tonidorsay:

widdershinsgirl:

watershedplus:

An innovative initiative is taking place in the Philippines to bring sustainable lighting to homes in impoverished communities. Empty plastic bottles are installed in the roof, filled with water and bleach they refract sunlight. These “solar light bulbs” provide light equivalent to a 55watt light bulb.

See how they’re made here. From Visual News

Damn that’s awesome.

that is awesome.

eggcheeks:

So today I accompanied my friends who are taking up Rizal class to some outing at Fort Santiago, Intramuros in Manila.

We were about to go home when my friend noticed that Joe Jonas of the Jonas Brothers was part of Carlos Celdran’s Intramuros tour.

We wanted a picture with him but we weren’t allowed to. Heh. So I took pictures of him instead. PAPARAZZI MUCH! Hahaha I have a future!!! Jk :))

Small, watermarked photos just because. :))

“The 1987 Philippine Constitution, though crafted by people who were still celebrating their freshly recovered freedom from 20 years of tyrannical rule, has not succeeded in re-distributing power from the center, which people in Mindanao, even non-Muslims, still refer to as “Imperial Manila.” Immense amount of power, including supervision over the autonomous regions and other local governments units in the country, was vested upon the president. Somehow it has entrenched even more deeply a patronage political set-up where the periphery is beholden to the center, waiting for graces from Manila to rain upon them as dogs do for scraps from their masters. And like dogs, some local chief executives sit when the president says so.”

— “Moro Liberation through Intercultural Constitutional Dialogue” — Michael Frank Alar (via napalmjoy)

napalmjoy:

Mike Finney

 May 3, 2012 at 7:19 am

Ever heard the joke about the man who was accused of killing both of his parents, and asked for leniency from the court because he was an orphan?

The Philippines demanded that the U.S. remove all vestiges of its military from their country, and the U.S. complied. Now that they are in need of military assistance, I am seeing the word “orphan” used. If in fact, the Philippines is an orphan, they may want re-examine how it is that they became one.

This comment, from the article “Is the Philippines an Orphan?” (The Diplomat, 2012) infuriates me to no end.

The Philippines has been raped, pillaged and plundered for more or less 339 years: 333 years of colonial abuse by the Spaniards, 33 years of official colonization from the USA and 3 years of brutal rule by the Japanese. The only reason why we were transferred from Spain to the US was because our own first president sold us to the USA, who has then since come back time and time again to remind us of our “historic friendship and allegiance” to them, and to put military bases on our soil as their soldiers continue to rape our women and abandon the children they fathered. Their waste goes into our waters, and some have the gall to pretend they are better than us in our own land. They put their bases here citing that we are “old friends”— we sent our soldiers to Iraq for that friendship. When we pulled out because a Filipino migrant worker was kidnapped by the Al Qaeda, Bush was so furious with our then-president Gloria Arroyo that he threatened to sever ties and we are still in the US travel blacklist as a result— an effort to prevent US citizens from coming to the Philippines for tourism. We are still on that list, 10 years later. US soldiers are currently here for the balikatan exercises in Subic, and they routinely come here for “counter-terrorism exercises” in Mindanao. We know they only want us for our “strategic location” in the Asia-Pacific region, and because this country is rich in natural resources that they would like to get their hands on. Even our foreign policy revolves around the US, which is another reason why we will not relent to China. 

We demanded the removal of US military bases because having them here felt like we were still a colony of the US, when that ended many years ago. Abuses by the soldiers, here under the Visiting Forces Agreement, pushed people to demand that they leave. We still maintain “historic close ties”, of course— but only when the US needs it. We were all taught to treat them as our saviors, but clearly the other side feels us their slaves, if they cannot even teach their people our history together and if such ignorant bastards can throw comments like the one above our way.

Killed our parent? Us, an orphan? We were abandoned in the streets to eat from the garbage of the colonial West. We didn’t kill our parent— we got out of an abusive household. And yet the shadows of abuse are still there and we remain in a chokehold. We’ve been living this way for so long but since when did anyone care about us anyway?

so, naturally, i used some reference photos, yeah? with the bicycle and the way the cyclist is supposed to be poised and my boss’s face hobvzsly (yeah guess which one i didn’t succeed in capturing very well  at all)

shit was this a pain to paint D8

it took me HOURS just to get his face done, and by the time i finished with the bike, i’d been so tired i had to cheat a bit with the background and just paste some trees on from sxc instead lol

then i plastered on some translated lyrics from KAT-TUN’s Promise Song

then we had it framed 

and he loved it, thank fuck

but 

having looked at it again just now, i suddenly realised—

I FORGOT TO PAINT IN THE BRAKE HANDLE THINGIES HOLYSHIT SO THAT’S WHY THE CYCLIST IS SPEEDING SO INTENSELY WHY THE FUCK IS HE STILL SMILING THOUGH HE’S PLUNGING INTO- HIS BIKE IS OUT OF CONTROL SOMEBODY HELP HIM OHGOD IT’S LIKE I’M THAT ONE VILLAIN FROM EVERY FILIPINO SOAP OPERA I USED TO WATCH WITH MY NANNY WHEN I WAS A KID DISARMING THE BRAKES OF THE LEAD ACTRESS’S CAR (sometimes it’s a bomb but that’s not what we’re talking about here) WHICH NOBODY NOTICES UNTIL THEY’RE GOING TOO FAST OH FUCK AND THE DRIVER’S ALL “HALA MA’AM! THE BRAKES AREN’T WORKING” AND THE LEAD GIRL IS ALL “MANONG! WHAT’S HAPPENING!” DUH HE JUST TOLD YOU WHAT, AND THE CAR’S ALL SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH AND ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM ZHWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORMMMMM AND HITS A TREE OR FALLS OFF A CLIFF. NATURALLY, THE LEAD GIRL GETS OUT ALIVE BUT THE ACCIDENT MAKES HER LOSE HER MEMORY AND SHE ENDS UP BEING PICKED UP AND TAKEN CARE OF BY THIS REALLY CUTE GUY WITH THE TRADITIONAL WOODEN PROVINCIAL HOUSE—BUT REMEMBER (you don’t remember? hoshit, you must have lost your memory during the fall too D8) THIS ISN’T THE GIRL’S REAL BOYFRIEND THE REAL BOYFRIEND’S OFF BEING FORCED TO MARRY THIS OTHER GIRL WHO’S MOST LIKELY RELATED TO THAT WOMAN VILLAIN WHO RIGGED THE CAR BECAUSE IT’S ALL PART OF THE WOMAN’S GRAND SCHEME TO REMAIN RICH AND FOR THE OTHER GIRL TO BE HAPPY BECAUSE THE OTHER GIRL IS ACTUALLY HER SECRET DAUGHTER FROM HER TEENAGE YEARS ONLY SHE’S REALLY NOT BECAUSE IT’S THE LEAD GIRL SHE’S THE REAL DAUGHTER BUT THIS WOMAN VILLAIN WON’T REALISE THAT UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE AND SHE’S ABOUT TO FALL OFF A BUILDING. WHICH THE LEAD GIRL TRIES TO SAVE HER FROM, BUT DOESN’T GET TO, OH POO. AT LEAST SHE CAN MARRY HER REAL BOYFRIEND NOW, AND MAYBE THAT CUTE DUDE FROM THE PROVINCE CAN MARRY THE OTHER GIRL IF THEY AREN’T BOTH ALREADY DEAD

…. ;A;