So the voting period for the Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards is open till today. I don’t have a book nominated, but After the Storm (Edited by Elbert Or) is up for Best Essay Anthology, and I have an essay in it. I didn’t have the harrowing experience during typhoon Ondoy that a lot of other people had, but I during typhoon Ruping in the 90s, we did experience having the roof blown off our apartment and we had to live in a pension house for a week. I could’ve written something about that in my perspective on the Ondoy tragedy, but I didn’t actually know about the anthology, and so I just posted something not-so-serious on this blog. Elbert contacted me and asked me if I wanted to include it in the anthology he was editing, and I said yes, of course — the proceeds were going to go to victims of Ondoy, after all. Two years later, I find out it’s up for a Readers’ Choice Award, and so I’ve been asking everyone to please vote for it. Again, voting period ends today, so please head on over to the voting page now and give After the Storm some love.
Society
The Filipino Freethinkers podcast has decided to, uh, relax its tone AND its hosts attempt to speak the real national language — Taglish!
Here, Red, Pepe and Margie talk about the bill by Mr. Mong Palatino recently filed and withdrawn which calls to ban religious rites from government offices.
The University of the Philippines is celebrating Pride Week 2012 from June 25-29 with forums and a film screening and a lot of other fun stuff. Join the festivities!
So, summer’s over. I suppose this really means more to people still in school than it does to those who don’t get summers off.
What it does mean to everyone in the country is that the weather is now going from “scorching hot” to “trying to drown us”.
Every year, we suffer through terrible typhoons and lose people and property (and dignity) to the floods. And year after year, no one seems to want to do anything about it. Because once the sun comes out, we forget. We complain about the heat, and we forget.
This is the statement of the Reproductive Health Network (RHAN) for Mother’s Day 2012:
If we truly love our mothers, let us prevent their dying in pregnancy and childbirth Statement of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) on Mothers’ Day 2012
On Sunday, the whole world celebrates Mothers’ Day in appreciation of the myriad contributions of mothers to families and society. Sadly, some 4,000 families belonging to the poorest and most disadvantaged, will be motherless this year, as thousands like them were the previous years. This sad reality is a testament to the lack of serious attention – beyond the rhetoric – given to government programs and social arrangements that would assure mothers’ surviving the critical act of giving life.
