Geography Archives: Philippines

  • U.S. Army rocket system used for a live fire event during Balikatan 23 war exercises in the Philippines, April 26.

    Biden drops ‘One China’ policy, uses Philippines for war drive over Taiwan

    Pentagon strategists have been beefing up their military presence in Asia and building alliances in preparation for an all-out war against China.

  • Jose Maria Sison

    Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines

    The greatest Filipino of the past century bereaved us peacefully.

  • Students from the University of Santo Tomas and other campuses protest on Espana Avenue in Manila over the dictator Ferdinand Marcos being reburied in the Heroes' Cemetery in 2016. Image: The Varsitarian/Alvin Joseph Kasiban

    Marcos Jr. Presidency: A long view

    For three decades, contemporary public discourse on the Philippines has been marked by reference to a period called the “post-Marcos era.” Weeks after a high-stakes national election, that widely-accepted historical marker is suddenly obsolete. 

  • A protest against Duterte’s drug war in 2019. Photo by Ryomaandres.

    Taking on the Philippine axis of evil

    I was initially pushed to try to run for president. I really did not want to, because I felt somebody younger and more vigorous should. I am 76! – Walden Bello

  • Massacres and extrajudicial killings committed amid early campaigning of Aquino party

    Judgment day over the killing fields in the Philippines

    Diverse international groups along with the U.S. State Department have taken notice of Rodrigo Duterte’s record of killings and wanton defiance of universal norms of justice. Duterte’s regime might claim to honor the right to life, liberty, and security of persons guaranteed by the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other Covenants; but its practice consistently defiles those norms. Mass media and internet platforms cannot keep up with the regime’s punitive outrages.

  • Sculpture of Enrique de Malacca

    Magellan, inquisition and globalisation

    The Philippines today struggles with this history. Some Filipinos highlight the warm native reception extended to Magellan’s fleet and the first Catholic mass, reminiscent of American Thanksgiving mythology.

  • Philippines: International pressure to investigate Duterte crimes against humanity

    If a United Nations report wouldn’t suffice, an international commission wants to prove there is a practical way justice will be assured and perpetrators of human rights violations in the Philippines be held accountable. The Independent International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations in the Philippines or INVESTIGATE PH had a global launch Thursday, […]

  • President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and US President Donald Trump

    How Imperialism foments people to rise up in arms against U.S.-Duterte’s Terror Law

    Fueled by foreign capital, the new Philippines legislation intends to the revolt of dissenters at bay. But the need to hold power to account is growing.

  • Resist Duterte’s Fascist Attacks

    Duterte’s tyranny in the Philippines is an obstacle to people’s development

    On March 16th and 17th last year the Philippine armed forces dropped bombs containing illegal and toxic white phosphorus on towns in Abra province. The pasturelands and communal forests of farmers and indigenous peoples were burnt, and daily activities ground to a halt as widespread fear set in among the population.

  • Chōsen Zenzu (Korean Peninsula)

    Dossier 1: Crisis in the Korean Peninsula

    The crisis is not merely geopolitical. It is human. 75 million people live in the peninsula. This is about their lives and futures.

  • U.S. Marines train Philippine Marine Corps

    Operation Pacific Eagle in the Philippines: Washington’s New Colonial War

    Critics contend that Operation Pacific Eagle Philippines is aimed at strengthening Washington’s grip on the long-subjugated people of the Philippines, defeating a half-century leftist insurgency, and securing the country for the interests of U.S. multinational corporations.

  • Apolonio

    Killings, evacuations, rights violations on weekend after talks termination

    The ink has yet to dry on President Rodrigo Duterte’s Proclamation No. 360 signed last Thursday but killings and harassments of activists, indigenous peoples and human rights defenders have already increased over the weekend.

  • Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte | Photo: Reuters

    Duterte is a big liar

    Duterte is a consistent political swindler and demagogue who depends heavily on lying.

  • Intervention by Walden Bello at National Anti-Dictatorship Conference, University of the Philippines at Diliman, July 20, 2017.

    Fighting fascism

    Today will be remembered as the day the resistance to dictatorship was reborn. Future generations will look to the assembly here today and say, yes, there were people who were not intimidated by the popularity of an authoritarian personality and placed themselves in the line of fire to prevent the advent of a full-blown dictatorship.

  • We Stand with Palestine in the Spirit of “Sumud”

    At a moment of growing resistance to state violence and injustice the world over, a delegation of nineteen anti-prison, labor and scholar-activists from the United States traveled to Palestine in March 2016.  Our delegation included former U.S.-held political prisoners and social prisoners, former Black Panther Party members, prison abolitionists, trade unionists and university professors.  We […]

  • For a “Third Reconstruction”: An Interview with Bill Fletcher, Jr.

    As the 2016 electoral game here ratchets up to nasty polemics, the US media is mainly focused on the carnival atmosphere of the Republican Party candidates.  (The Democratic Party infighting is only now beginning to boil over.)  Meanwhile, the Obama administration, free from scrutiny, continues its airstrikes in Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and […]

  • A History of a Counter-Revolution

    Gerald Horne.  The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America.  NYU Press, 2014. In the conventional, celebratory liberal historical narrative about the Founding Fathers, the post-revolutionary persistence of slavery in the United States, along with women’s lack of essential political and legal rights, has long been regarded as […]

  • Once Again on So-called “Extractivism”

    Since Marx, we know that what characterizes and differentiates societies is the way in which they organize the production, distribution and use of the material and symbolic resources
    they possess. In other words, the mode of production1 is what defines the material content of the social life of the distinct human territorial collectivities (nations, peoples, communities), within which there can be differentiated the historically specific form in which each of their components develop, and the manner in which various existing modes of production interrelate within the same society.

  • Whose War?  The War of 1812

    Centennials, bicentennials, and other historical anniversaries — not to mention annual holidays — play a major role in the legitimation of power relations.  And they can be sharp ideological battlegrounds like Columbus Day.  This year is the two hundredth anniversary of the War of 1812, an inconclusive two and a half-year war with Great Britain […]

  • Tracing the Roots of Intersectionality

    Intersectionality as a key concept in women’s studies has up until the present proven rather durable.  Feminist journals are peppered with it and feminists use it pretty much without having to explain what they mean, the term’s affinity with feminism taken for granted and its import unquestioned.  Attend any women’s studies meeting, and sooner or […]