May 5, 2022There’s No Utopia Here Folks, Just a Lot of Dead BodiesI’ve written about this at length in another essay, but it bears emphasizing that the Philippines is plagued by political illiteracy. The educational landscape’s unevenness is the root of all evil. Underfunded educational institutions kowtowing to the President and other local powers do not make for effective institutions. …Essay5 min readEssay5 min read
Apr 29, 2022The Wheels of the Political Machines Go Round and RoundWelcome to the first installment of Anti-Oedipus! This will hopefully be a weekly column. I write this from a tiny apartment in Mabalacat City, Pampanga, mere days away from the May 2022 elections. “Isko-isms” Isko Moreno’s antics in the previous ten or so days can be interpreted in many ways. It…Essay4 min readEssay4 min read
Apr 27, 2022Fragments in TransitionWhere do I begin? I think nowadays, writers (in general) are trying to mark everything they can to better remember things because the country will change either way after the 2022 elections, the same way the Philippines irreparably changed in 2016 when Filipinos fell into the trap of voting a…Essay5 min readEssay5 min read
Apr 19, 2022Our Reading Culture Has a Pulse, For NowAmong the many literary forms and genres, fiction is probably my oldest companion as a reader. I can still remember when I became devoted to a particular series. I was seven years old when I was first brought to National Bookstore. Which city in Metro Manila, I could no longer…Essay7 min readEssay7 min read
Apr 16, 2022More Books, SoonI have always believed that people are born with specific natural talents, and mine just happened to be reading and collecting books. It’s so easy to write off someone as a nerd or geek because of certain preoccupations. …Essay5 min readEssay5 min read
Apr 13, 2022The Mambabarang in Our Midst: Pre-Hispanic Ma’I in Wing of the LocustJoel Donato Ching Jacob’s presents a rare achievement in Filipino writing in English. The Asian Book Award winner deviates from the tired path taken by so many would-be texts that attempted to reimagine pre-Hispanic Philippines. Wing of the Locust avoided the pitfalls of romanticizing the Filipino precolonial past by utilizing…Book Review5 min readBook Review5 min read
Apr 12, 2022On Committed WritingWriting often appears as one of the less reliable expressions of democratic right, especially if you live in a nation like the Philippines, where a tenth of the population lives in abject poverty. Why continue writing when reading is perhaps last on people’s minds? …Essay4 min readEssay4 min read
Apr 1, 2022Yes, Our Choice of Books MatterPhilippine elections bring out the worst in many, and the good in some (or not, depending on how you look at things). Or maybe it doesn’t matter, as the powers that be continue to wreak havoc on our so-called democracy. A pause is in order, yes? The latest casualty of…Reading6 min readReading6 min read
