The Power of Tradition

Pssst! Centro spoke with Dayang Celia H. Kiram, wife of Sultan Jamalul Kiram. In the course of conversation about the roots of the conflict in Mindanao, Dayang Celia sadly noted, that if the government merely recognized the sultanate and its structure and traditions, it would be a great help to bringing peace in Mindanao.

Death of a Mockingbird

“Remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.”

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy… but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
– Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Note to journalists

Monitoring news on both broadsheet and online sources requires us to take note of the subtleties of editorializing news content. However, there are some media practices that are downright reckless.
We speak specifically of the tendency to report on news while inadvertently affecting international policy. During the crisis on the West Philippine Sea, for instance, many reporters kept referring to it as the South China Sea, whereas our maps have mostly referred to it as the Philippine Sea. Under international law, even columns and news reports can be used as evidence of practice and thus could be taken against our claim on the area.

Trixie Cruz-Angeles: In Our Image

By Rose Beatrix C. Angeles (Trixie Cruz-Angeles)

INQUIRER.net

First Posted February 05, 2008

Religion is the opiate of the masses - Karl Marx

www.philippines.hvu.nl 

Even the most modern Filipinos will not allow two weddings in one family in the same year for fear of sukob, the belief that both couples will suffer bad, even fatal luck. To this day even city bred families send their babies or children to the hilot for unexplained fevers because of “pilay.” House moving and building are incomplete without the usual parade of cotton, rice, salt and religious figures – but only after coins have been strategically embedded into the foundations – after which, ironically, we ask a priest to conduct a house blessing.

Strangely enough, as exemplified by these house blessing rituals, we Filipinos have conscripted our Catholicism into this belief system, so that we even ask our priests to bless other mundane objects like our cars – often to the consternation of our more modern, Western-oriented priests.