BY Danton Remoto Lodestar column Arts and culture section Philippine STAR www.philstar.net The Schools for Peace is a project under the Act for Peace Programme of the United Nations Development Programme Philippines. A School of Peace (SoP) is an elementary or secondary school in conflicted areas in Mindanao. It is a school that seeks to strengthen capacities on integration and mainstreaming of the Culture of Peace principles, concepts, and values through Peace Education and Teacher Education. Mainstreaming process involves integrating peace principles, concepts and values in all subject areas, both in formal and nonformal education through the use of Enriched Lesson Plans and Peace Exemplars, or role models. As defined by the United Nations, a Culture of Peace consists of values, attitudes, and forms of behavior that reject violence and prevent conflicts by going to their root causes. The endpoint is solving the problems of conflict through dialogue and neg...

If this is not one example of the gross arrogance of power in this administration, then I do not know what is. BY Ellen Tordesillas www.malaya.com.ph Ang Pahayagang Malaya TWO days after Gloria Arroyo announced the appointment of Nasser Pangandaman as member of the reconstituted government peace panel to negotiate with Muslim rebels, the agrarian reform secretary watched as his mayor-son mauled a 56-year-old golfer and his 14-year-old son at the Valley Country Golf and Country Club in Antipolo City. While mainstream media was taking a holiday break, the blogging community was in a furious state over the brutality of Arroyo’s adviser as recounted by Bambee de la Paz in her blog (http://vicissitude-decidido.blogspot.com/2008/12/world-is-fucked-up.html) last Dec. 26. Here are excerpts from De la Paz’s blog entry on Dec. 26, 2008: "At around 1:30 PM today, at Valley Golf and Country Club, Antipolo City, Mayor Nasser Pangandaman, Jr., Mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur, his father, Sec...

BY Danton Remoto Lodestar Art & Culture section Philippine Star December 29, 2008 "Read to lead” is a soundbite that we hear more often these days. Happily for us, the National Book Development Board (NBDB), the government agency tasked with doing this, is working hard and fast to make sure that our people — especially the young and those glued to their YouTubes — would also find the time to read. But words need not be fixed just on the page. The NBDB, under the inspired leadership of executive director Andrea Pasion-Flores, has taken the act of reading into the 21st century. Proof number 1: their “Tulaan sa Tren” project in the LRT Line 2 station that runs from Recto in Manila to Santolan in Marikina. It is a take-off of the poems read and posted at the Tube (subway) of London, but who cares? In partnership with the Optical Media Board and the Book Development Association of the Philippines, the NBDB chose poems from some of the country’s best writers, asked a host of celebri...

Merry christmas to all. Including to those who send me text messages and email telling me I should not even think of running for any political office in 2010 because I will lose. Thank you. If you are so sure I would lose, then why are you and your cohorts of sleaze balls spending time and money harassing me? Because I am sure your principals -- rich but sure losers -- are having sleepless nights about their impending defeat in the 2010 elections. You cannot fool all the Filipinos all the time. We all said it even before Barack Obama came -- the time for change is not tomorrow, but now. So for the young and the first-time voters, please register and show the power of your vote in 2010. Super mega hyper thanks.

BY Danton Remoto Remote Control Views and analysis www.abs-cbnNEWS.com Dec 23, 2008 One bright spot in the bleak national landscape is the writing and production of children’s books. Recent harvest shows that the bumper crop continues, and will likely to do so in the next years. The best of these books introduce values without the leaden moral lessons and pieties that deaden one’s sensitivity. And the illustrations not only blaze but also sing! The Cat Painter by Becky Bravo, with illustrations buy Mark Ramsel Salvatus III (Adarna Books) is a witty story that teaches the importance of diversity. Miral, the chief cat painter, has decreed that cats can come only in three colors: black, white, and yellow. But one day, a playful and young angel, a painter named Rahal, comes along. He asks: “Has a cat ever been colored partly black and partly white? Or partly white and partly yellow? . . . [or] in all three colors? In brown? In grey? In stripes and patches? In spots.” With words seemingly g...

Remote Control www.abs-cbnNEWS.com It was time once again to paint the whole country pink last December 6. Occasion: the annual Pride March of the Philippine lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Filipinos at Remedios Circle, Malate, Manila. The march is organized by Task Force Pride Philippines, an organization of LGBT groups and individuals. After the march, the Miss Queen Philippines Beauty Pageant was held at 5 p.m., followed by a street party at Maria Orosa Street with techno DJs at 10 p.m. Celebration was the theme of this year’s Pride March. And as before, we are still pushing for the passage of the Anti-Discrimination Bill that I helped write in 1999, and which is still pending in the lethargic Congress, nine years after it was filed. This year’s Task Force Pride was co-chaired by Miss Sass Sasot of Society of Transsexual Women Philippinnes (STRAP) and Miss Pau Fontano of STRAP and Ang Ladlad, the national organization of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Filipinos. Chang...

EMOTIONAL WEATHER REPORT By Jessica Zafra Updated December 12, 2008 12:00 AM Philippine Star www.philstar.net Several weeks ago I got an e-mail from my former professor, Dr. Elmer Ordonez of the University of the Philippines. As one of the conveners of the annual conference of the Philippine PEN, he was inviting me to be a panelist in the second session, “Gender Issues in Literature.” I approach literary conferences with some trepidation: I am ignorant of the critical jargon, plus I’m not entirely sure what a gender issue is and whether I have one. However, this was an invitation I could not refuse. It is an honor to be asked to speak at a PEN conference, and it would be churlish to decline a summons from my thesis adviser. In my senior year, when I had to decide on a topic for my thesis in Comparative Literature, I picked my favorite writer, J.D. Salinger. It was the post-EDSA I era, and The Catcher In The Rye and Franny and Zooey were not generally considered socially-relevant nati...