memoir of the Quimpo family, the book narrates their shared ordeal under the Marcos dictatorship, and the hardship that each of the siblings had to endure in the course of their resistance to Martial Law.

Such autobiographical style allows the reader to form a mental picture of the series of emotional storms that had repeatedly overtaken this family of “subversives”—from Norman’s Christian dilemma as he agonized over the question of joining the communist-led resistance; to Ryan’s narrow escape from death as the soldier who was about to shoot him was suddenly distracted by an exploding pillbox; to Lilian’s sense of dread and shame as she was repeatedly humiliated by her military interrogators.

The way forward is to change the country from the base, place by place, island by island. The integration and unity must be achieved with respect to the diversity and plurality of struggles; but a conscious effort is needed by the leaders of these initiatives to connect their struggles and execute a coordinated strategy of taking power at the national level.

Once this political machinery of reform movements in the Philippines wins power, it has both the broad social base and moral ascendancy to bring a developmental and democratic state, which can effectively lead the process of nation-building. This is a formidable challenge, but it has to be done. By building on the basics, we will change the Philippines.

Paradoxically, the Maguindanao Massacre gives the country a unique opportunity to address a long-time problem that was not a monopoly of one region or ethnic community. With this massacre, we crossed the line and the country is now on the brink of being a failed state. With this massacre, we are seeing a scale of brutality and evil that we have not seen before. We have seen political and media assassinations and we have experienced massacres of farmers and workers – but not with these targets (women, lawyers, journalists, bystanders and passersby) and not in these numbers. Lines were crossed in Maguindanao and we must all work together, and work very hard, to pull the country back from those lines. Otherwise, the consequences are unimaginable with political clans all over the country possibly believing that they too can act with impunity.