The Sultanate of Maguindanao and the kingdom of Buayan in upper Cotabato played key roles in ending a civil war in Brunei in the 17th century that resulted in the Sulu sultanate being rewarded a huge swath of territory called Sabah.
If we were hoping for peace in our time, 2012 did not deliver it. Conflict grew ever bloodier in Syria, continued to grind on in Afghanistan, and flared up periodically in West, Central and East Africa. There were multiple episodes of ethnic, sectarian, and politically motivated violence in Burma (Myanmar), South Asia, and around the Middle East. Tensions between China and its neighbors have escalated in the South China Sea, and between China and Japan in the East China Sea. Concerns about North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear programs remain unresolved.
Ma. Lourdes Sereno had a very interesting thing to say to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) when it was her turn to be interviewed last week. Appointing an “outsider” as chief justice, she said, was like appointing a civilian rather than a general to lead an army to war. The notion of appointing an outsider to patch up the fissures or rifts within the Supreme Court was a case of trying to solve a nonexistent problem. “What is there to heal? There is nothing to fix.
An insightful article in the March 26, 2012, issue of Newsweek reminded worldwide readers of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam on March 16, 1968, when American soldiers entered the village of My Lai and left it a few hours later with between 300 and 500 Vietnamese dead, most of them unarmed women, children and seniors. The article was illustrated with a black-and-white photograph of Lt. William Calley (the only soldier convicted of this crime, who was given a 20-year prison sentence, but was actually released after three and a half years of house arrest!) and a horrendous color photograph of the bodies of slain women and four toddlers sprawled on a dirt road.
The sound of what seemed like thunder wakes me up at 3 a.m., Monday, a few hours after I arrived in Damascus on my mission to assess the situation on the ground as head of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Overseas Workers’ Affairs. Storm coming, I think, and my jetlagged brain plunges back to sleep.
Is any story worth risking a life for? Journalists grapple with that question whenever they find themselves in a place or situation where their duty to the integrity of their reportage also means putting their lives on the line. To seek the truth and report about it sometimes mean butting heads with those who’d find such truth-telling injurious to their own interests—not least, say, the well-armed government of a country desperate to hide from the world the oppression and violence it imposes on its unarmed citizenry.
Last Monday my favorite FM station, dwBR, to which I’m tuned in from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m (every day!) featured on the “Twin Blast” portion (the same song rendered by two different artists) of the afternoon program “Musical Souvenirs” my favorite choral groups, the Norman Luboff Choir and the Cascading Voices, singing one of the most romantic and beautifully poignant songs ever composed for popular music, “I’ll Be Seeing You.”
MELBOURNE—The Western Pacific is currently facing a difficult problem: how to accommodate China’s rising aspirations in a region where the United States has held primacy since the Cold War’s end. Is the US determined to maintain dominance in the Asia-Pacific region? Or is it willing to operate through multilateral forums that allow all involved parties [...]
For those who share an interest in understanding violent conflicts, whether as students of war or as peace activists, the Philippines represents a paradigmatic case. After all, this country is home to two of the longest-running violent conflicts in the world, a feat that may well yield a reference in an academic database or the [...]
July 28, 2011. Five of the seven Marines, who were killed during a battle with Abu Sayyaf bandits in Sulu, were beheaded. Twenty-five other Marines were wounded. Dec. 14, 2010. Two days before the Christmas cease-fire, 10 Army soldiers were killed in an encounter with communist rebels in Northern Samar. A 9-year-old boy was killed [...]
Now is the time to give our support to President Aquino’s stand for all-out justice, and not all-out war. It is human nature to react violently to a sudden loss or defeat. But what happened to the 19 soldiers in Al-Barka and others does not justify any call for revenge and more bloodshed. An all-out [...]
Private First Class Roberto Ricafranca was one of three Ricafranca brothers in the Philippine Army. He was 32, and was a sharpshooter for the Philippine Army’s 4th Special Forces Battalion. His wife Rhea had planned on attending his graduation from scuba diving class. His cousin Alex is part of the 12th Special Forces Company.
