The Wheel and Axle

Nowadays, approximately 95% of the time, I avoid the comments section (and consequently, the engagement info) of politically-charged articles because I value my health. The amount of toxic idiocy on Facebook public “areas,” in particular, is astounding. More so when it comes to political articles I write, I try not to look at the comments lest I engage and then get the urge to bludgeon the nearest available moron.

A recent article I wrote for Esquire apparently got about 16.5K shares as of this writing (one of my folks at work sent me a message about it). Not bad. It did kind of pull me in a bit to check what sort of engagement it was getting. Surprisingly, most were positive and agreed with my piece, although as expected there were a few morons here and there.

(continue reading…)

It’s become glaringly obvious that the grossly unqualified are invading politics and government. Take this cretin, for example: Trump’s pick for the USA’s environmental advosor.

(continue reading…)

So as of yesterday afternoon, Uber Philippines is back in business, having succumbed to the extortion of the LTFRB.

As a follow-up to the ongoing TNV saga, here we have the Spectacular Shriveled Man of the LTFRB showing just how truly tone deaf he is.

(continue reading…)

The consumer in me will be happy if Uber goes back online this coming week given that the insidious LTFRB has already given the recommended fine for lifting the one-month suspension.

You know, just a mere and very sane 190 Million Fucking Pesos.

But the responsible citizen in me thinks they should give Shriveled Man and his sidekick Nostril Girl the middle finger and just serve the remainder of the suspension period. There’s only about two weeks left anyway, and if that’s what it costs to defy institutionalized extortion, I can – as a consumer – live with it.

(continue reading…)

Photo courtesy of Lagablab

Despite having been scheduled for interpellation numerous times, the Anti-Discrimination Bill still remains pending in the legislative.

And why is this so?

Certain members of the Senate have deliberately caused the delays.

One particular senator, in fact, has even had the gall to proclaim that he is an ally of the LGBT community. He used us for PR by posting on his Facebook, during Pride Month, that he supported us. And yet, to this very day, every time the bill is scheduled for interpellation, he leaves and/or disappears. The most recent one, I’m told, is that he disappeared but was discovered to have just been in the lounge. Such a blatant display of abuse of power is disgusting.

(continue reading…)

Meme Credits: Change Scamming. Also, he should quit politics, too, and just go away.

A recent article from Esquire Philippines, published the day before the Pacquiao/Horn boxing match, posits that Manny Pacquiao still deserves our respect, at least respect for him as a boxer if not as a politician or whatever new persona he’s decided to pursue (preacher? basketball player? who knows what’s next?).

Perhaps if this were the year 2008 and Pacquiao still had not said and done all the things he has managed to say and do in the last few years.

But alas, it is 2017, and we cannot discount everything that Pacquiao has contributed (or not contributed) to our country’s socio-political climate since then. We cannot discuss him in a vacuum when the cultural discourse surrounding him has radically changed because of his own appalling words and actions.

(continue reading…)

Yesterday, being a member of Babaylanes, Inc. (the alumni organization of UP Babaylan), I joined a meeting of various LGBT groups and allies. A number of these groups were part of the umbrella LGBT network Lagablab, including my two aforementioned orgs, although there were also plenty of representatives from non-Lagablab groups. There were also non-affiliated individuals. We all had one goal.

The meeting was held as a forum on what we as a community can further do to lobby support for the Anti-Discrimination Bill. As I’d previously noted, this important piece of legislation has been in congress for some time now, and the most recent version is the furthest the bill has made it so far. Of course, this being Philippine politics and all, interpellations kept on getting delayed and delayed until Congress went on hiatus in March.

(continue reading…)

Yesterday, I joined a panel of bloggers and social media personalities in a Facebook Live broadcast of Senator Risa Hontiveros. Facilitated by Peruvian-Asian gay celebrity Sebastian Castro and supported by Atty. Jazzy Tamayo of Rainbow Rights, the “Bekitaktakan” was centered around the Anti-Discrimination Bill (ADB), a piece of legislation that would provide protection for a very vulnerable segment of Philippine society: the LGBT community.

The ADB has been languishing in legislation limbo for almost two decades – or at least, the ADB in various forms. The current version is the one that has made it the farthest so far, with a couple of interpellations left after congress went on recess earlier this week. (I shan’t comment further as to the reasons why it got delayed again lest I start throwing large, electrically-live appliances around the room in frustration.)

(continue reading…)

I came upon a recent article shared by James Deakin regarding the MTRCB seeking to regulate internet movies.

No, they weren’t talking about porn, which the government has also tried to suppress under the pretense of stopping child abuse – not thinking the banned sites are mainstreams that have stringent policies against child porn while those that feature such horrendous practices are in the darkest recesses of the web and difficult to access (never mind that there are tons of lesser-known porn sites still accessible and that Filipinos easily circumvent online bans).

But I digress.

No, this time the MTRCB is targeting legitimate and legal pay-for-play subscription-based streaming channels – unnamed, but presumably Netflix, iFlix, Amazon Prime Video, HOOQ, and the like. Their reasoning?

(continue reading…)

Let’s do Taglish para mas intense!

—

Warning: actual facts and sources cited, so kung fact-resistant ka, baka lagnatin o magkarashes ka sa post na ‘to. Uminom ka muna ng Bioflu o anti-histamine before daring to read.

Para sa mga bobong uninformed at hindi marunong magresearch:

1. Ferdinand Marcos did sign a 13th month pay decree on 16 December 1975… but this applied only to employees who were earning less than Php1,000.00 a month at that time.

(continue reading…)