By Conrado de Quiros
It brought to mind again something I saw in Bangladesh in the mid-1990s. We were in a village that was struggling to crawl up to the 20th century, never mind the 21st. The village prided itself with an elementary school that drew kids from neighboring villages. Most of the living quarters there were just small huts made of thatch and mud and stone, except for the principal’s which stood on hollow blocks. Useful, one of our guides said with a laugh, for when he beat up his wife. Apparently, wife-beating was fairly common there. The hollow blocks helped mute the sounds of violence and keening, which allowed the principal to keep up his high standing in the neighborhood.
Posted: January 1st, 2013 in Columnists,Columns,Editor's Pick,Featured Columns,Featured Headline,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Rina Jimenez-David
Makeup covers a lot—blemishes, age spots, pimples, and also bruises, black eyes, welts and wounds. The winning entry in the recent Avon “Speak Out against Domestic Violence Public Service Ad Competition” builds on this idea. “Makeup covers blemishes…not abuse” goes its tagline, focusing on a woman survivor of violence who attempts to cover up the physical evidence of abuse on her face and body but eventually realizes the futility of her efforts.
Posted: November 10th, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Editor's Pick,Featured Columns,Featured Headline,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
By Rina Jimenez-David
Leading the news on the first days of the New Year was the item about a former seaman working as a messenger for a government agency who shot dead his wife, mother-in-law and sister-in-law, and wounded the sister-in-law’s American fiancé.
Posted: January 5th, 2012 in Columnists,Columns,Featured Columns,Featured Headline,Inquirer Opinion | Read More »
