A Note on Freedom: Independent, But Still Becoming

A Note on Freedom: Independent, But Still Becoming 

 Issued on the 126th Anniversary of Philippine Independence 

June 12, 2025 

 This is a note—not a declaration. Not a decree. Simply a note, offered quietly from the folds of a nation’s heart. 

 The Philippines is an independent country. That much is fact. The flag was raised, the anthem sung, the colonizer’s rule ended. On paper, sovereignty was secured. But even now—over a century later—there remains a quiet truth that cannot be silenced: this country is still fighting to become a nation that truly determines its own path. 

 What is independence without dignity? Without agency? Without the power to shape policy, economy, and identity on its own terms? 

 There is freedom, yes—but it is partial, conditional, and often borrowed. For all the beauty of its islands and the strength of its people, the Philippines still struggles under the weight of foreign dependence and domestic inequality. Its seas are encroached upon. Its workers are shipped abroad. Its resources, extracted. Its decisions, too often shaped by interests beyond its shores. 

 And so this note speaks—not to celebrate with fanfare, but to remind with quiet resolve: sovereignty is not a single moment, but a continuous motion. 

 It is in the rice farmer asking for fair compensation. In the student demanding education that liberates. In the worker who stays not because they must, but because they choose to. In the leader who serves the flag, not their own pocket. 

 It is easier to say that the Philippines is independent. Easier still to celebrate it in parades and fireworks, with the illusion that the matter is settled. But a harder truth shadows the page: for all its legal sovereignty, the nation often behaves not like a republic charting its own course, but like a cultural community waiting for permission—beholden to the very powers it once defied. 

 Unlike Taiwan, which despite isolation chooses self-definition and stands firm in the face of pressure, the Philippines too often trades resolve for reassurance, policy for patronage. It invokes democracy while deferring to interests that neither vote here nor suffer the consequences of their influence. It speaks of people power, yet waits for others to validate its direction. At times, the question echoes uncomfortably in the national conscience: is the Philippines truly a sovereign state—or has it accepted a softer identity, closer to that of a postcolonial Puerto Rico, where the forms of freedom are present, but not its full weight, nor its responsibility?

 This is not to condemn, but to call. Independence must be more than an inheritance; it must be a decision remade every generation. A republic that forgets how to act as one may find itself adrift—not colonized, but not fully free either. So let this June 12 not mark a finish line, but a call to continue. Let it remind every Filipino—at home and abroad—that independence is not merely about being free from something, but about being free for something: for justice, for truth, for dignity, for nationhood that is lived, not just proclaimed. 

 And if that journey is uphill, then let it be climbed with the same courage that once lit the fires of revolution. This is the note. It is not loud. But it is clear. 

Loose Sand or Rising Soil? - The Filipino’s Search for a National Soul

Loose Sand or Rising Soil?

- The Filipino’s Search for a National Soul

On the 126th anniversary of Philippine independence, the nation pauses to celebrate its freedom. Flags wave proudly, speeches echo in city halls, and parades march with rehearsed precision. Yet beneath the surface of festivity lies a question that time and symbolism have never truly resolved: has the Filipino people grown into their freedom—or merely worn it like an inherited costume? 

A century ago, in 1924, Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat Sen observed with brutal honesty that his people, despite their ancient civilization, lacked a national spirit. “They are just a heap of loose sand,” he said. A people divided, vulnerable, and carved up by outside forces. “Other men,” he lamented, “are the carving knife and serving dish; we are the fish and the meat.” It was a chilling metaphor of a country consumed by others because it could not yet stand for itself. 

Today, observers look at the Philippines and see troubling parallels. For all its modern trappings—the skyscrapers, digital infrastructure, and globalized lifestyle—the country remains haunted by old patterns. Power continues to serve entrenched elites; poverty lingers despite decades of development plans; and the national will, if not absent, remains easily fragmented by regionalism, patronage, and personal ambition. 

Like China once was, the Philippines too often appears as an appendage to the interests of others—both local and foreign. Pretentious agreements are signed in glittering rooms, while unjust deals rob the nation quietly in the background. The majority of the population benefits little from the promises of trickle-down economics. Instead, they survive on the margins, in the shadow of a system where opportunity is too often inherited rather than earned. 

To some, this is not a new observation. The early 20th-century writer Miguel Lucio Bustamante described the Filipino character in extremes: the simple farmer content with his carabao and land, and the educated man who, after schooling in Manila, returns to the province full of arrogance, only to bring misfortune upon his household. In both cases, what is absent is ambition for the nation—a larger purpose beyond self, family, or class. 

Despite access to modern education, global networks, and democratic space, the Filipino often remains hesitant to build a cohesive national vision. There is pride in culture, but little unity in direction. Protests are loud but fleeting; elections are passionate but cyclical. The country exports its best labor to care for others abroad, while struggling to uplift its own. 

To compare the Philippines to early 20th-century China may seem harsh—perhaps even accusatory. Yet such comparison is not meant to shame, but to awaken. Sun Yat Sen’s words were not a resignation but a call to transformation. China, after all, did not remain loose sand. Through immense hardship, ideological struggle, and a vision of collective destiny, it forged a new path, however contested or imperfect. 

The Filipino question is therefore not one of capability, but of will. What binds the fisherman in Leyte to the student in Makati, the teacher in Bukidnon to the caregiver in Milan? Where is the national spirit—not as performance, but as daily commitment? What is the dream that unites, not just entertains? 

Too often, it seems, the Filipino identity is reactive—proud in moments of crisis, loud in moments of scandal, but quiet in the long, hard work of nation-building. As a result, the country remains vulnerable to external manipulation, internal exploitation, and generational fatigue. 

And so the central question endures—this Independence Day more than ever: Will the Filipino remain this way? 

Will the people continue as a heap of loose sand—dispersed by every gust of scandal, every wave of imported influence, every political tide? Or will they, at last, become rising soil—solid, fertile, capable of holding a nation’s weight? 

True independence is not merely declared. It is cultivated. 

And the time to cultivate it is now. 

THEY STABBED JUSTICE IN THE BACK!

THEY STABBED JUSTICE IN THE BACK!

In the stillness of night, behind curtains of privilege and velvet impunity, eighteen senators have laid their daggers not only into the Constitution—but into the throat of the Republic itself. 

 They were summoned by duty. They responded with betrayal. They were called to trial. They chose surrender. 

 They have abdicated their role as judges, and embraced the robes of accomplices. They did not follow the Constitution—they abandoned it. They did not seek truth—they extinguished it. What was demanded was judgment. What they offered was complicity. 

 The Constitution said: FORTHWITH. Not RETURN. Not DEFLECT. Not DELAY. And yet they’ve said: “Let the House reconsider.” “Let the next Congress decide.” “Let the courts handle it.” They pass the burden like cowards pass blame. In doing so, they have not only betrayed the people—they have dishonored the very meaning of law. 

 They hide behind procedure like tyrants hide behind banners. 

 And let this note speak clearly: this is no procedural motion. This is a political consolidation. It is the Senate surrendering itself to the Duterte faction. It is the Senate preferring silence over scandal, subservience over struggle, treachery over truth. 

 “Audacity, more audacity, always audacity!” cried Georges Danton before the National Convention in 1792, when the French Republic itself was in peril.[¹] That is what justice demands in times of crisis—not this Senate’s pale cowardice. Danton was calling the people to rise against kings. We call now the people to rise against traitors in suits. 

 And when Robespierre declared, “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant,”[²] he foresaw what is now being done to us: the suffocation of political memory, the erosion of constitutional obligation, the silencing of the Republic’s conscience. 

 What the Senate has done is not a failure of deliberation. It is a betrayal of people's trust. And through this process is what the Constitution was meant to preserve: a peaceful, principled mechanism for removing those who abuse power. The vice president is accused of high crimes. Instead of proceeding to trial, the Senate slammed shut the doors of judgment and told the people to wait—to forget—to move on. 

 The people will not forget. 

 Tonight’s vote proves that the powerful do not fear guilt—they fear exposure. They do not fear the law—they fear the people watching them uphold it. 

 Let it ring from every rooftop and every street: this is not procedure. This is a putsch in slow motion. This is a crisis in legislative disguise. 

 They did not vote. They stabbed. 

 And the wound will not close—not until the people rise, not until the voice of justice drowns the whispers of cowardice, not until those who worship power are exiled from the temple of democracy. Let justice roar—not whisper. Let the people rise—not wait. Let the traitors tremble—for the Republic remembers. 

 REFERENCES: 

 [¹] Georges Danton, speech to the National Convention, September 2, 1792: “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace, et la Patrie est sauvée.” (“Audacity, more audacity, always audacity, and the Fatherland is saved.”)

 [²] Maximilien Robespierre, speech to the Convention, 1793. The quote is often paraphrased as: “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” (See: Robespierre: Political Writings, Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, 2007.) 

LOUIE JALANDONI, 90

 LOUIE JALANDONI, 90 

February 26, 1935 – June 7, 2025 

By Kat Ulrike

 It is with profound revolutionary mourning that the passing of Luis "Louie" Jalandoni is announced. A stalwart of the Filipino people’s struggle, a diplomat of the downtrodden, and a beacon of internationalist solidarity, Ka Louie passed away peacefully at 9:05 a.m. on June 7, 2025, in Utrecht, the Netherlands (3:05 p.m. Philippine time). He was 90 years old. 

 In his final moments, he was surrounded by his lifelong comrade and beloved wife Ka Coni, family members, and comrades forged across decades of struggle. His departure marks the end of a historic era—but not the end of the movement to which he devoted his entire life. 

 Born on February 26, 1935, on Negros Island, into a family of landlords and sugar barons, Ka Louie broke from the privileges of his birth. His political awakening came not through theory alone but through contact with sugar workers and peasants in the Visayas. He chose the difficult road of struggle over the comfort of inherited wealth. 

 As a Catholic priest, he served under the Church in the Barrios program, ministering to the poor in the countryside. This path would bring him to a deeper understanding of structural injustice—and into the heart of the people’s movement. He was a founding figure in the Christians for National Liberation (CNL), a courageous group of clergy and religious workers that stood in firm resistance to the U.S.-Marcos dictatorship.

 In 1972, Ka Louie joined the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The following year, the CNL became a founding allied organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). As Marcos declared Martial Law, Ka Louie went underground, aligning his life permanently with the revolutionary cause. 

 In 1973, he and Ka Coni were arrested and imprisoned at Fort Bonifacio. For nearly a year, Ka Louie was held in a dark, airless cell, crammed with six or seven others. But repression could not silence the movement. Campaigns by religious and international human rights groups led to their release in July 1974. 

 Exile followed, but not retreat. In 1976, facing renewed threats, Ka Louie and Ka Coni were granted political asylum in the Netherlands, becoming the first Filipinos to receive such recognition. From there, a new phase of struggle began. In 1977, Ka Louie was named international representative of the NDFP, tasked with building solidarity networks, exposing the crimes of the dictatorship, and articulating the vision of national liberation to the world. 

 In 1989, he became the chief negotiator for the NDFP in peace talks with the reactionary Philippine government. In every round of negotiations—from Cory Aquino to Duterte—Ka Louie held fast to the movement’s line: peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice. His work at the negotiating table was never a retreat from struggle, but an extension of it—firm, principled, and unwavering. 

 He endured the collapse of talks, political betrayals, arrests of consultants, and state perfidy with calm resolve and dialectical clarity. Never once did he compromise the integrity of the people’s demands. His commitment to a just peace remained unshaken until the end. 

 Ka Louie’s contributions—diplomatic, strategic, moral—cannot be overstated. He stood as one of the most enduring figures of the Filipino people’s revolutionary history: a priest who became a militant, a detainee who became an exile, and an exile who remained forever bound to the people he served. 

 His life reminds all that to commit to revolution is to surrender not hope but illusion. His death is a loss—but also a legacy. What he helped build cannot be buried. What he stood for continues to rise.

 Ka Louie Jalandoni lives on—in every clenched fist, in every barrio meeting, in every principled stand taken against tyranny. His memory strengthens the movement that shaped him and that he, in turn, helped shape. 

In Memory of José “Pepe” Mujica: A Comrade Among Comrades

In Memory of José “Pepe” Mujica: A Comrade Among Comrades 

When the world learned of José “Pepe” Mujica’s passing, it did not just lose a former president of Uruguay. It lost a living example of what public service truly means. Mujica was not a perfect man. But in a world riddled with self-serving leaders and political theatre, his life was a quiet revolution—a reminder that humility, simplicity, and solidarity with the masses are not just virtues of the past, but imperatives for the present. 

For those unfamiliar, Mujica was once a guerrilla fighter, a political prisoner who spent more than a decade in jail—much of it in solitary confinement. Yet he emerged from that darkness not with bitterness, but with a deeper conviction to serve. As president from 2010 to 2015, he refused the grandeur that came with office. He donated 90% of his salary to social causes, drove a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle, and lived on a modest flower farm with his wife. He wasn’t acting. He was like that. 

Ramon Magsaysay, the late Filipino president, once said: “Those who have less in life should have more in law.” Magsaysay became a symbol of integrity in public service in post-war Asia. But if we are to speak plainly and bravely, Mujica might be the fuller realization of that ideal. Where Magsaysay was a statesman, Mujica was a comrade—among comrades. He did not just talk about the poor; he lived among them, listened to them, and acted on their behalf. He did not ride convoys. He walked through muddy streets. He did not speak of austerity; he practiced it with devotion. 

Critics often tried to label him—socialist, leftist, even communist. But Mujica never governed for ideology’s sake. If so, then he is, by all means. People have grown used to leaders who separate the economy from society—who offer shiny promises and deliver empty reforms just to secure another term. Mujica’s leadership wasn’t that. Call him leftward—but only if that leftward meant forward. If it meant social justice, dignity for the many, and solidarity as policy, then that speaks louder than any slander hurled against him. Labels fall flat in the face of lived principle. 

His policies on healthcare, education, civil rights, and redistribution were not radical—they were humane. His goal was not to shift Uruguay leftward, but to move it toward fairness and dignity. In that direction, he reminded the world that servant leadership is not a relic of the past, but a moral necessity. 

In mourning Mujica, we must not merely praise the man—we must carry forward the challenge he leaves behind. Will our leaders choose humility over hubris? Will they measure success not by GDP or prestige, but by dignity and compassion? Will they, like Mujica, recognize that public office is not an entitlement but a burden—a burden meant to be carried in the service of others? 

Mujica often said, “I’m not poor. Poor are those who need too much.” It is a line that exposes the moral poverty of those who hoard power and privilege. And it calls us—citizens, leaders, institutions—to a deeper reckoning with what governance is really for. 

Pepe Mujica is gone. But his legacy is not. It lives in every young person who dreams of a gentler politics. In every worker who believes in justice. In every act of kindness done not for applause but out of principle. He showed us it’s possible to lead without ruling, to serve without taking, and to love the people not just in theory, but in truth. 

The world will remember Mujica as a president. But history should remember him as something rarer: a comrade who never forgot his place among the people. 

Rest in power, Pepe. Abrazo Fuerte, Venceremos! 

Of 'Perks' over 'Principles' in the age of De-Democratisation

Of 'Perks' over 'Principles' in the age of De-Democratisation 

Introduction: Voting in the Age of Simulation 

Democracy is often treated as the crowning achievement of modern civilisation, a system in which the people choose their leaders and direct their collective destiny. But for a growing number of citizens in the post-industrial West, democracy no longer feels like a choice—it feels like a chore. Voting, once an expression of political agency, now resembles a loyalty program: you participate for the perks. Where no incentives are evident, many opt out. 

This is not simply apathy. It is symptomatic of deeper structural decay—a collapse of meaning within democratic rituals, and the growing suspicion that power resides elsewhere. From a hyperrealist point of view, politics has become a simulation of choice, democracy a stage play in which the outcome is pre-written. 

The Spectacle of Hyperreality: A Postmodern Lens 

French theorist Jean Baudrillard argued that in a world saturated by media and symbols, reality itself is displaced by simulations. In Simulacra and Simulation (1981), he wrote: “We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.” This insight is painfully apt in contemporary politics, where political action is mediated through spectacle, spin, and screen. 

Campaigns focus on aesthetic performance. Politicians are not policy-makers but branded personas. Voting becomes a symbolic gesture rather than a substantive act. Political discourse is reduced to viral moments, image management, and emotional manipulation. Participation is encouraged not through principled appeals, but through targeted perks: stimulus cheques, tax credits, identity affirmation. 

The result is a de-politicised populace, exhausted by contradiction, alienated from real choice, and drawn into a theatre of the absurd. Change becomes a branding slogan, not a political process. 

Lenin on Bourgeois Democracy and the Illusion of Choice 

Vladimir Lenin, writing more than a century ago, anticipated much of this spectacle. In The State and Revolution (1917), Lenin made a withering critique of bourgeois democracy, calling it “the best possible shell for capitalism.” Parliamentary systems, he argued, give the illusion of popular control while real power remains with the ruling class. 

Lenin wrote:

“To decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to repress and crush the people in parliament—such is the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism.” 

He called it a system designed to “stupefy the masses,” perpetuating the idea that change can come through voting, while insulating real levers of economic and coercive power from popular interference. 

Today, this critique resonates with the disillusioned voter who sees the same economic interests fund every party, the same policies dressed in different language, and the same elites recycled through revolving doors between government and industry. In this light, abstention is not irresponsibility—it is clarity. 

Lenin would not have been surprised by this turn. He argued that real political consciousness does not arise spontaneously from participation in bourgeois democracy, but through struggle outside and against it. This view sharply contrasts liberal optimism about democratic reform. For Lenin, meaningful political action begins where the illusion ends. 

Neoliberalism and the Marketisation of Citizenship 

The political spectacle coexists with another, more insidious transformation: the neoliberal recasting of individuals as market actors, not citizens. Wendy Brown, in Undoing the Demos (2015), describes how neoliberal rationality colonises every sphere of life. Governance becomes management; politics becomes economics by other means. 

Citizens are now consumers of policy packages, not co-authors of the social contract. Voting is reframed as customer feedback. “What’s in it for me?” replaces “What’s right for society?” This logic encourages instrumental participation: people vote for immediate benefits—unemployment checks, student loan forgiveness, tax breaks—rather than visions of justice or solidarity. 

This marketisation of politics reinforces Lenin’s argument that bourgeois democracy serves to protect property, not to empower people. The state becomes a manager of capital’s interests, ensuring social peace through minimal redistribution and maximum control. 

De-Democratisation and Post-Politics 

This convergence of spectacle and neoliberal governance produces what theorists like Colin Crouch and Chantal Mouffe call post-democracy or post-politics—systems that retain democratic formalities but lack substantive contestation. 

Crouch, in Post-Democracy (2004), writes:

“A small, self-reproducing elite increasingly decides the issues of public policy, and the role of the mass of citizens is to accept the choices made for them.” 

Mouffe adds in The Democratic Paradox (2000) that consensus-based politics strips away ideological difference, creating a sterile public sphere dominated by technocracy. Political participation is reduced to a performance within tight boundaries; real alternatives are excluded. 

Under such conditions, elections are like reality television—drama, voting, but no real consequence. As Zygmunt Bauman argued in In Search of Politics (1999), “Power has become extraterritorial… while politics remains local.” The nation-state becomes a stage with actors, but no real scriptwriters. 

Hyperrealist Defiance: To Vote or Not to Vote? 

What, then, should the hyperrealist voter do? Is abstention surrender or resistance? 

From a Leninist angle, abstention from bourgeois democracy can be the beginning of radical consciousness, not its end. It is the recognition that politics must move beyond electoralism. Lenin believed that revolutionary energy was born not in parliament, but in workplaces, streets, and autonomous organisation. 

In hyperrealist terms, refusing to participate in a simulated democracy is not apathy—it is a rational act of refusal. It is the rejection of participation in a system that rewards submission with illusion. This view contrasts sharply with liberal commentators who equate non-voting with civic decay. In truth, it may signal the early stages of political reawakening. 

But defiance must not stop at withdrawal. Without organisation and direction, disengagement devolves into nihilism. Here again, Lenin’s emphasis on political education and vanguard organisation becomes relevant. If political consciousness does not arise spontaneously, then the task is to build spaces where people can connect their lived experiences to structural critique. 

Conclusion: Reclaiming Politics from the Real 

To reclaim democracy, we must go beyond the spectacle. That means rejecting the shallow incentives of electoral loyalty and demanding a system where power is genuinely accountable to the people—not to shareholders or lobbyists. 

It means restoring politics as a collective project grounded in solidarity, not individualised consumerism. It means recognising, with Lenin, that the forms of democracy can obscure its absence, and with Baudrillard, that symbols can seduce us into complicity. 

The hyperrealist voter is not the end of politics. They are its ghost—haunting the ruins of representative democracy, waiting for something real enough to believe in. 

 *** 

 Works Cited:
• Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. Semiotext(e), 1981.
• Brown, Wendy. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Zone Books, 2015.
• Crouch, Colin. Post-Democracy. Polity, 2004.
• Lenin, Vladimir. The State and Revolution. 1917.
• Lenin, Vladimir. Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. 1920.
• Mouffe, Chantal. The Democratic Paradox. Verso, 2000.
• Streeck, Wolfgang. How Will Capitalism End? Essays on a Failing System. Verso, 2016.
• Bauman, Zygmunt. In Search of Politics. Stanford University Press, 1999.
• Žižek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. Verso, 2010.  

A White Cassock Against A Wounded Ego: The Trial of an American Pope

A White Cassock Against A Wounded Ego:

The Trial of an American Pope

No one says it outright in the vaulted hush of the Sistine Chapel during and after the conclave, but the tension hangs there like incense after vespers: the anxious murmur of a Church now shepherded by a North American pope. 

It isn’t a question of intellect, piety, or polish. Americans have those in abundance. No, the concern lies deeper—less a matter of theology than of temperament. The ghost of Leo XIII lingers still, whispering caution about the spirit of Americanism—not merely its democratic ideals, but its deeper sensibility: that blend of optimism, rugged individualism, and market-friendly morality that turns faith into personal branding and doctrine into a sales pitch. The founding promise—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—has, in many circles, become a slogan emptied of soul and pressed into the service of property, profit, and privatized virtue. Once a vision of human flourishing, it is now, too often, a license for exploitation. And so it is not the people’s freedom that concerns the Church—but what has been done in its name. 

Yet now, with no small sense of irony, the Holy See has elected Leo XIV—American by birth, Peruvian by citizenship, Augustinian by formation, but most notably, one who matured not in Washington, but in the highlands and barrios of Latin America. 

That final detail matters. For the empire that bore him also sent him far from its imperial heart. Before the curia, before the cameras, Pope Leo was in the margins—preaching with the latinos in Peru: from the Jesuit colleges of Bolivia to the Campesinos of Peru, understanding the language of the have-nots, the tounge of those mostly who end disenfranchised and deported from their adopted lands. Such experiences would say are not taught in Boston or Chicago: the quiet speech of suffering, the catechism of dispossession, the dialect of dependency and dashed hopes- and these are not lessons one forgets, even when the white smoke billows and the world cheers. 

Still, the burden of his passport remains. His vowels, though softened by years abroad, still mark him as a son of the United States. That fact trails him into every chamber, colors every pronouncement. He is not simply the Bishop of Rome; he is, to some, the Pope from the Pentagon. For a Church that has long struggled to define itself apart from worldly powers, this is no small predicament. The fear is not that he will speak as a pope—but that he will be heard as a president. 

Meanwhile, the specter of Trumpism still lingers—its rallying cry, “Make America Great Again,” echoing through airwaves and pulpits alike. But the greatness it conjures is thin and brittle, offering little to the average Joe or Jane. It is a hollow ideal, wrapped in a patchwork of distorted nationalism, fortified borders, and the vilification of migrants—fueled by a marriage of white grievance and borrowed Christian vocabulary. These voices claim to uphold conservative values, yet remain conspicuously silent on the “matters of the stomach”—the cry for living wages, affordable housing, and dignity for the working American. Pope Francis challenged this vision directly—speaking not of walls, but of bridges; not of markets, but of people; not of Wall Street, but of the Amazon and the favela. But Pope Leo cannot merely echo that legacy. He must translate it. He must speak not from the outside looking in, but from within the very system that formed him. And that is far more difficult. 

And in these turbulent years—years of not forgetting the Capitol Riots, threats of ICE versus documented and undocumented migrants, and Elon Musk preaching "efficiency" at the expense of the programs America needs—the notion of an American pontiff carries freight. One cannot ignore the image of America abroad: proud, ascendant, but also bruising. From Tarriffs and statements versus the global south people know what American policy has meant. And it is not surprising that there are people who can recall missionaries who came bearing both Bibles and intelligence. That remember dictators and juntas quietly blessed by clergy or that of clergymen and laypeople who took arms and siding with the oppressed and the needy. And they will not easily forget. 

It is not surprising, then, that Pope Leo meets opposition not just from skeptics in Rome but from critics within his own homeland. For some, he is too much the outsider—too concerned with migration, poverty, and foreign wars. They would rather he keep to spiritual matters, like any respectable evangelist, and leave the questions of war, borders, and human dignity to diplomats and generals. They demand a pope who stays in his lane. Abortion, yes; Gaza, no. Conscience, yes; capitalism, off-limits. But Pope Leo seems not to have read their memo. And so the charge is made: that he is meddling, politicizing, even betraying his station. That he is, in a word, inconvenient. 

Not surprising, either, are the voices of those who clutch tradition in one hand and silence in the other. These are the Christians who cry out for pomp but go mute on poverty. Who would prefer a pope crowned and carried aloft in the sedia gestatoria than one speaking plainly about war and wages. They extol reverence while shunning reform, dreaming of another Pius whose obstinacy preserved antiquated orders, forgetting the living truth: ecclesia semper reformanda est—the Church must always be reformed. They babble with pride, “Roma locuta; causa finita est,” as if Rome’s speaking were always final, even when the world bleeds anew. 

Some even mimic that curious sermon once offered by a British prime minister—Thatcher’s “Sermon on the Mound”—that tried to confine Christianity to private virtue while leaving “matters of the stomach” to the invisible hand of the market. They forget—or perhaps never learned—that Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum did not emerge from marble halls but from the cries of workers, coal-streaked and overworked, asking whether the Church had ears. 

As an observer, it is hard not to notice the irony. These “Christians” moralize just enough to make the exploited seem dignified, yet never enough to challenge the system exploiting them. They blur the line between private and personal property when it suits them, yet fail to distinguish between the mom-and-pop shop and the monopolies that hollow out towns. The community is subordinated to the market. Humanity becomes not a neighbor, but a demographic—or worse, a statistic. 

Under this pressure, Pope Leo wears two garments. One is visible: a white cassock, stitched with centuries of ritual, hope, and humility. The other is invisible, yet ever present: the American identity, with its privileges, contradictions, and shadows. He cannot shed either. But he can choose which one he serves. 

If he allows his memories to shape him—the voices of the poor, the faces of the forgotten—then perhaps his Americanness becomes not an inheritance but a wound. Not a badge, but a reckoning. And perhaps only such a wounded pope can speak honestly to a wounded Church. 

He could then speak of peace not as abstraction, but as confession. Of justice not as theory, but as repentance. He could reject the fantasy that the Gospel can share a bed with domination. He could remind the faithful that the Church was not born to accompany empire, but to exorcise it. 

There will be calls for balance, for restraint. He will be tempted to preserve unity at the expense of truth. To temper his witness for the sake of comfort. But the Church is not suffering from too much courage. It is starving from too little. 

The crucified do not speak in the language of empire. They speak in wounds. And if Pope Leo dares to do the same—if he risks being misunderstood, reviled, even betrayed—then perhaps he will not merely be remembered as the first American pope. He will be remembered as a true one.  

“A Shepherd for Justice and Mercy: Welcoming the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV”

“A Shepherd for Justice and Mercy:

Welcoming the Pontificate of Pope Leo XIV”

9 May 2025 

With joy and solemn hope, this note welcomes the election of Pope Leo XIV, a son of Saint Augustine and a member of the Augustinian Order, as the successor to the Chair of Saint Peter. 

On behalf of the people, this note extend our heartfelt prayers and aspirations for his pontificate. We trust that Pope Leo XIV will carry forward the spirit of Pope Francis’ transformative leadership—a papacy marked by tenderness, mercy, and radical inclusion, especially toward the marginalized and the poor. As Pope Francis taught in Evangelii Gaudium, “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel” (EG, 114). 

Rooted in the Augustinian tradition, which calls us to seek truth in community and to place justice and charity above all personal ambitions, we pray that Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate may deepen the Church’s commitment to the pursuit of the common good. Saint Augustine once said, “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” In our age, where inequality and division continue to wound human dignity, we are in need of a pontiff who will proclaim boldly, like the prophets of old, the justice of God. 

In the spirit of Pope Leo XIII, whose groundbreaking encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) laid the foundation for modern Catholic social teaching, we hope that Pope Leo XIV will be a resolute advocate for the working class, for just labor, and for structures of equity that reflect the dignity of every human person. Pope Leo XIII reminded the world: “It is neither just nor human so to grind men down with excessive labor as to stupefy their minds and wear out their bodies” (Rerum Novarum, 42). 

May the new Holy Father also draw inspiration from the words of the prophet Micah: “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) 

And from Christ Himself, who proclaimed in the synagogue: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor… to let the oppressed go free.” (Luke 4:18) 

In this light, may the people pray that Pope Leo XIV will lead the Church toward a renewed embrace of the Gospel tenets of mercy, solidarity, and the inviolable dignity of all peoples. May he amplify the cries of the earth and the cries of the poor, as urged in Laudato Si’, and shepherd the faithful toward a deeper encounter with the God who is love. 

May his pontificate be marked by peace, courage, and a prophetic voice, echoing the pastoral wisdom of the Church’s tradition and the cry of a world yearning for healing. 

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) 

Ad multos annos, Pope Leo XIV.

Viva Il Papa!

 

The Market Is Not a God: Why the Next Pope Must Not Be a Capitalist Chaplain

The Market Is Not a God: 

Why the Next Pope Must Not Be a Capitalist Chaplain

When a recent headline declared that “The next pope should be more accepting of free markets,” it said more than its authors likely intended. On the surface, it appears to offer a reasonable suggestion, perhaps aimed at balance or pragmatism. But beneath the headline lies a deeper message: that the Catholic Church should retreat from its critique of economic injustice, stay in its lane, and offer spiritual comfort while the gears of capitalism turn untouched. 

It is, in effect, a call to neuter the prophetic voice of the Church. And to those who insist on such a shift, one must ask: is one seeking a pope or a portfolio manager? 

The Push for a “Safer” Pope 

The call for a “safer” pope — one more palatable to Western powers, more deferential to capitalist orthodoxy, and more “neutral” in tone — is not just a superficial preference for style or personality. It is a deeply political demand, cloaked in the language of decorum and doctrinal purity. It seeks not merely a return to a less confrontational papacy but a redefinition of the Church’s moral compass in alignment with dominant global systems.

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has broken from many conventions. His papacy marked a shift from the Eurocentric, institutionally rigid Vatican to a more pastoral, globally conscious leadership grounded in the lived realities of the poor and marginalized. As the first Latin American pope and a member of the Jesuit order — itself long associated with critical intellectualism, social justice, and missionary work in the Global South — Francis brought to the papal office a voice formed not in the salons of Rome but in the barrios of Buenos Aires.

His critiques of the global economy have been especially stark and unapologetic. In Evangelii Gaudium, the 2013 apostolic exhortation that effectively set the tone for his pontificate, Francis declared: “An economy of exclusion and inequality... such an economy kills.” He denounced a system that worships profit over people, that disposes of human beings as easily as plastic waste, that sanctifies unfettered growth while entire populations remain hungry and displaced. This is not merely rhetorical flourish; it is theological indictment. He challenges not just policies but the idols of modernity: consumerism, materialism, and the false salvation promised by the invisible hand of the market.

To Western elites — in politics, finance, and even some corners of the Church — this has been disquieting. The myth of the market as benevolent and morally neutral is one many have built careers defending. The narrative that capitalism, especially in its neoliberal form, is inherently good because it lifts people out of poverty is repeated so often that to question it feels almost heretical in secular political discourse. Yet Francis does precisely that — and he does so not from a Marxist manifesto, but from the Gospel.

Thus, the desire for a “less political” pope is, at its core, an effort to blunt the Church’s prophetic edge. It is an attempt to reduce Christianity to a therapeutic faith of personal piety and moral platitudes, rather than a revolutionary force that speaks truth to empire. Such a vision of the Church is less a beacon of the Kingdom of God than a chaplaincy for the global order — a quiet hand resting on the shoulder of power, offering comfort without challenge.

To ask for a pope who is “more accepting of free markets” is to ask for a dilution of Catholic social teaching — a tradition that, from Rerum Novarum to Laudato Si’, has always insisted that economic systems must serve human dignity, not the other way around. It is to prefer compliance over conscience, institutional calm over moral clarity.

Ultimately, this tension reflects a deeper question: What is the role of the Church in the world? Is it to accommodate the prevailing powers, or to challenge them with the radical call of the Gospel? Pope Francis has made his answer clear. And it is precisely because of that clarity — because he has refused to be a "safe" pope — that some now long for a return to the papacy as an ornament of power rather than its critic.

Faith as Private, Economics as Untouchable

At the heart of the push for a more “market-friendly” pope is a dangerous dichotomy — one that has long haunted Christian discourse. Religion, we are told, should concern itself with “faith,” narrowly defined as personal piety, inner peace, sacraments, and the afterlife. The Church may speak of sin, but only the private kind. Economics — wages, wealth, power, poverty — are to be left to the “experts,” as if they lay outside the reach of moral critique.

This logic is best captured by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who once declared, “Christianity is about spiritual redemption, not social reform.” The implication is clear: the Church’s role is to save souls, not question systems. It may offer charity, but not critique. It may comfort the afflicted, but not confront the structures that afflict them.

But this division is not biblical. It is ideological. And it is profoundly un-Christian, and un-Catholic.

Christ did not preach a disembodied faith. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, blessed the poor, and denounced the rich — not merely for their wealth, but for their indifference. He warned that one cannot serve both God and Mammon (Luke 16:13). He overturned the tables of the money changers (Matthew 21:12–13), not because he misunderstood economics, but because he understood morality. His teachings were soaked in economic language: debts, wages, vineyards, harvests, landowners and tenants, generosity and greed.

The early Church, too, lived out this integration of faith and economics. In Acts 2:44–45 and 4:32–35, we read that the believers “had everything in common” and distributed to anyone as they had need — not as a utopian ideal, but as a manifestation of the Kingdom of God breaking into the present.

This vision did not end with the apostles. It was carried forward by Catholic social teaching, beginning in earnest with Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum (1891), which upheld the rights of workers and the duties of employers, warning that unchecked capitalism reduces laborers to “mere instruments.” Pope Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno (1931) went further, calling for a restructuring of the social order to promote justice and solidarity.

Pope John Paul II, while more cautious in his embrace of markets, warned in Centesimus Annus (1991) of the danger of capitalism becoming an ideology — a system that treats human beings as consumers and labor as a commodity. The market, he said, must be evaluated not by profit margins but by how it serves the dignity of the human person.

Pope Benedict XVI, in Caritas in Veritate (2009), emphasized that the economy must be guided by an “ethics which is people-centered” (§45). Without this, markets “collapse,” and globalization becomes a “grave risk” to the most vulnerable.

Pope Francis has made this tradition unmistakably clear. In Evangelii Gaudium (2013), he warned against the “absolute autonomy of markets” and decried an “economy of exclusion” that “kills” (§53). In Laudato Si’ (2015), he linked environmental destruction to the same economic logic that exploits labor and discards the poor. And in Fratelli Tutti (2020), he lamented how neoliberalism offers “magic theories of ‘spillover’ or ‘trickle’” that never materialize, urging instead a politics of fraternity and care.

So when some insist that Christianity ought to stick to “spiritual redemption” and leave “social reform” to others, they do not defend orthodoxy. They defend comfort. They reduce the Gospel to therapy and strip it of its prophetic force. Christianity is not merely a message of personal salvation. It is a summons to conversion — personal, yes, but also structural, social, and political.

To demand that the Church ignore the economy is not neutrality. It is complicity.

The Global Church vs. the Prosperity Gospel 

This comparison between the global Catholic Church and the prosperity gospel movement in the Global North reveals not only a theological divide but a civilizational one — between two competing visions of what it means to be Christian in a world riven by inequality, displacement, and consumerism.

Critics of Pope Francis and the institutional Church often seize on moments of financial scandal or lavish spending as proof that the Vatican — and by extension, Catholicism — is hypocritical, out of touch, or morally compromised. Indeed, the Church is not immune to corruption; it is composed of human beings, and its vast global footprint has at times enabled abuse of power and fiscal mismanagement. But this critique is often weaponized in bad faith, failing to distinguish between the Church's institutional complexity and its deeper moral and pastoral mission.

The Catholic Church is not merely a religious symbol; it is a sprawling global network of infrastructure that provides humanitarian support in places most governments and NGOs will not go. Catholic charities are often first on the ground in conflict zones, disaster areas, and refugee camps. Church-run hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and schools sustain life for millions who have no access to state or market-based services. These operations require funding. They necessitate real estate, investment portfolios, logistical networks, and yes, bureaucracy. These are not luxuries — they are lifelines. The Church’s wealth, when directed faithfully, is not accumulated for ostentation, but mobilized for mission.

This is a world apart from the theology of the prosperity gospel, which has metastasized in certain corners of evangelical Christianity, particularly in the United States, parts of Latin America, Africa, and increasingly, Southeast Asia. The prosperity gospel teaches that God rewards faithfulness with material wealth — that if you pray harder, believe more deeply, and tithe generously, you will be blessed financially. Conversely, poverty and illness are framed as signs of weak faith, spiritual failure, or divine punishment. This theology turns suffering into a moral defect and transforms pastors into celebrity CEOs.

It is no coincidence that this ideology has flourished in neoliberal economies that celebrate consumer choice, self-optimization, and entrepreneurial hustle. In such a context, the market is not just tolerated — it is divinized. Megachurches become architectural spectacles of excess, and televangelists preach abundance from private jets. This version of Christianity doesn’t challenge systemic injustice; it baptizes it. It tells the rich they are righteous and the poor that their struggle is their own fault.

When critics call for a Church that is less critical of capitalism and more focused on individual piety, they are, whether knowingly or not, gesturing toward this prosperity-driven theology. They want a faith that soothes the conscience without disturbing the system. But Catholicism, at its best, refuses this trade-off. It insists that salvation is not a product and that dignity is not contingent on wealth. From the Sermon on the Mount to the encyclicals of modern popes, Catholic social teaching has offered a radical alternative: that the measure of a society is how it treats its poor, that the economy must serve the common good, and that faith means solidarity, not self-enrichment.

The critics of Francis are not just critiquing a man or a policy shift — they are resisting a theological stance that threatens their comfort. They want a pope who confirms their worldview, not one who disrupts it. But the Gospel has always been disruptive. And if the Church is to remain faithful to it, then it cannot serve both God and mammon.

The Question of Race and Power 

The question of race and power within the Catholic Church — and within the broader backlash to Pope Francis — is one of the most underexamined yet fundamental dynamics at play. Though couched in theological or economic language, many of the criticisms leveled at the current pontificate are deeply entangled with issues of cultural supremacy, postcolonial anxiety, and discomfort with the shifting center of global Christianity.

For centuries, the image of the Church — especially in the minds of many in the West — was synonymous with Rome, Latin liturgy, and European intellectual tradition. The papacy itself was overwhelmingly Italian or at least European, with each successive pope seen not only as a spiritual father but as a steward of a civilizational legacy rooted in Greco-Roman thought, European art and philosophy, and colonial-era missionary expansion. Even as the Church’s missionary activity grew in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the Vatican remained the symbolic and administrative “head,” while the rest of the world played the role of recipient.

This legacy of Eurocentrism, though often unspoken, continues to shape the expectations of what the papacy should look like, sound like, and stand for. The elevation of Jorge Mario Bergoglio — a Jesuit from Argentina with Italian roots but Latin American formation — disrupted that narrative. His style was immediate and striking: shunning luxury, emphasizing humility, centering the peripheries, and advocating for those who have long lived under the heel of colonial and economic domination.

Francis didn’t just change the tone; he changed the lens. He began speaking not just about the poor but from the perspective of the poor. He foregrounded the voices of indigenous communities, defended migrants in motion across continents, and challenged ecological destruction not as an abstract issue but as a form of violence against the global poor — those who suffer first and worst from climate catastrophe. He invoked not the logic of empire, but the tradition of the prophets.

For some, particularly in the Global North, this has been profoundly unsettling. It is not simply that Francis talks about justice, but that he reframes whose pain matters. He shifts the center of moral gravity away from the marble halls of Europe and toward the barrios, the favelas, the refugee camps. In doing so, he disrupts a long-standing association between whiteness, Westernness, and theological authority.

This is where the politics of race and power come into sharp relief. When critics bemoan Francis’s “politicization” of the papacy, they are often reacting to the fact that the voices he uplifts — indigenous leaders, African theologians, Latin American campesinos — do not mirror the racial or cultural identity of the traditional Church elite. The discomfort is not just about what he says, but about who gets to speak.

And yet, this shift is not an aberration; it is the inevitable unfolding of the Church’s own claim to universality. Catholic means universal — not culturally uniform, not Western by default, but open to the whole world. In truth, the demographic center of Catholicism has already moved decisively southward. The most vibrant communities of faith, the highest rates of vocations, and the most active grassroots ministries are now found in places like the Philippines, Nigeria, Brazil, and Mexico — not France, Germany, or Italy.

To cling to the idea that the papacy must reflect “Western values” is to deny this reality. It is to imagine the Church as a cultural museum rather than a living, breathing community shaped by the needs and experiences of its global flock. Worse still, it is to implicitly suggest that leadership from the Global South is somehow less legitimate, less sophisticated, or less faithful — a belief rooted not in theology but in the racial hierarchies inherited from colonialism.

Francis’s papacy, then, is not simply a theological project. It is a geopolitical and cultural one — a deliberate re-centering of the margins, a challenge to the old order that once dictated not only who speaks for the Church, but who it speaks to.

In refusing to return to the comforts of Eurocentric orthodoxy, Francis is inviting the Church to become what it has always claimed to be: a communion of peoples, not empires; a home for the dispossessed, not a fortress for the powerful; and a global body where every voice, no matter how small or dark-skinned or distant from Rome, is part of the chorus.

Again, What Kind of Pope Does the World Need? 

The world today does not need a pope who comforts the powerful. It needs one who consoles the broken, confronts the unjust, and refuses to make peace with systems that exploit. The next pope should not be chosen to flatter free markets or signal ideological alignment. He should be chosen because he understands the radical call of Christ: to lift the lowly, scatter the proud, and proclaim good news to the poor. 

Or should say: "A Prophetic Church, Not a Compliant One". As the modern world, riven by inequality and ecological devastation, is in desperate need of moral clarity. In such a context, the papacy cannot afford to be neutral. The next pope must be chosen not for his ability to placate financial elites or soothe geopolitical anxieties, but for his willingness to bear witness — even at great cost — to the radical message of the Gospel.

As Pope Francis reminds us in Evangelii Gaudium (2013): “Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills.” (§53)

This is not rhetoric for its own sake. It is a theological judgment: an unjust economic system is a form of violence, and the Church must say so without apology. The next pope must continue — or deepen — this prophetic stance, lest the Church forfeit its soul for political expediency.

Perhaps, 'right' is the Conservatives, that the Church serves as 'conscience', not chaplain- for there is a dangerous temptation to reduce the Church to a ceremonial role in global capitalism — to make it a provider of moral cover for wealth accumulation, deregulation, and the quiet abandonment of the poor. But this is precisely the danger modern popes have warned against.

In Centesimus Annus (1991), Pope John Paul II — no enemy of markets, but no worshiper of them either — wrote: “It is not the Church’s task to propose economic and political systems or programs... but she does have the right and the duty to offer a moral judgment on economic and social matters, when the fundamental rights of the person or the salvation of souls requires it.” (§43)

The role of the Church is not to validate the status quo, but to scrutinize it. It must not become the chaplain of the global market — blessing its winners and ignoring its victims — but rather its conscience: unafraid to indict systems that produce exploitation, environmental ruin, or human despair. Markets can serve the common good — but they must be directed toward it. Left unchecked, the market becomes a false idol, promising salvation through consumption, meaning through status, and redemption through growth. The next pope must reject this idolatry, as his predecessors have done.

In Laudato Si’ (2015), Pope Francis is unequivocal: “The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose.” (§55)

The market, then, is not evil — but it is not holy either. It is a tool, not a god. The moment it becomes the measure of moral worth or divine favor, it demands a rebuke from the Church. The next pope must never act as its priest.

A Gospel for the Lowly: For A Dangerous Pope for Dangerous Times

The criteria for choosing a pope must not revolve around geopolitics, market friendliness, or cultural nostalgia. The next pope must be someone who understands that Christianity is not a philosophy of accommodation but a revolution of love — one that lifts the lowly, scatters the proud, and fills the hungry with good things (cf. Luke 1:52–53, the Magnificat).

This calling echoes through the encyclicals. In Populorum Progressio (1967), Pope Paul VI declared: “The hungry nations of the world cry out to the peoples blessed with abundance. And the Church, cut to the quick by this cry, asks each and every person to hear his brother’s plea and answer it lovingly.” (§3)

The next pope must embody this urgency — not merely for optics or diplomacy, but as a matter of salvation history. For the world does not need a cautious pope, a market-friendly pope, or a Western-pleasing pope. It needs a dangerous pope — dangerous to systems of exploitation, to economies that commodify, to ideologies that sanctify wealth while scapegoating the poor.

Such a pope would not comfort the powerful. He would console the broken, challenge the indifferent, and refuse to bless the machinery of profit over people.

The Church must not be a chaplain to Mammon. It must be its living contradiction.

For in the end, the market is not a god.

And the next pope must never be its priest.

Not Quite Asian, Not Quite Pacific Islander—Simply Filipino

Not Quite Asian, Not Quite Pacific Islander—Simply Filipino

Every May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, a quiet but persistent question surfaces: where do Filipinos truly belong?

Often, Filipinos are defaulted as “Asian.” At times, they are categorized as “Pacific Islander.” Yet, truthfully, neither label carries the full weight of their identity. Both feel incomplete—borrowed, imposed, or imprecise. Increasingly, a quiet assertion rises with growing clarity: Filipino is neither. Filipino is its own.

This is not a rejection of solidarity or kinship with other Asian or Pacific Islander communities. It is, rather, a call for clarity—a reclamation of an identity shaped not just by geography, but by empire, migration, revolution, and survival. The Filipino is not a convenient racial subtype. The Filipino is a category in itself.

While the Philippines sits in Southeast Asia geographically, its history diverges sharply from many of its neighbors. Where other Asian nations trace continuous dynastic lineages or ancient monarchies, the Philippines endured over three centuries of Spanish colonial rule, followed by half a century of American occupation. This legacy shaped a nation that feels, in many ways, closer to the Iberian tropics than to Confucian East Asia or the oceanic rhythms of Polynesia.

The Filipino carries the imprints of this history: Catholic festivals layered over Indigenous rituals; animist tribes adopting Spanish surnames; Muslims side by side with Christians; Indigenous folks intermingling with the Lowlanders; Mestizos fraternizing with the locals; American slang threading through local dialects. Lowlanders and Indigenous peoples forged shared customs under the pressure of colonial demands. There is no singular language, no monolithic ethnicity, no uninterrupted tradition. Instead, there is mestizaje—a constant mixing, an endless becoming.

Given these experiences, it is no exaggeration to say that the Filipino is an Iberotropical being. A hybrid soul forged in the tropical crucible of conquest and resistance. As Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos described in La Raza Cósmica, the destiny of humanity may lie in the fusion of races—not as erasure, but as synthesis. In many ways, the Filipino is one of the earliest incarnations of that cosmic race. The roots may be brown, but the branches stretch across continents—bearing the burdens of empire, but also the beauty of transformation.

This colonial legacy lives on—in language, faith, architecture, dress, music, and governance. It created a cultural reality that feels at once native and foreign, familiar and dissonant within broader Asian frameworks. In fact, Filipino identity often aligns more deeply with colonized nations in Latin America than with East or even Southeast Asian nations that maintained longer stretches of indigenous governance. These comparisons are not romantic—they are rooted in the shared traumas of conquest, conversion, and mestizaje.

And yet, Filipinos have long been misrecognized. If one may ask: how, truly, are Filipinos seen? Some call them “the Latinos of Asia.” Others, more crudely, have used racial slurs like the “Asian n-word”—a reflection of the discrimination they’ve faced as darker-skinned, working-class migrants, often relegated to invisible service roles. Even within diaspora communities, Filipinos are sometimes deemed “too Americanized,” “too Western,” or “not Asian enough.”

Such designations—flippant, racialized, or outright derogatory—reveal the failure of existing categories to account for the Filipino experience. Filipino identity does not fit neatly into mainstream definitions of “Asian” or “Pacific Islander.” Over time, it has become both—and neither.

So the question is no longer about fitting in, but about owning that mestizaje—this convergence of brown skin, brilliant mind, and unbreakable spirit—and directing it toward sovereignty. Not just political sovereignty, but cultural and psychological sovereignty: the power to define oneself. To speak from the center, not from the margins of someone else’s framework.

Even within the AAPI umbrella, Filipino narratives remain peripheral. AAPI representation too often leans East Asian—focusing on tech leaders, academic excellence, or tidy immigration success stories. Pacific Islander narratives tend toward land-centered indigeneity, often rooted in anti-colonial resistance. Filipino stories float somewhere between—too Western to be native, too native to be Western—often sidelined, rarely centered.

But Filipinos have built nations. They’ve fought wars, scrubbed floors, raised children across continents, and led revolutions back home. They speak over 150 languages. They carry a shared memory of occupation and a deeply ingrained instinct for endurance. Still, in global media and academic discourse, they remain underrepresented. In the Western imagination, they are often reduced to domestic workers, dancers, nurses—rarely thinkers, artists, architects of their own destiny.

This omission is not accidental—it is structural. The marginalization of Filipinos stems from a long history of colonial erasure. The United States colonized the Philippines before Filipinos ever immigrated en masse. They were U.S. nationals before they were immigrants. They served in the U.S. Navy, labored in California’s fields, and raised generations of American children. And yet, the American racial imagination struggled—and still struggles—to place them. Too brown to be Asian. Too Westernized to be Indigenous. Too colonized to be sovereign.

To be Filipino today is to embody contradiction with grace. To live at the intersection of reverence and resistance. To curse in Spanish, pray in English, and move to the rhythms of precolonial gongs. It is to carry the heartbreak of diaspora and the burning hope of homeland. It is to look in the mirror and see not confusion, but plurality—a living testament to everything survived, and everything still possible.

The world may try to define the Filipino in halves: half Asian, half colonial, half Catholic, half native. But the deeper truth is this—the Filipino is whole. Whole in complexity. Whole in contradiction. Whole in becoming.

And that wholeness needs no apology. It demands recognition—not as an asterisk to Asian identity or a footnote in Pacific politics.

Both and Neither as Asian and Pacific Islander

Just Filipino.

And that is enough. 

The Enduring Call of May Fourth: Idealism Grounded in Reality

The Enduring Call of May Fourth: Idealism Grounded in Reality

In a world dominated by rapid technological advancement, consumerism, and fleeting pleasures, the voices of past youth movements might appear distant, even irrelevant. In the face of modern distractions, it’s easy to dismiss the aspirations and calls for change that once seemed so radical. However, when considering the enduring legacy of the May Fourth Movement, it becomes clear how its message still resonates today, offering valuable lessons that remain remarkably relevant. 

The May Fourth Movement: A Fruit of Idealism?

The May Fourth Movement of 1919, born out of discontent with foreign imperialism, political corruption, and the failure of China’s leaders to protect national sovereignty, was far more than just a protest. It represented a profound assertion of national identity—a rallying cry for a generation determined to reshape their country’s future. Primarily led by students in Beijing, the movement spanned political, cultural, and intellectual spheres. It sought to reject outdated traditions, revitalize national pride, and embrace modernity through education, science, and reform. The youth of that time were unwilling to accept the status quo; they wanted change, and they wanted it urgently. 

This idealism was not an abstract fantasy borne from imagination—it was a direct response to the circumstances of a continuing past. It was an idealism rooted in the lived reality of foreign exploitation, political stagnation, and the erosion of national pride. The youth of the May Fourth Movement understood that change could not simply be wished for; it had to be fought for, and it had to come from within. Their pursuit of truth, justice, and national dignity was shaped by the very injustices they experienced. For them, the movement was both a rejection of the old ways and a call to construct a better future. Theirs was a brand of idealism grounded in the harsh realities of their time. 

The Significance of May Fourth in an Age of Consumerism 

In a modern world increasingly shaped by consumerism and individual pleasure, it may seem easy to dismiss the calls for reform as idealistic fantasies. The world has changed drastically since 1919. Globalization, digital technologies, and interconnected economies have brought both immense benefits and new complexities. Today, young people are often swept up in the pursuit of wealth, status, and instant gratification, while the louder voices of consumer culture overshadow calls for social justice, intellectual engagement, and meaningful change. 

However, it is precisely this consumerist mindset that makes the lessons of the May Fourth Movement all the more crucial. If education is reduced to the simple ability to read, write, and count, its deeper purpose is lost. True education is not just about accumulating knowledge—it is about developing critical thinking, seeking truth from facts, upholding what is right and just, and challenging the status quo when it fails to serve the greater good. In this sense, the youth of today must recognize that their role is not merely to exist in this world but to engage with it, to actively shape the future. 

The Enduring Relevance of Youth Idealism 

What the youth of the May Fourth Movement understood—and what is still true for today’s generation—is that ideals matter. While many might consider such ideals naive or impractical in an increasingly cynical world, history repeatedly shows that meaningful social, political, and cultural changes begin with idealism. The youth of 1919 wanted a better, more equitable China, free from foreign exploitation and internal corruption. They wanted to redefine their national identity and their future. Though their journey was filled with struggle, their impact is undeniable. Their efforts contributed significantly to the shaping of modern Chinese history, spawning waves of intellectual and political reform. 

For today’s youth, facing challenges such as climate change, economic inequality, political polarization, and social injustice, the call for idealism remains just as relevant. Although the world may seem more complex and interconnected than it did in 1919, the fundamental issues—justice, equality, and a better future for all—remain the same. The tools may have changed—social media has replaced physical protests—but the urgency for change and the fight for a better world persist. 

Conclusion: The Path Forward 

Education, at its core, is about more than simply learning the basics. It’s about cultivating a deeper understanding of the world, asking difficult questions, and taking responsibility for shaping the future. Today’s youth must recognize that they inherit a legacy that demands they not only be educated but also be engaged, active, and bold in their efforts to create positive change. The spirit of the May Fourth Movement offers a living reminder that idealism can spark transformation. 

In this sense, the fruit of idealism—often dismissed as naive or impractical—is a powerful force capable of challenging the status quo and forging new paths forward. As the world faces unprecedented challenges, the lessons of the past, especially the courage and determination of the May Fourth Movement, serve as a touchstone for any generation willing to dream of a better world. It is not enough to simply exist in the world; young people today must strive to seek truth, uphold justice, and work towards a future that honors those ideals, just as the youth of 1919 did.  

MAY DAY 2025: THE PAST CONTINUES, THE STRUGGLE INTENSIFIES

MAY DAY 2025: THE PAST CONTINUES,

 THE STRUGGLE INTENSIFIES

Every year on May 1st, the world marks International Workers’ Day—a date born not from celebration, but from struggle, sacrifice, and the blood spilled on the streets of Chicago in 1886. It is a day when the working class rises not to ask, but to demand; not to commemorate in silence, but to speak in thunderous unity. 

In the Philippines, the condition of labor in 2025 is a reflection not of progress, but of the enduring rot at the heart of the system. Beneath the spectacle of growth and modernity lies a reality of hunger wages, precarious employment, union suppression, and government indifference. The capitalists speak of a “new Philippines,” but for workers, it is the same old order—oppressive in form, exploitative in function. 

Automation, digitization, and globalization are dressed as innovations, yet serve the same purpose: to deepen inequality, to render workers more disposable, and to concentrate wealth and power in fewer hands. Workers are told to be patient, to be resilient, to be grateful—while they bear the weight of a society built on their backs. 

But this May Day, the working class is not content to wait. They do not beg. They march, they organize, and they resist. 

With a unified voice, Filipino workers declare: ₱200 wage increase, legislate it now. End contractualization. Uphold the right to unionize. Justice, not platitudes. Liberation, not survival. 

This is not just a commemoration—it is a confrontation. May Day 2025 is a warning. The fire of the past is alive—and it is burning toward the future. 

I. THE HISTORIC TASK OF THE WORKING CLASS 

“It will be the workers, with their courage, resolution and self-sacrifice, who will be chiefly responsible for achieving victory.”

 —Karl Marx 

Throughout history, the working class has stood as the unseen architect of civilization. It is the hands of laborers that build cities from dust, till the soil for harvest, lay the tracks for transport, wire the grid for light, and keep every wheel of society in motion. Their sweat runs through the veins of every industry. Their silence holds up the towering facades of the ruling order. 

And yet, the conditions of the working class remain stubbornly unchanged. Wages stagnate. Rights erode. Dignity is denied. From the haciendas of the colonial era to the concrete slums of today, the worker remains exploited—praised in word, punished in fact. 

May Day, then, is no mere holiday. It is not a token of gratitude bestowed from above. It is a day of militant remembrance, a commemoration of lives sacrificed in the struggle for bread, rest, and dignity. It is a call to arms—not just for better pay, but for the radical transformation of society. 

The enemy has changed costumes over time—but never character. The capitalist class, in every era, retools its weapons to contain, divide, and pacify the working majority. Once, it was outright colonial violence. Then came the lash of wage slavery, the rise of contractualization, and the stifling of union power. Today, it introduces automation—hailed as progress, but too often wielded as a threat. 

Automation, in theory, holds promise: to relieve human beings of dangerous, demeaning labor and to expand the realm of creativity and leisure. But in the hands of the capitalist, it becomes another tool of discipline and displacement. Jobs are eliminated not to ease human toil, but to maximize profit. Workers are discarded not because they are unskilled, but because they are inconvenient to capital’s pursuit of efficiency without humanity. 

Alongside automation comes a parade of coercive tactics:

• Mass layoffs justified by “technological redundancy”

• Endless contracts that deny regularization

• Surveillance, union-busting, and repression

• Even imprisonment of labor leaders under trumped-up charges 

This is not the future—it is the past, recycled and repackaged. Capitalism sells itself as innovation, yet it delivers the same old domination in new, digital forms. The promises of flexibility and opportunity become pressures to settle for less, accept more risk, and work without rights. 

But if capital adapts, so too does labor. 

The fire of worker resistance has not dimmed—it has evolved. From the picket lines to the platform cooperatives, from street marches to digital campaigns, the struggle continues. Workers understand that they are not simply cogs in a machine, but the rightful engine of history. They do not seek mere survival within the system. They demand a future beyond it. 

The oppressors offer contentment in chains. The workers raise their fists for liberation. 

This May Day, the working class of the Philippines does not mourn. It mobilizes. For the wage they deserve. For the dignity they were denied. For a future that belongs to the many—not the few. 

Let the capitalists claim to represent the future. The workers know: they are still fighting the same oppressive past—now dressed in the costume of the present. But the day of reckoning draws closer. The working class has not forgotten its historic task. It has only begun to remember. 

II. THE UNIFIED DEMAND: A ₱200 LEGISLATED WAGE HIKE NOW 

In the year 2025, amid soaring inflation, deepening poverty, and the widening gulf between wealth and wages, the voice of the Filipino working class rises with clarity and urgency: ₱200 across-the-board wage increase, legislate it now! 

It is not merely a demand—it is a declaration of collective survival and dignity. 

This is not an isolated cry. It is the unified banner of the National Wage Coalition (NWC)—a historic convergence of labor forces that once stood apart in strategy but now march together in cause. The coalition brings together four of the country’s largest and most influential labor formations: Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP), Nagkaisa! Labor Coalition, and the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP). 

Their united front signals not only the strength of their shared grievance but the urgency of national intervention. For too long, wages have been dictated by regional wage boards—bureaucratic institutions that move slowly, inconsistently, and always in favor of capital. Workers are no longer willing to wait for a system designed to delay. 

On April 29, 2025, in a rare show of solidarity, these labor organizations convened a joint press conference to announce the coming Labor Day mobilization and to issue a direct challenge to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.: Lead from the front. Stop hiding behind broken boards and recycled rhetoric. Certify the ₱200 wage hike bill as urgent. 

The coalition condemned the President’s silence and inaction over the past three years, during which he has not held a single formal dialogue with the labor movement. This absence is not merely an oversight—it is an insult. It is an abdication of responsibility at a time when working families face the worst levels of hunger and economic hardship seen since the pandemic, or even in the last two decades. 

In response, the workers will speak in the language of unity and resistance. On May 1, 2025, tens of thousands of laborers, trade unionists, and community allies will march to Mendiola, the historic site where cries for justice have echoed for generations. Their message is thunderous and direct: “Mr. President, CERTIFY AS URGENT! Congress, PASS IT NOW! ₱200 WAGE INCREASE, LEGISLATE IT NOW!” 

This is more than a policy proposal. It is a matter of national necessity. It is a call for redistributive justice in an economy that grows richer at the top while leaving the many behind. It is a demand backed by the unbreakable will of organized labor—a force that will no longer be placated by words, nor pacified by delay. 

The ₱200 wage increase is not a gift. It is not charity. It is the rightful share of those who build the wealth of the nation with their hands, their sweat, and their time. It is time. Pass the wage hike now. 

III. RHETORIC VS. REALITY: EMPTY PRAISE FROM THE RULING CLASS 

This year, as in those before it, the ruling elite once again cloaked themselves in hollow tributes to the Filipino worker. 

Vice President Sara Duterte, in her Labor Day message, lauded the “resilience,” “intelligence,” and “hard work” of Filipino workers, commending their dedication across both domestic and overseas sectors. She paid tribute to the labor force for their sacrifices and implored them to remain “resilient, patient, and determined” in the pursuit of meaningful change and national progress. 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., meanwhile, asserted that the government was not merely a passive observer in national development, but an “active partner” in the construction of a “Bagong Pilipinas”—a New Philippines—where society would be fair and just. He claimed that the administration’s commitment to the working class was not only a responsibility but also an expression of gratitude. 

And yet, such declarations—devoid of legislation, policy, or political will—only serve to deepen the chasm between rhetoric and reality. Workers do not eat praise. They cannot feed their children on empty gestures. Resilience is not a wage. Gratitude is not a collective bargaining agreement. Sacrifice is not a substitute for justice. 

To call the demand for a ₱200 wage increase “idealistic” is to insult those who labor under conditions of real material suffering. To continue deferring responsibility to the broken, outdated machinery of regional wage boards—bodies that consistently fail to deliver livable wage increases—is to defend a system designed to delay and deflect, not deliver. 

In sharp contrast, Ka Leody de Guzman of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) delivered a blunt rejoinder. Speaking amid rising prices and deteriorating living standards, he declared: 

“Workers are not happy this Labor Day. What is there to celebrate when prices are going up and wages remain stagnant? The government has turned its back on labor by refusing to act decisively. It is time to unite. We are calling for a ₱1,500 national minimum wage, an end to contractualization, and full recognition of our right to form unions. These are not mere wishes—they are our rights.” 

De Guzman challenged the feel-good rhetoric of the administration with clear demands: an end to hunger wages, the abolition of precarious work, and respect for union rights. His message cut through the fog of official language with the voice of the street, of the factory floor, of lived experience. 

Where Duterte and Marcos offered sentimentalism, De Guzman presented solidarity. Where they urged patience, he called for resistance. 

The contrast could not be clearer. While the ruling class drowns in its self-congratulations, the working class sharpens its demands. The establishment offers gratitude where there should be accountability. It offers promises without timelines, policies without teeth, and reforms without the will to implement. 

It is in this context that the May Day mobilizations carry revolutionary clarity. The Filipino worker no longer waits for benevolence. They demand justice—with loud voices, with firm footsteps, and with the full strength of united labor behind them. 

V. BEYOND WORDS: THE STRUGGLE FOR STRUCTURAL CHANGE 

Again, this May Day- International Workers Day is not a celebration—it is a confrontation. A confrontation between those who produce and those who profit. Between those who sacrifice and those who exploit. 

Let no one claim that these demands are “unrealistic.” The true fantasy is to believe that workers will forever be content with crumbs. 

The movement today is not merely about wages. It is about the right to live with dignity. It is about the right to organize, to bargain collectively, to enjoy secure and humane conditions at work. 

Raise the wages.

End contractualization.

Respect union rights.

Legislate justice.

Liberate the nation. 

These are not utopian ideals. These are the foundation of any just society. As corporations accumulate wealth and politicians deliver platitudes, the people who build the nation continue to be denied a fair share of its fruits. But the day is coming when the oppressed shall no longer be silenced by gratitude from their oppressors. 

The voices rising on May Day are not echoes of the past. They are thunderbolts of the future. For every factory, every office, every field, every school—Filipino workers are remembering their strength. They are reclaiming their voice. And they are ready to make history. 

This is the year of reckoning.

This is the march toward dignity.

This is the time of the worker.