Adventures of Isabel

In the latest twist of the Subic Bay Rape case, “Nicole,” the (pseudonym of the) Filipina whose accusation led to US Marine Daniel Smith’s rape conviction, has recanted her testimony and relocated to the United States.
Nicole has been through three years of absolute hell — from the incident itself, to the trial, the media circus, [...]

On February 11, the Philippine Supreme court ruled Daniel Smith, the US Marine convicted in the Subic Bay Rape Case must be handed back over to Philippine Authorities, providing the latest twist in a high-profile case that has dragged on for two and a half years.  The US Embassy, which has maintained custody of Daniel [...]

Guess where, and when, the following lines were written (in literal if not literary translation):
This unredeemed people
may perhaps succumb in the struggle,
but only its corpse
can be yoked by alien tyranny.
Yankee! If you defeat us
with the powerful weight of weapons,
you will not live happily, because you are hated
even by the air of my native land.
Yankee! [...]

I’m not entirely certain what winding mental path led me to the rectory of St. Catherine’s Church in Carcar, Cebu. Some of it has to do with reading for a course on literature of social movements in the Philippines — it was to Carcar that the Visayan revolutionary Leon Kilat went seeking reinforcements for [...]

I’ve been a bit out of the Philippines loop this past month, so I just now heard about Juana Change’s Youtube channel, which is making a huge splash in the Philippines right now (thanks Noah) — the Youtube view counts may not be all that high, but the videos have been replayed on major news [...]

More than two years after the families of two murdered human rights activists filed a complaint against the Philippine government, the UN Human Rights Committee ruled the Arroyo government is guilty of violating the activists’ right to life, and was negligent in providing remedy after they were killed.
Eden Marcellana, photo courtesy Karapatan

On April 21, 2003, [...]

From the Philippine Daily Inquirer:
Human bone in Bataan camp by Nikko Dizon LIMAY, BATAAN—Braving rains, a fact-finding team Tuesday dug up a yellow rubber slipper, a laced shirt and burned fragments of what they suspected was a human [...]

UPDATE: You can view a slideshow of the pictures below. But you’ll still have to actually visit the set to read the text.Back in June, when I first started taking pictures of the rice crisis in Mindanao, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with them. Since, for the moment, the [...]

This is a woman named Lita Midrano, who I spoke to this June, on the day rice prices broke 50 pesos per kilo in Mindanao. Midrano complained the subsidized rice provided by the National Food Authority for p18.50 a kilo was very poor quality, but she still waited in line for hours, because she [...]

View from my roof yesterday
It can be very, very difficult to get anything done when leaving the house involves wading.