palamig
palamig
921 posts
joanna / 99% kyoru
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palamig · 5 years ago
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#junkterrorbill
TW: politics, police brutality
I have been absent from this website for a very long time, and a lot of devastation has happened since then. I hope everyone is doing well, and I hope all of your families are safe. As much as I’d like to be concerned about Covid, the events unfolding in my country prevent me from doing so. 
I’m a Filipino, born and raised in the Philippines. I lived in the countryside before moving to Manila for college and eventually law school. I’m on my last year as a law student, hence my absence. I’m taking the bar examination next year (supposedly this year, but due to Covid, the Supreme Court moved the exam date to next year.)
I’d like to say I’m passionate about my (future) profession. Learning the law has been nothing but enlightening to me in many ways. But things right now are making me question why we’re learning the law, when the people expected to uphold it are the same ones breaking, insulting, and abusing it. 
If you don’t already know, the Philippine Congress has passed the Anti-Terrorism Bill—a bill that will supposedly crack down on the (almost non-existent) terrorist problem in my country. The President certified this bill as urgent, and now it only needs his signature before passing into law. 
The law gives this “Anti Terrorism Council”, headed by our President and some of his closest cabinet officials, the authority to determine who is a “terrorist.” If you are suspected of being a “terrorist”, you can be arrested anywhere without a warrant, and then jailed for 2 weeks or more, without being allowed to contact anyone since the police confiscate your phones immediately upon arrest. Under our law, the police can only detain you for 3 days, after which they have to bring you to a judge. If you’re detained for longer than that, they have to pay you 500,000 pesos (or around $10,000) per day you’re illegally detained. Under the Anti Terrorism Bill, you can be detained for as long as the police want, without the police having to pay you damages if you’re detained longer than what’s legal. 
Under the law, a “terrorist” has a vague meaning: you’re a member of a non-government organization (women’s groups, organizations lead by indigenous people, etc.) that’s known for voicing out your opinions against government policies, or even if you’re just a regular person who has said anything that the government feels will “destabilize” them. They can tag you as a terrorist, tap into your phones and computers, track you down, and throw you into jail.  Worst case scenario, they can shoot you on the spot in the name of “self defense.” For regular people (who aren’t public officers), that’s 12 years to life imprisonment). All that, legal, under this law. 
The senators who are “defending” this law, are telling us that we just have to trust the law enforcement authorities. 
But the thing is, we don’t trust our police. At all. 
The Duterte administration has been notorious for red tagging. The police have been accusing innocent people of being drug pushers, and without the benefit of a court trial, shooting them dead, like wild animals, under the name of this administration. Thousands have been killed in Duterte’s infamous “war on drugs” if you’ve heard it. An author from the New York Times wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning article back in 2016 about the “collateral damage” of our country’s inhumane drug policy. Most of the victims of police brutality are people from the slums, members of the urban poor, who are barely even being paid minimum wage. Because they’re defenseless, they’re the easy and the usual targets of both this administration, and the people who support it. The worst part is, there are people out there actually happy that thousands have been killed. To them, our country feels “safer.” (All thanks mainly to our President’s propaganda). 
Just recently, a few police officers killed a retired war veteran, Winston Ragos, who they claimed was violating quarantine protocols (”violation of quarantine protocols” is their trendy new reason to justify arresting and abusing people). The killed him and claimed they did it out of self defense, even though it was five armed men against one. More importantly, Winston Ragos was mentally ill. He developed PTSD when he served the army. 
We’ve started protesting against this bill both online and physically. This morning, police raided one of our universities (University of the Philippines-Cebu) and arrested students who were peacefully protesting. Police said they were violating quarantine protocols, but couldn’t really explain what part of our COVID law they violated. What the President’s “troll army” has been trying to circulate is that these student protesters are members of the New Philippine Army, a group of communist insurgents which the government has, since the beginning of time, been using as a reason to justify military presence and abuse. They used the imaginary threat of communist insurgency as a reason to declare martial law back in 1972, and they’re using it again to abuse their power and abuse the people.  
I’d like to add that the Philippine National Police are notorious for planting evidence. But a lot of these cases are not being reported. Based on 800+ reports submitted to the UN High Commission On Human Rights, they found that policemen had been planting the same guns in different crime scenes back when they were still implementing the “war on drugs.” But because police officers are almost immune in my country (except perhaps one or two who are sacrificed to save the agency’s face), no one (at least, not in the government) said a thing about it. The rumor back then was that the police were given a quota of kills and get bonuses if they meet the quota. Animalistic. I know some high ranking officials from the national police and from the army who’ve resigned because they did not like the violent way Duterte is leading his men. 
I’m scared. We’re all scared. There is virtually no one in this government we can trust. Not in the Duterte or his cabinet, in Congress, or even in our Supreme Court (a handful of the new justices were appointed by this President). In the government, the voices of the opposition are few and far in between, drowned by the majority who are allies of the President. In the past few years, the government has made a spectacle of silencing and humiliating those who speak out about his human rights abuses.
We’ve reached the point where people actually celebrate when others are killed, humiliated, or when they voice out against injustice. They rejoiced when the government forced one of our biggest TV companies to shut down, putting thousands of people out of work at a time they need to be working and earning money. They bullied and made fun of the actors who spoke out against the shutdown. Reason for the shutdown? Simply because the TV company refused to air Duterte’s campaign ad, and chose instead to air the anti-Duterte campaign ad of an opposition senator which exposed Duterte’s misogny (he always makes rape jokes and even admitted to the media that he molested his helper when he was young) and violent tendencies. Now, they’re rejoicing at the sight of student protestors getting arrested, protesters who are disappearing without a trace. 
I’m sorry this has gotten long and complicated. So many things have happened and I can’t put them all into words, let alone in one post. And I haven’t even started talking about the fuckery that is this country’s response to the pandemic. And the even bigger fuckery that is our justice system. Philippine politics has always been dirty, but at these times, they’re at its dirtiest. They’re blatantly bending our laws to serve their own personal interests. 
For the longest time, I’ve always believed in humanity. I always tried to see the good in people, no matter how naive it sounds. But this administration, this President, has brought out the ugliest, darkest sides of humanity – and people continue to defend and glorify him.
I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe from the virus. We’re doing the best we can to defend our rights and to save our country. Please have my country in your thoughts. 
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palamig · 6 years ago
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palamig · 6 years ago
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Is it from this scene (chap 46) ? If so, we are really spoiled with this added touch <3 <3
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palamig · 6 years ago
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LMAO DREAMWORKS IS TRASH. As an Asian violinist who was excited about seeing this movie before, I just wanna say FUCK YOU. FUCK WHOEVER ALLOWED FOR THIS TO BE IN THE FINAL CUT. Dreamworks finally got the galls to make a movie starring an Asian girl and they decided to put in this Chinese imperialistic agenda against my country!! GREAT //s
For those who didn’t know: that above is the nine-dash line, a controversial and wildly false statement by China, claiming that the Eastern Sea (which belongs to Vietnam alongside other SEAsian countries) was actually their territory according to some obscure history that only they seem to remember - I wonder why. The whole thing an entire mess and a half, but it did die down some time ago. I honestly didn’t expect to see it again, let alone be reminded of it in this seemingly lighthearted family movie of a WESTERN company.
A lot of Vietnamese people are calling to boycott Dreamworks and for this, I completely understand why. They should’ve known better, there’s no excuse to this.
~Mod L
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palamig · 6 years ago
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From this:
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To this:
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Kyo said don't fuck with Tohru and he didn't stutter.
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palamig · 6 years ago
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yuki and machi
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palamig · 6 years ago
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Heeeeere we gooooo……!!!!!!!
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palamig · 6 years ago
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HHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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palamig · 6 years ago
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palamig · 6 years ago
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I looked into more of the Abominable by dreamworks plot and it's so freaking sus? Like the main character is a Chinese girl afaik? And okay. Cool! I love representation. But it's so weird that theyd put that 9 dash line there in the background like do you guys know how important this is to southeast asians ESPECIALLY to Filipinos, Vietnamese ppl and Malaysians? Like Chinese military vessels are sailing to that zone (west philippine sea/ south china sea) and arresting Filipino fishermen. Some of these fishermen even had their boat CAPSIZED, chinese sailors leaving them for dead, but fortunately rescued by a couple of vietnamese fishermen. The chinese navy even sailed to a freaking philippine island and PLANTED CHINESE FLAGS THERE. AND PUT SOLDIERS. It even came to the point that the chinese government threatened the Philippines with. Nuclear. Weapons. It was so bad we had to take this to the UN. And yes, China told the Philippine government if we even tried to mine anywhere near that sea, we will face nuclear war with them. THEY ARE POLICING OUR OWN RESOURCES.
Do not even get me started with how sus it is that this film is supposed to be about a Chinese girl taking the yeti to /Tibet/, as if the distinction between a chinese person and a tibetan isnt important. Dont watch this film.
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palamig · 6 years ago
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CHOOSE YOUR FIGHTER
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palamig · 6 years ago
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palamig · 6 years ago
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tohru in the bd specials ♡ (´。• ᵕ •。`) ♡
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palamig · 6 years ago
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“[Drawing for fun] {CP Spoilers} If you have not read the entire Fruits Basket manga please do not click the link.
Attached are the other two. Kyo comes to learn that looking ‘precious’ looks like this”
TN: to see the image, please visit this tweet and click on the link (spoilers beware!)
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“It appears that he couldn’t think about her preciousness without giving her a kiss on the nose”
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“It wasn’t so much as a kiss on the nose as it was a playful nibble……”
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palamig · 6 years ago
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Was thinking about how kyo’s mom is portrayed and how all her reasons for not letting kyo out of the house sound more like excuses that she thought out and.. I bet you it’s cause his father wanted him shut in, like absolutely no question and she did it out of fear of him not out of fear of kyo being seen
So when she tells kyo “you’re not a monster” she means it, she knows what a monster is, she married one
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palamig · 6 years ago
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fruits basket was my first anime, i watched it in 3 parts on youtube, i still love them
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palamig · 6 years ago
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