The Great Philippine Book Blockade of 2009 is one of the most sought after issues that we, as a society, faced in the recent month. Bureau of Customs are hoarding imported “uneducational ” books from January to March because of the refusal of book importers and sellers to pay the custom’s taxes. “Uneducational” books, according to the Bureau of Customs, are novels such as “Twilight”, “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings” which according to them again do not bring educational value to the readers. Apparently, the BOC is confined to the realm of hard science as the only legitimate education and making the arts and culture.

Many people were raged against this issue and felt that taxing imported books only hinder us from knowing things that are outside our boundaries. We know that the internet is already existing however most of us (including me) would still prefer to read printed materials. The quest for knowledge shouldn’t only be through one medium, the reader has the right to choose in which format he or she prefers to get information from. The BOC is being too greedy to Philippine society and they have the gall to be arrogant that they know the law. In fact, they have already been violating the Florence Agreement (United Nations Treaty) which was signed by the Philippines in 1952, stating that all nations have the right to imported information and books and other printed documents should not be taxed at all. Read the rest of this entry »

with Gasulina playing in the background

Growing up as a young girl in our society is not that easy. Culturally, there are expected behaviors a little girl should know but sometimes (or most of the time), these expected behaviors become controlling factors in our decisions in life. As we all know, different socialization agents influence us and mold us to who we are now. Socialization agents are significant people in our lives (or most likely the first individuals who we encounter as a child) such as parents, teachers and peers. Not all the time they are saying the ‘right thing’, but because of normative conditions, sometimes adolescent girls are misinformed and would think that it is the ‘absolute truth’ with no room for change. Read the rest of this entry »

I know it’s been weeks after the Eraserheads concert but I will want to do a wrap up. Until now I still have a hangover with these guys.

After the reunion concert, the Eheads Mailing list was flooded with tons of messages everyday. Actually until now, it still floods with messages. I would get 300+ unread messages everyday. Of course I wouldn’t read all of them, I try to cherry pick the topics that I want to read. So here are some of the cherry picked topics I will discuss here

So how is Ely Buendia doing?

Ely Buendia narrates to Manila Bulletin on what he felt while he was performing onstage:

“Towards the last song of the first set, I was already
feeling chest pains. Nung matapos, parang hindi na ako makahinga.
Kaya umupo ako. When we reached backstage, I was asking for oxygen
already kasi nahirapan na talaga ako huminga.”

He’s doing fine now. In fact he was already out of the Philippine Heart Center last Sept 5. His heart is 100% functioning now. He had just had his 3rd angioplasty. So all he has to do now is to rest for a few months just to be in shape. Ely’s manager, Day Cabuhat had photos of him while being released in the hospital.

( Ely with his nurses, he’s holding the Fruitcake book!)

( Ely with his doctors)

( Getting some last minute reminders) Read the rest of this entry »