"Limang P sa Palawan"

Vida Soraya Verzosa's summer legal internship at the Environmental Legal Assistance Center in Puerto Prinsesa City, Palawan, Philippines. This was part of the Ateneo Human Rights Center's Summer Internship Program 2007. The video was first launched at the AHRC Gabi ng Pasasalamat last Aug. 24, 2007 at the Ateneo Professional Schools Blue Room.

Background audio: Interview with Ka Edong and Atty. Gerthie Mayo Anda at the DYPR radio station, "Mundo Ko 'To" radio program.

N.B. Huwag kayo maniwala sa pag-ibig na part kasi pa-cute ko lang yun.

The F word.
[first published: Pinoy Era Webzine, Vol. II No. 11, November 2007
to view the original article, click here]

At the Quezon City Jail, I conquered my fear. My four letter F word today is about that debilitating feeling that creeps into the souls of the unprepared, insecure and the distrustful: fear.

I walked into the QC jail this morning, together with the other interns of the Ateneo Human Rights Center, with a feeling of having to conquer my biases about detention prisoners. When I was first asked over the summer what sector I was totally averse to, I replied, without skipping a beat, that I disliked the jail. No matter how persuasive the presentation of the Humanitarian Legal Assistance Foundation (HLAF) was during the Basic Orientation Seminar, I couldn't get over the mental picture of menacing hoodlums tattooed all over, reeking of compounded sweat and human waste, sporting bloodshot eyes and battlescars from gang riots. Stories of how congested the jails were did...

Kitra Cahana Interview by Wayne Yang

Filed under: Film & Visual Arts, Interview — wayneyang @ 8:21 am
Source: http://wayneyang.wordpress.com/2006/10/16/kitra-cahana-interview/

Kitra Cahana is a Montreal-based photographer and student at McGill University. Her photography has appeared on the front pages of The New York Times and USA Today. She has won third place in the prestigious Pictures of the Year International for her coverage of the recent Israeli Disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

Wayne: How did you end up covering the Gaza Pullout? Did you already have magazine assignments lined up, or did you simply decide that you were going to make it your first large, self-assigned project?

Kitra: I didn’t plan on covering the Disengagement. Two months prior to the Pullout I went down to Gaza on a whim with a fellow photographer. I had a flight scheduled to go home to Montreal for the following week, but failed to show up at the airport when I realized how significant it wou...

"Art and faith are truly revolutionary, if by revolution we mean a great upheaval, a radical transformation that changes lives and the course of history toward truth and freedom."
-Julie Lluch, as interviewed by Thelma Kintanar, "Self Portraits", ADMU Press, 1999

last night, I showed my mother a copy of the CEDAW Training Manual produced by my school + UNIFEM after a long day of sembreak gallivanting. Her pleased smile belied a hidden sense of frustration, "hindi kami signatory nito, eh." She was referring to the country she was working for, one of the world's most irresponsible superpowers, if not the most gender unresponsive of them all. "Kahit gaano ko i-push sa office itong CEDAW, they believe that certain provisions on gender equality would threaten the status quo, mahirap ipasa." As the night wore on, we talked about how Islamic cultural beliefs also hindered Muslim states from adopting those controversial provisions.

The worst provision, which also leaves a heavy, squeamish feeling in my stomach, refers to abortion. Personally, no matter how much I'd like to support campaigns for reproductive health, my Christian convictions are still strongly pumping ProLIFE slogans in my conscience. Of course, Roe v. Wade was a landmark decision that...