First Person | Lyle, son of Negros
We both share the same violence from the State.
COMMENTARY
The continuing anguish of Negros
The continuing anguish of Negros
Any honest student of history will understand that the conflict afflicting Negros did not rise from a vacuum. It stands on a longstanding theater of feudal order, brutal power, and impoverishment.
AT GROUND LEVEL
SATUR OCAMPO
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.
Corruption top concern for businessmen in 2025
As the new year begins, it’s the flourishing corruption that the country’s business executives are most worried about, according to a survey towards yearend 2024 conducted by the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP).
Two bits of good news lighten up the start of 2025
Surely, the increasing number of self-declared poor among our people is a cause for national concern. The government’s poverty-reduction program definitely needs serious evaluation, what with the contributory negative causes such as calamities, both natural and man-made, that come aplenty every year. This negative trend notwithstanding, two positive developments at the beginning of the new year provide us reasons to cheer up.
BALIK-TANAW
PROMOTION OF CHURCH PEOPLE’S RESPONSE
Balik-Tanaw | Nakaliligalig ang paligid
Ang pagtanggap sa panauhin ay sadyang nakakabagabag kundi man nakakaligalig. Subalit pinapapaalala sa atin ng linggong ito ang dalawang bagay sa pakikipag -ugnayan natin kay Hesus. Una, hindi natin siya panauhin para maligalig tayo, ikalawa, siya ang ating pagkaing nagbibigay buhay.
Balik-Tanaw | ‘Who do you think, was a neighbor (kapwa) to the victim?’
Jesus led the scholar not with an expected Scriptural provision. Instead of offering a legal definition, Jesus tells a story. Jesus, who was so immersed with people, must have known so many stories from the ground. So he narrated an anecdote to answer the scholar.
Balik-Tanaw | The solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity: From afflictions to hope
This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity. The feast teaches us that coming together as a community, not fear and desperation, will help us face all adversity. Although the events on both sides of the Pacific are demoralizing, the Holy Trinity gives us hope.
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
Balikatan: Colonial foundations and the rebranding of U.S. military domination
The Philippines is not merely caught between powers, but incorporated into a hierarchy of production and control in which labor, land, and resources are subordinated to US imperialist interests.
Merely Iran Proxies? Understanding the Axis of Resistance
This article reexamines the so-called “Axis of Resistance” in light of recent escalations, ceasefire breakdowns, and renewed regional strikes, arguing that these movements are not Iranian proxies but historically rooted formations shaped by prolonged war and fragmentation, whose emerging multi-front deterrence reveals new forms of armed sovereignty and exposes the limits of US-led imperial power.
Imperial feminism in a time of war
Without sovereignty, there is no terrain on which struggles for democracy, workers' rights, or women's liberation can occur.
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
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?
30 Years of Mining Plunder: A Comprador Capture of the Philippines
Oligarchs wielding vast political and economic influence have exploited the Mining Act to expand their empires, amassing immense fortunes at the expense of displaced communities, polluted water sources, and deforested landscapes. Enabled by bureaucrat capitalists—corrupt officials who manipulate regulations, grant permits, and overlook environmental violations for personal gain—these mining operations thrive with little accountability.
Red lines for the Global South at COP26
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KONTEKSTO
DANILO ARAO
19
Huwag hayaang mauwi lang sa numero ang 19 na pinatay noong Abril 19.
Konteksto | Ekonomiks
Sa mga ekonomistang nais magpakadalubhasa, may simpleng pakiusap lang: Huwag sanang kalimutan ang masa.
Konteksto | Langis
Mahigit P100 na ang bawat litro ng diesel. Sa mga susunod na araw, asahan ang presyong nasa tatlo na ring mga numero para sa premium na gasolina.
LAB NOTES
Advocates of Science and Technology for the People
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.
On mangrove earth-balling: Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
Our oceans are changing due to climate change. Destroying the remaining mangrove forests in Manila Bay will only increase the vulnerability of coastal communities, particularly those of marginalized fisherfolk and urban poor.
OPINION
BULATLAT EDITORS
Negros after the gunfire: what the blood on our soil is telling us
It is tempting to reduce this to a “security success” or a “counterinsurgency incident.” But such language hides more than it reveals. Armed conflict in Negros did not begin with guns. It began long before, in conditions that have shaped the lives of generations.
Oil shock profiteering? Oil firms, Marcos regime rake in hundreds of millions amid crisis
Even without a war and an oil shock, and even in times when oil prices are relatively low or declining, the Filipino people are still being oppressed and exploited by local pump price profiteering, and global monopoly and speculative pricing due to oil deregulation.
‘Sana oil’| As Filipinos suffer mega oil price hikes, prices barely moved in our ASEAN neighbors
Jeepney drivers and Filipino consumers do not have to be at the mercy of oil companies. The oil industry does not have to be deregulated. Oil prices can be controlled. The government does not have to be useless.
ON THE FRINGES
BULATLAT STAFF
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.”
View from the barricades (and One Piece banners and flying rocks)
The situation escalated further when police deployed tear gas.
QUESTION EVERYTHING
MONG PALATINO
Taon ng baha, panahon ng protesta
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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.
Mga di-pangkaraniwan sa Utrecht, West Philippine Sea, at Cagayan Valley
Mga Pilipinong rebolusyonaryo sa Netherlands. Mga mangingisdang nakikipagtagisan sa iba't ibang pwersa sa West Philippine Sea. At mga aktibistang tinarget ng karahasan ng estado sa Cagayan Valley.
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
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