goodnight & go
Manila, 2 September—This week was a good week for catching up with friends! One of my friends who is pregnant with their second kid had a gender reveal baby shower in time with her husband's birthday, and it was a blast seeing Kaia and the crew :) I didn't win the Estimate the Belly Size game a second time (kasi I keep using my own belly as reference gdi)—time for a different strategy, I guess.
So excited for Aki to come—Kaia is now an ate, and she has a brother on the way! This family is so cute. Almi did her own decor (at 7 months pregnant, ngl) including this cactus piñata. AMAZING.
Cha's photo coverage menu now includes baby showers haha.
Also good to catch brunch with these two! I love brunches. I never cared for them that much before, because they were early and as a younger person I liked ~the night life~ (my handle is literally the graveyard shift) but these days I find myself so much more functional and sociable in the mornings hehe. Maybe time to experiment with wine nights and cheese boards soon.
Late to the party: Kimi No Nawa (Your Name, 2016)
I regret missing this when it was shown at the cinemas but wow what a film. Gorgeous animation, and that twist had me hitting pause, if only to catch my breath. Jfc.
Speaking of breathtaking: What even is that fantastic OST! That melody is perfect for writing things to.
Check out the album by the Radwimps on Spotify.
While We Were Angry
What we were angry at this week, and everything else after
41 days. That's the duration of new Chief Justice Teresita de Castro's term from appointment until her retirement on October 8. (Sidenote: I still think Ana Roa of Research, who I assume provided crucial backgrounders about the career of CJ de Castro, should have been bylined as well. When will we start regarding context write-ups on equal footing as other kinds of reporting, I wonder? I think it's erroneous to assume na madali lang siya gawin since "i-goo-google mo lang naman yan, madali lang naman yan" (Unnamed editor, time immemorial), especially now that vetting the veracity and reliability of online sources, as well as database-keeping and good ol' ground research are specialized skills on their own. Anyway, this should be a tweet. Those folks are terribly underappreciated.)
Anyway, De Castro was appointed to the Supreme Court in December 2007, months after the Sandiganbayan division which she chaired convicted deposed former President Estrada of plunder (incidentally, also pardoned the same year, which is a travesty. I am still mad about that because for the conviction, I had to make a longass timeline that's about 100,000 characters long, the corpse of which is unavailable anywhere on the Internet. Ridiculous.)
She is retiring in early October, way before the deadline of filing of COCs for the 2019 elections. After seeing her vote for the burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, I have reason to be wary of her, specially considering that the dictator's son, who lost the vice presidential elections to Leni Robredo, now has a pending poll protest. Who knows what could happen until then?
Rape joke na naman. The President has made yet another controversial rape joke, this time about his own women constituents in Davao, but let's not forget he's also trying to elude speculation about his health and escalating rice prices. Smokescreen pa more.
Like Death Eaters coming out of the woodwork, this reunion of Kabataang Barangay members and Imee Marcos at the Bahay ng Alumni inside UP Diliman. Shameful. Let it be not forgotten that on this day in 1977, the body of then 22-year-old Archimedes Trajano was found dead with torture marks, days after he questioned Imee's appointment as chair of the Kabataang Barangay, the forerunner of the Sangguniang Kabataan. In her book about Martial Law, journalist Raissa Robles reads through this US Court ruling, and concludes that Imee told the court that yes, her security men did torture Trajano and that she knew about it, but that the court had no jurisdiction over it (hence, the 'none of your business'). NEVER FORGET. September is a good time to ramp up the remembrances against martial law and the dictatorship.
Bookmark recs:
How does the blockchain work? (via Medium)
The curious case of men's and women's buttons (via The Atlantic)
Storytelling as a force for social change (via World Economic Forum)
Consume anything interesting over the last few days? Reply to rec! :)