Maging Makatotohanan, Hingin ang Imposible!
3 MIN READHindi imposible ang libreng sakay… Hindi imposibleng palayain ang mga bilanggong pulitikal. Maging makatotohanan tayo, manawagan tayo para sa imposible!
Read MoreAuthor: Ivan Emil Labayne
Bakit Magbubuhat? Sapagkat Bagkat-Aklat
3 MIN READCarrying the load for others, so they may rest for a while. When they are tired, we can hold down the fort. When someone gets sleepy, another takes their place to keep watch.
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Brimming with Pagkapuno, Puon 2026
3 MIN READNakapupuno ng loob, uulit-ulitin hanggang sa mga susunod na pagkakataon, mga susunod na tagpuan, itong Puon Institute noong Enero 2026. Mula sa mga nipa sa Milan hanggang sa mga ili sa Cordillera.
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Tungo sa Pagiging Huli
4 MIN READKung hindi “Tungo sa Pagiging Huli,” ganito dapat ang pamagat ng kolum na ito—nung nakaparke pa lang ito sa isip ko noong Enero, pinakamahabang buwan matapos ang hangover ng parang mahabang last week ng December.
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These Walking Characters of Kidlat, Cortazar, Eliserio, and Braga
4 MIN READDecember na kaya sumisikat na naman advisories kada araw kung gaano kalamig sa Baguio. Sarap maglakad, magpainit, magmuni tungkol sa mga nabigong relasyon, sa mga ex na isasama sa karaoke, sa mga munting kasaysayang dumidikit sa mas malaki.
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Namatayan Na ng Tatay, Naabutan Pa ng Pandemya…
4 MIN READHindi ako mabibigla kung may mga bumubulong na sa kanilang mga sarili along the lines of ‘Ano bang magagawa ng mga petition signing at protesta at programa?’ Ginawa rin yan noong Save 182, wala namang nangyari.’
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Aklat: Import-dependent, Export-oriented
3 MIN READPinupunan ng mayabong na paglahok ng Pinas as Guest of Horror sa Frankfurt Book Fair ang “export-oriented” part ng pagbabasa, pagsusulat, panitikan. Gawa tayo libro, benta natin abroad.
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Not after, but before, rallies, what happened?
4 MIN READEven before the September 21 protests, people had been marching, writing songs, and making friends while working towards social change. Of course, all these will only continue now that September 21 is over.#
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Two Happy Accidents in Elyu
4 MIN READArmed with a very specific topic in mind, I visited the library with a clear research focus, but was also open to interests that the library’s humble yet considerable offerings might inadvertently spark.
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Dear Baguio City, in Footnotes
4 MIN READBut how can footnotes help in elucidation if they are marginalized, left supine on the corner, unscreaming, fonts made tinier, inviting no engagement aside from those bored, prodigious scholars and passersby?
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Not governed: The Igorots in Ifugao, After Reading Scott (Not William Henry)
4 MIN READThe bottom line remains: the uplanders have been “less” colonized compared to the lowlanders. Geography has something to do with it, certainly, but native resistance is also a factor.
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Baguio City: Property of the USA
3 MIN READPosibleng nakita mo na yun sa trail sa John Hay, yung naghuhumiyaw na anunsyong: You may not enter. This is a property of the United States of Empire-building.
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Midland as Map
3 MIN READWith Midland, we had a map of Baguio; surely not a conventional map, “a two-dimensional thing following certain codes to signify “formal attestations of authority,” as Denis Wood defines.
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Another Sem, Another Riot
3 MIN READAt some point during the start of each semester, when we are discussing the course guide, I will call attention to Audre Lorde and her description of the learning process in the formal classroom as a riot.
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Pagsampa, Resurrection
3 MIN READAng masa ang mesiyas, says one slogan, fruity inside one’s mouth, mapang-aliw with its alliteration…. Walang mesiyas; tayo-tayo lang din ang magsasalba sa ating mga sarili.
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Panagbenga, A Dream, Panaglagip
3 MIN READWala na ako sa Panagbenga kaya magpapakwento na lang sana sa inyo kung anong naranasan niyo sa Baguio habang umuulan ng mga bulaklak at init.
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21,000 steps or so, a first week in Baguio
3 MIN READBut at least, Baguio affords the spaces and the climate and the community to think things through, let it out, walk it out on the remaining blotches of breathing pavements, away from grilled meat and machinic wheels.
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Puntod Bilang Frigate, O, Punto Para sa mga Wala Na
3 MIN READLabas na sa pagsasalita at pagsulat, o hindi na lang ang dalawang ito ang tampok sa social media. “Nililikha” na ang content, pino-post, ina-upload, nire-reshare.
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Lagkit sa Elbi, Bagyo sa Baguio, Krisis sa Klima
3 MIN READPwedeng pagbali-baligtarin ang mga nakaupo sa pwesto at wala namang ipagbabago. Hirap pa rin ang mga magsasaka; inaagawan pa rin sila ng lupa at kabuhayan.
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Teaching the Martial Law GE in a Month, A Riot
4 MIN READThis subject is not for the “indoctrination” of students, teaching them to be “anti-Marcos”—an infantilizing view, premised on the idea that students just take in whatever their teachers spew. Nor will the materials be limited to those critical of the dictatorship.
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Fantasies: Eka Kurniawan Joins EDSA People Power Mob
3 MIN READWe are now having “free” and “democratic” elections; civilization is so entrenched it can now be joked upon: we want dancing senators, plagiarizing senators, and a misogynist President.
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Giving Generously, Puon
3 MIN READIn effect, I am constantly performing the work of the anthologist in my classes. The opportunity to introduce readers to new texts, to renew their experience of texts they may have already encountered.
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Unholy Days, Contractualization, Robbing a Bank
2 MIN READThe holidaze saw my petty-b self attempting some credit card transaction for some work-related purchase for next year. In the whiteout of 12-12 sales, keeping tabs did not exactly mean multiple tabs and more.
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Mga Guro, Bumubuntong-Hininga
4 MIN READSometimes, I would read posts by teacher-friends: how education has become a privilege and yet—and so—those who are still able to have this “privilege” owe it to the people that enable what is left of subsidized, and public education. Others package as “resilience” or “resourcefulness” what are ingenious ways of coping in the face of the state’s abandonment.
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Visiting Pam, with Friends
3 MIN READFriend beams with pride at having met someone like Pam, being friends with someone like Pam, a student journalist, a layout artist, a red warrior volunteering to do medical work in the communities, a photojournalist, a red warrior.
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When I Peed My Pants, Erap Was President, and Staring
4 MIN READBy IVAN EMIL LABAYNEwww.nordis.net First of Two Parts I was not even a year old when FVR...
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60 Years, the 60s
4 MIN READ“Calendar-wise, the 2060s—apparition-like and apparently disastrous but also possibly more humane because protective of the commons—might be closer to us now than the 1960s but the latter’s spirit can never be fully exhausted, always ready to be resuscitated.”
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The Cool People I Met in Baguio
4 MIN READ“Sociology may frame ‘society’ as an abstraction, but it is in Baguio where I appreciate how ‘society’ is the way a huge patch of land becomes a mall of similar products, or the way Muslims, disposessed, have come to populate the North, commingling with Igorots, with Ilokanos, with tourists…”
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For Pam, Nearly a Year After
3 MIN READOn 8.8, there’ll be another online sale. I’m sure my friends will look at that date differently. It’s been a year since Pam; and she lives in many ways, enigmatic and sure, unspeakable yet understandable.
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Tubo: Growth? Profit?
4 MIN READWork-from-home setups blurred a number of things: the place where you poop and the place where you make presentations; the place where you feed babies and the place where you talk of infantilization and capitalism in graduate school.
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An Angel, in Session Road
3 MIN READThe inadvertent meets flesh in the report of a ruining—seemingly mundane, like journalist Frank Cimatu posting about the “tearing down [of] the WWII ruins at Session Road.” Take a look at this picture, the word “gunting,” wounding, destruction, the sharpness of your eyes.
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Pagbangon (with Help from Amy Winehouse) or Sino’ng Babagsak?
2 MIN READIn Sabado de Gloria, Gantala Press’s poetic statement of resistance against the crackdown against activists, hopefulness and determination concretized in the statement of an arrested leader, “Kahit ano’ng gawin nila, hindi tayo matatalo.”
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FPJ and Sandara, Singing Guns, Circa 1980s
3 MIN READThe gun as symbol: for something that must go with “parliamentary struggle”—human rights and legal work, lobbying and street activism, community organizing, alternative education, among others—if not something indispensable in the fight for social justice, equality-to-be-created.
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Mañanita in Session Road
2 MIN READ“On the opening of Christmas activities in ever splendid, seemingly Covid-immune Session Road, thousands flocked Session Road, locked up in their respective homes for months, lucky to have mustered will, zest, and determination to witness Christmas lights lighting up… .”
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Listening to Macliing, Through a Door
3 MIN READ“Both nondescript and unassuming, neither flashy nor flamboyant, the door from Macliing Dulag’s home is lodged there somewhere, a piece of history with hard materiality, a document not made with paper but still with elements of wood.”
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May Pulis, May Pulis, Nangangain ng Tulay
3 MIN READTumanda na tayo at ang blind fear sa mga pulis na tinuro sa atin ng mga magulang natin noon, napalitan na ngayon ng mas informed at educated na pananaw. At the very least, duda sa interes at pinagsisilbihan ng kapulisan; at most, kritika sa mismong existence nila.
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Hindi Fiction, Slightly Tungkol sa Suicide
3 MIN READ“Mahabang pasakalye para sa nilalabanan ng mga lunggati: long long lists of lost aspirations, hinahagilap pa at binibigyan ng hugis sa araw-araw na pagkilos, pamamahinga, pagsusumikap, pagpapahinga, paghinga, pagpapatuloy, padayon, padayon.”
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Ang “Bagong Bansa” ni Marcos, Hitler, Duterte
3 MIN READ“Issues that concern the nation, the country, the patria, ang bayan, ang bansa; issues that span histories in decades, centuries can hardly be resolved in the meters of a dining table; at most, they can be opened, chewed for rumination.”
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Learning, Remote: Replay, Remote, Remote
3 MIN READ“But that sense of “remote,” imbued with a passive-aggressiveness that is not pathological but mainly caused by prevailing social conditions—focused more on consumption rather than creation—does not sound better than the mis-equation remote=online.”
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Kailangan Kita: Political Version, or, Lampas sa Ikaw-at-Ako-Forever
3 MIN READ“Ngunit ang “Ingat” na kaiba sa pinasikat ni John Lloyd ay hindi rin iisa. Maaaring isa lang ang ibig sabihin nila pero magkaiba ng pinanggagalingan, magkaiba ng pagtalos at pagharap sa kalagayan.”
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Kay Pam, Nag-ayang Harapin ang Waves ng San Juan
3 MIN READ“Hindi pagtataksil o pagtatakwil sa sarili ang ginagawa kundi pagsasanib nito sa mas malawak na kilusang siya namang masalimuot na nakikilahok sa kasaysayan. Pagsasa-praktika ito ng magaganda at maaarteng salitang minsang nilalaman ng mga lathalain.”
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An Uncreative Way to Use Tarpaulins
3 MIN READ“I read a news elsewhere, apparently this terrorist-tagging in public, is being done not just in the City of Pines, but also in Davao City, the city where the Nation’s Father served Mayor for decades before joking his way into the Presidency.”
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The Smarts in TV, Last Century’s “Idiot Box”
4 MIN READ“With the explosion of data and “content”—that most encompassing of all blanket terms—it is less likely that you consume the same things, watch the same videos, or listen to the same podcasts.”
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Saludo sa mga Guro; Boo sa Sistema ng Edukasyon
3 MIN READHabang kahanga-hanga naman talaga ang ingenuity o diskarte ng mga Pinoy — nagiging mapurol ang pagsipat kung hindi nakikita ang malawakang kalagayan na nag-uudyok ng pambihirang diskarte para lang maka-survive sa araw-araw. Dumidiskarte tayo or nagpupunyagi o pumaparaan o kumakapit sa patalim hindi dahil likas sa atin na maging ganito kundi dahil sa mga kalagayan sa lipunan na nagtutulak sa ating maging ganito.
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Masculine Men in Fatigue, with Weapons, Shaking and Trembling
3 MIN READWhether the police harass or arrest or intimidate someone, it is not about age, or compassion; it is about one’s social standing and class position, one’s ideology and the work they have been doing in the past. Friends of the administration get a pass; those involved in community work, those protesting the administration’s ineptitude bear the brunt.
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Pula ang Kulay ng Likidong Dumadaloy sa ‘yo
3 MIN READSa gitna ng pandemya, nagawang mailusot ang pagpasa ng isang Bill na lalong aatake sa Pula, mas madaling pagbintangan ang isang Anino bilang Pula, ang isang sarkastikong guro bilang Pula, ang isang cultural worker bilang Pula, mga volunteers bilang Pula. At kapag na-establish na ang kapulahan ng mga Pula, mas madali na silang atakehin, supilin, tulad ng ginawa kay Jory Porquia, community organizer sa Iloilo.
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Rowing, Rocking Boats
4 MIN READHow to cut tongues: file libel cases, maliciously red-tag someone and endanger their lives, bully them into submission, brandish cyberlibel as a threat. Incidentally, the editors of Baguio papers who have been primarily responsible for me having columns in their publications are included in those harassed, powerplayed.
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On Forthcoming Rallies Under the “New Normal”
4 MIN READSurely magkakaiba ang pagdanas at pag-cope base sa iba-ibang materyal na kalagayan, social class, antas ng edukasyon, komunidad na kinabibilangan at iba pa. Ngunit lahat tayo apektado nonetheless at kailangan ng kolektibong tugon upang pagdaanan at lampasan ang krisis nang mas mahusay, with the least possible damage sa ating mental health, sa ating kabuhayan, sa ating kaligtasan, sa ating mga karapatan.
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To Finela, the One Who Left the Movie House Early, Skipping the Ending
3 MIN READThis time, it was not just a movie whose ending she missed; it was a real struggle whose conclusion is less important than those who continue acting on it, living their lives in the service of what they think is just and more humane.
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The Presence of Nanay Whom I have Not Seen
5 MIN READAside from the spooky, the manicured creepy or the relentless ghost stories common in mass media, the dead really haunt. Stripped of the terrifying connotation, this haunting can be productive; it depends on how one views death, our relationship with the dead and the kind of contact we can have with them.
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Unraveling Tales of Profit-Making in the Public Market
4 MIN READBy IVAN EMIL LABAYNE www.nordis.net The Baguio City Public Market is very enticing and...
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To Assert a Right is to Go Against the Current Order
3 MIN READThe call was crisp and clear: CHED should take an active hand in regulating tuition hikes in the region. They can do this by strictly supervising the procedures by which school administrators make their TOFI proposals.
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