By TILDE ACUÑA
‘PPE’
Month: September 2021
‘Uncaring,’ med students say of the decision to go on with licensure exam
“We must not endanger the lives of PLE takers over a 4-day face-to-face examination in the middle of highly unsafe conditions just so that they may be added to our health workforce.”
The trauma and struggle that loved ones of slain farmers have to live with everyday
Trauma continues to haunt women relatives of farmers and activists who fell victims to extrajudicial killings in the last five years of the Duterte presidency. The pain they have to live with never really goes away and has turned their lives around.
Balik-Tanaw | Kalagan ang tali, magsalita nang malinaw
Wala na tayong pera. ‘Yan ang sabi ng madamot at malupit na pangulo. Kagaya ng babae at lalaking nakaranas ng pagdaloy ng kapangyarihan ng Diyos, huwag tayong pumayag na ipagkait sa atin at sa ating mga mahal sa buhay ang yaman ng ating sariling bansa.
Mon Ramirez (1944-2021), the geek who dedicated his life in the service of the Filipino people
As topnotcher of the 1967 board exams for electric engineering, MonRam could have enriched himself by making a career in the corporate world. He chose a life serving the poor instead.
Despite attacks, Filipino women strive to help the poor
A year on, community- and women-led efforts that responded to the Filipino poor’s needs continued to face harassment.
Community kitchens feed the hungry during lockdown
Mimi Doringo of Kadamay said these community kitchens were a testament to the poor pandemic response of the government. They also coupled it with calls for better response as seen in Sitio San Roque.
Community kitchens serve warm meals, show govt negligence
While waiting for the government’s stingy and slow aid, they have to activate their survival mode by pooling their resources to help each other. All these, the people have to do amid militaristic community quarantines. And as they say when it rains it pours, calamities from typhoons, earthquakes, farm infestation, among others, did not stop afflicting communities.
Lawyer Rex Fernandez and his heart for the marginalized
“During our meetings, he told us of his experience in Carbon during his younger years as an activist. He would sleep at Carbon,” a vendor said in Cebuano. “His enthusiasm in helping us was clear to us because he was always early and the first to arrive during our meetings.”
Well-funded operations
By DEE AYROSO
‘We waited for nothing’ | Fight for due benefits is also a struggle for justice – health workers
Described by the health department as “the first batch of fund transfers,” the P311.79-million ($6.2 million) SRA funds is a measly 2.6 percent of the unused P11.9-billion ($238.2 million) allocated for health workers’ Special Risk Allowance and Hazard Pay, which the Commission on Audit recently flagged.