Musica Moralia
The following essay is an excerpt from MR Senior Editor Resil B. Mojares’s new book Isabelo’s Archive published by Anvil Publishing Inc. {1} Their name is synonymous with music. In Manila’s Sampaloc district in the mid-nineteenth century, the Buenaventuras were famous musicians. Camilo Buenaventura was a musician and singer in the local church. His sons...
Under My Invisible Umbrella
Laurel Fantauzzo tried to become a Manila local, and in this essay, she explains what it means to be charged “dayuhan tax.” I accepted the man’s service without question, as if he had been standing at the doorway of the Olongapo office building waiting only for me. As if I knew he would head into...
Globalization and the New Slave Trade
Congressman and activist Walden Bello asks: Is labor export the new slave trade? Globalization is a process that “disintegrates” the national economy and “reintegrates” parts of it at the global level in accordance with the dynamics of global capital. The increasing lack of coherence among local agriculture, industry, and services has been paralleled by...
Noob Tube: A Newbie’s Journey through Local Television
Shinji Manlangit had abandoned local TV for the internet. And then he started writing for a local late night talk show In the aftermath of last year’s storm that almost flooded my room, I lost the stand of my teeny LED monitor. Since MacGyver taught me ingenuity, my TV is currently sandwiched between two ancient...
Left Off The Dial: Radio Republic, Pinoytuner, Dig Radio — and Their OPM “Revolution”
After NU 107 stopped airing, the advocates of Pinoy rock migrated to the internet. Alex Almario assesses the online OPM revolution On November 7, 2010, FM radio station NU 107 made its final broadcast to a mournful fan base. It was an end of an era whose peak coincided with, or perhaps was responsible for,...
Postscript to Rizal@150
WAITING for execution is not the best of times, even more so for the victim. Days before a bullet in the back snuffed out his life in the crisp morning air of December 30, 1896, Jose Rizal distracted himself in his prison cell in Fort Santiago by scribbling. Where are these papers that he wrote...
Reviewing the Reviewers
When a book gets reviewed, we learn something not only about the person who wrote the book, but also about the person who reviews it. Reviews trade in a highly coveted currency: public attention. Positive reviews boost sales. Negative ones—certain kinds at least—are even better, serving as lightning rods for public debate on issues of...
The Good Book Review
All of literature is a conversation. Writers create worlds and invite us to imagine how other people live. They bring us news, history, argument, and ask us to argue back. They impel us to feel, to notice, to observe as they change their minds, or endeavor to change ours. The critic has always been a...
Citizens vs. Sotto: Speaking Truth to Power
Plagiarism is “not a crime”,i but neither is it a “storm in a teacup”. ii At the heart of plagiarism are issues of integrity which undermine the foundations of democratic practice. I teach qualitative research methods to undergraduate students of sociology in the University of the Philippines. One of the first things students learn in...
