Column: The meaning of Maria Ressa’s Nobel Peace Prize is ‘manang-hood’

Journalists are both the older siblings and the utility workers of democracy. Published in Rappler on December 8, 2021.

The four founders of Rappler are fondly called Manangs by the people who work with them; even some people outside work have taken to calling them that too. The term “manang” means “older sister” in some Philippine languages; its likely root is the Spanish for sister, “hermana.” (And from the Spanish for “older brother,” we may have gotten “manong.”)

But the terms are also used as a friendly honorific: They describe an older person worthy of respect. It is different from an honorific like “Gat,” which because it is ennobling (it is best understood as a title of nobility) is also estranging. Gat Jose Rizal is someone we look up to, usually from a distance; Manong Pepe Rizal is someone we know quite well, whom we can have a beer with.

The Filipino farm workers who immigrated to the United States in the 1920s and the 1930s were called manongs then, and are forever remembered as manongs now. Many of them were from the Ilocos, whose language uses the term in the sense of older brother. They were not, they could not have been, all older brothers, but they were old familiars, and deserving of respect.

But in Filipino culture, the role of the older sibling is burdened by real responsibilities; the manang and the manong are like surrogate parents, who help look after, who help raise, and in some instances who help pay for the education of, the younger siblings.

Column: No, the Far Left will not support Robredo

Two influential writers are testing disturbing messages—disturbing to those who view 2022 as make-or-break. Published in Rappler on November 30, 2021.

It has become increasingly clear to me that the national democratic Left will end up supporting another candidate for president in 2022. It won’t be Vice President Leni Robredo.

A yassified throng of clarifications immediately demands to be made. Bear with me:

1. The term “Left” has often been used in the Philippines as shorthand for national democrats; as I have written before, journalists like me have used it all too frequently to mean only the NDs, usually in reference to alliances like Bagong Alyansang Makabayan or party-list groups like Bayan Muna. But this use is not limited to journalists. It is pervasive. Even some ND leftists and their allies speak as though they, and only they, are THE Left. This is a mistake. There are other shades on the left of the political spectrum, even in the Philippines. Ka Leody Guzman, after his split from the Kilusang Mayo Uno, is a case in point.

Column: Duterte lost control of substitution circus he started

The factionalism in the Duterte ruling coalition has put President Duterte’s own post-presidency plans in jeopardy. Published in Rappler on November 15, 2021.

In the final twist to a long-running and melodramatic plot, President Rodrigo Duterte sent a representative to the Commission on Elections Monday afternoon to file his substitute candidacy for senator. But the politician who created the modern substitution circus with his presidential candidacy in 2015 seems to have lost control of the now-chaotic circus in 2021. 

Last Saturday, November 13, after a series of withdrawals and new party affiliations and substitutions among members of the ruling coalition that occupied media attention and confused the President’s supporters, Mr. Duterte issued a threat to his own daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte.

He said he had not been consulted about his daughter’s decision to run as the vice presidential running mate of ex-senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and in protest would run for vice president himself. He also said he could not support Marcos—the same politician he said more than once would have allowed him to retire from the presidency if he had only been elected vice president—because the son and namesake of the late dictator was “pro-communist.”

The President’s end-of-day decision to run for senator suggests that 1) he was not able to convince his daughter to run for President; 2) he has found a position that will help generate electoral support for both his daughter and his own candidate for president, Senator Bong Go; and 3) he will continue to have some leverage over Marcos and the Gloria Arroyo faction supporting Marcos.