Category: On the Fringes

Yesterday on the long ride to work, I happened to sit next to a female lay preacher. She didn’t sound like she wanted to scare us; it was not even a warning of a grim and terrible nature; she sounded, in fact, concerned. She was reminding us. She said that it was always best to be prepared, to be always ready to speak to God when we meet Him of a life well lived and meaningful.

Abuses by mining companies are not new in the Philippines. Destructive mining have, for decades and in tandem with wanton logging and the equally destructive building of dams, destroyed and poisoned whole communities. Mining companies have been shortchanging these communities. Worse, these firms have been using the police, the military and paramilitary units as their security guards, leading to human-rights abuses such as those suffered by the Ifugaos in Nueva Vizcaya.

We were young, full of energy and were willing to do anything to contribute toward change.

“Sampung taon na pala iyon?” I told Sally, and laughed. “Naramdaman mo bang tumanda tayo ng sampung taon?” I added. We went on sharing memories, those moments when we held meetings until the wee hours of the night at the Anakbayan headquarters on P. Noval in Sampaloc, Manila; the allies we encountered during the campaign; all the “gimmicks” we devised to oust Estrada and even the times when we skipped meals because we had no money; and many more.

By RAYMUND B. VILLANUEVA / Kodao Productions / Bulatlat.com

I was caught in the middle of a gunfight that lasted hours in Tugaya, Lanao del Sur while covering the country’s first-ever automated elections. I don’t know if being ‘caught in the middle’ is a correct description because I was there as a journalist and had prior knowledge that that town is a poll hotspot. But I use it nonetheless because I did not want the gunfight to happen, much less witness it up close.

Lt. Col. Romeo Brawner of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Public Information Office is hoodwinking the public when he says that AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Victor Ibrado is ordering the transfer of the 43 health workers collectively known as the Morong 43 to a Philippine National Police (PNP) facility, even as they have supposedly communicated their desire to remain at the military’s Camp Capinpin in Tanay, Rizal, where they are now detained. He is trying to make the AFP and its chief of staff appear more magnanimous than they actually are.

By RAYMUND B. VILLANUEVA

Something happened during the National Interfaith Mission for Peace and Justice visit to the massacre site in Barangay Salman, Ampatuan, Maguindanao, last January 23 that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. As an “embedded” Bulatlat correspondent in the mission from Cotabato City, I, along with my Kodao and Pinoy Weekly colleagues, had no inkling that something was wrong when we started out that day.