On The Fringes | Mentally surviving the rotten healthcare system
I spent more hours in the waiting area than in my consultations. Most of my conversations with the doctor took only 15 to 30 minutes.
COMMENTARY
Truth be Told (Again) | To make a dictator (un)necessary
Truth be Told (Again) | To make a dictator (un)necessary
On September 23, 1972, the day Martial Law was announced, Ferdinand Marcos was certain — or, at the very least, he was determined to sound like it.
AT GROUND LEVEL
SATUR OCAMPO
Families of disappeared endure pain after two decades
"What is deeply painful and infuriating is that Palparan is the one we ended up speaking with."
Mothers of disappeared ask: Where is convicted rights violator Palparan?
“Allowing a convicted perpetrator of grave human rights violations to receive extraordinary accommodations sends the wrong message—that accountability may be evaded by those with power or connections."
Phl now open to ICC probe on ‘war on drugs’
The Marcos Jr. administration now says it’s willing to sit down with the International Criminal Court to discuss “certain areas” of cooperation on the latter’s investigation, started in 2018, on former president Duterte’s “war on drugs.” The timeline goes back to the time he was Davao City mayor.
BALIK-TANAW
PROMOTION OF CHURCH PEOPLE’S RESPONSE
Balik-Tanaw | Ang radikal na pagpapatawad at ang hustisyang panlipunan
“Panginoon, ilang beses ko po ba dapat patawarin ang aking kapatid na nagkakasala sa akin? Hanggang pitong beses po ba?”
Balik-Tanaw | When women rise, God’s mercy breaks in the boundaries
Women continue to face discrimination, violence, abuse, and the denial of their dignity. Patriarchy has become so deeply woven into our society and even our churches, that it is sometimes treated as normal.
Balik-Tanaw | Manatili sa katuruan ni Hesus
Kung ayaw nating habang-buhay na mabuhay sa takot sa mga multo ng ating lipunan, kailangan nating manatili kay Hesus. Siya ang nagtagumpay laban sa kasamaan, sa kawalang-katarungan, at maging sa kamatayan.
BALIKSAYSAY
FRANCIS GEALOGO
Baliksaysay | GOMBURZA, Hanggang hangganan
Ipinahayag ng 1872 na ilusyon ang reporma at liberalismo sa kapuluan. Ang pagkagarote sa tatlong pari ang simbolikong paalala ng lupit at dahas ng kolonyal na kaayusang hindi kayang tapatan ng ilusyon ng ideyalismong liberal na isinulong ng mga naglalayon na maging kapantay lamang sila ng mga mananakop.
Baliksaysay | Sina Chad at Rizal sa Mindanao
Gaya ni Rizal na nagsanay sa agham ng medisina, matapos ang kurso sa Computer Science at palagiang nakikilala sa kanyang katalinuhan mula pa ng pagkabata. Gaya ni Rizal, nakita ni Chad na higit na malawakan ang kaalamang maiaambag sa mga katutubo – pagbasa, pagsulat, pagkilala sa kalikasan, paglalapat ng mga konsepto sa aktwal na produksyong agrikultural at paglinang ng kapaligiran.
BLOODRUSH
SARAH RAYMUNDO
Blood Rush | $100 barrel, super El Niño and Pax Silica: Energy hegemony, enclosure, and national liberation
These movements expose the Luzon Economic Corridor not as a national development plan, but as a violent mechanism of US-led imperialist plunder and war that converts sovereign land into an extractive garrison for foreign capital while forcing dispossessed rural populations into the precarious ranks of the informal semi-proletariat.
Blood Rush | An anti-requiem for Gloria Steinem, a Cold War icon
Her death should serve as a stark reminder: a feminism that aligns itself with the empire is no feminism at all—it is merely the soft edge of oppression.
Cuba: The target of a 67-year crusade
If the United States were forced to acknowledge its own long history of aggression against Cuba—the invasion, the assassination attempts, the economic warfare, the occupation of Guantánamo—the report's narrative of Cuban "subversion" would collapse. The aggressor would be revealed as the victim, and the victim as the aggressor.
FIRST PERSON
BULATLAT CONTRIBUTORS
First Person | Lyle, son of Negros
We both share the same violence from the State.
First Person | ‘No luxury bags, only yearning for justice’
The fight for TRUTH, Justice and Accountability cannot be trivialized with designer bags and fake news.
Merong Dalawang Klaseng Luha: KaPASKUHAN 2025 sa NBP
Simple lamang ang layunin nito: mapataas ang moral ng mga bilanggong pulitikal, maipadama ang pagkalinga at pagpapahalaga, at maghatid ng pag-asa sa gitna ng pagsubok.
KALIBUTAN
KALIKASAN-PEOPLE’S NETWORK FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
Defenders of the Earth | People’s resistance across Southeast Asia
Stories from West Papua, Myanmar, the Philippines—and across Asia-Pacific—reveal more than opposition.
Kalibutan | Not poor, but plundered: How imperialist war feeds the climate crisis
From the Himalayas to the Pacific Islands, we are fighting the same beast. We see the convergence of everything—the climate crisis, the mining companies, the war machines, the geopolitics.
To demand climate justice is to fight against corruption
A popular quote thrown around to inspire the youth is Jose Rizal’s ‘Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan,’ but what will the youth do if there is no future to hope for—no planet to call home?
KONTEKSTO
DANILO ARAO
F2F
Huwag sisihin ang malakas na pag-ulan dahil may mas malaking kasalanan ang palpak na pamahalaan.
Kapamilya
Sa ngayon, tahimik ang mga lansangan. Pero hindi permanente ang pananahimik.
Marikina
Kumpara sa ibang lugar sa Metro Manila, totoong masayang manirahan sa Marikina. Pero kailangan pa ring ipaglaban ang pag-unlad para sa karamihan.
LAB NOTES
Advocates of Science and Technology for the People
Lab notes | Can tree-planting replace decades-old urban trees?
From an ecosystem service and climate mitigation perspective, mature trees cannot be treated as equivalent to newly planted seedlings.
Whose bay is it, anyway? Unmasking the politics behind Manila Bay reclamation
Instead of absorbing excess water, reclaimed areas narrow river mouths, eliminate wetlands, and reroute natural flood pathways into urban spaces. The CIA confirms what many communities already experience: flooding is no longer just seasonal, but a structural one.
On the nature and dispersion of heated and radioactively-polluted effluent from an activated Bataan Nuclear Power Plant
Not enough attention has been given to the important fact that the normal operation of the plant would extract large volumes of seawater coolant, heat and radioactively pollute it and release it back into the littoral environment.
OPINION
BULATLAT EDITORS
Part 3: Luzon Economic Corridor and Pax Silica: Defense-industrial imperialist project
So-called defense industrial cooperation with U.S. imperialism will only bind the country more tightly to the U.S. war industry's supply chain and U.S. strategic priorities, but it does not guarantee technology transfer, long-term modernization, or self-reliance.
Part 2: Unprecedented deepening of US military intervention
Under the Marcos Jr. regime, U.S. military involvement in the Philippines has expanded dramatically.
War and plunder: US imperialism in the Philippines
U.S. imperialism in the Philippines today represents not merely a continuation of traditional neocolonial domination but a substantial deepening of imperialist control shaped by the intensifying U.S-China competition
ON THE FRINGES
BULATLAT STAFF
On The Fringes | Mentally surviving the rotten healthcare system
I spent more hours in the waiting area than in my consultations. Most of my conversations with the doctor took only 15 to 30 minutes.
On the Fringes | Journalists remain unsafe
Long, overlapping questions may have short, decisive answers.
On the Fringes | Our silver anniversary quilt
We look forward to the day when we would have to transform the text into “Freed Frenchie.”
QUESTION EVERYTHING
MONG PALATINO
BGC as portal
Who needs high walls and electric fences if access is already restricted by car-centric pathways, expensive rents, and community spaces divorced from the basic and everyday interests of ordinary Filipinos?
Taon ng baha, panahon ng protesta
Save as PDF
Island chains of domination and resistance
The island chain is not a novel concept but a recalibration of a Cold War strategy aimed at containing Soviet expansionism in the past, and undermining China's rise as a superpower today and in the near future.
ROOT ACCESS
COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS UNION
Root Access | Fraud in the 2022 elections and our ways forward
One year after the elections, the Computer Professionals' Union takes a look at everything that's gone wrong in the automated elections system, and puts forward recommendations.
Root Access | Pursuing digital justice in the Philippines
Filipinos have the right to be properly informed of and have control over the collection, storage, processing, and transmission of their data. The government must prepare and equip the people with the knowledge, tools, and safeguards against possible ill effects of digitalization, automation, AI, and other social and technical changes.
Ubuntu GNU/Linux sa araw-araw na computing
Save as PDF