Arnell 🇵🇭

Still believing in curses, when I saw 666 likes on an insta post, I immediately pressed like to make it 667. Always ready to save a man’s soul.

“Between equal rights, force decides.” (Marx)

Our political history in a nutshell.

There are levels of corruption. Mild to moderate to severe. But ours in the Philippines is on a level of its own. As my generation used to say, it’s “ALIEN”!

We need to be less a nation of resilient people, and be more a nation of fed-up people.

Food is good if it’s eaten. A joke is funny if the audience laughs. An order is valid if it is followed. Validation is always found in the quality of the reaction. As the truism goes, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Power is in the receiver, not the giver.

True to her name, Jane Goodall embodied the good that can be in all of us. RIP to a beautiful human.

Strong leaders build institutions. Strongmen rely on military force.

“Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and (only) the pig likes it”.

Expressions of our liberal democracy, in remembrance of one of the darkest periods in our nation’s history, and to ensure it doesn’t happen again in whatever shape or form.

From here on, my resume:
I’m really good at this stuff.

To quote RWE: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

This cat is definitely breathing easy. I think he’s my salvation.

Indelible ink on the finger to show that one has voted.

Our democracy is not perfect, but it’s trudging along.

Voted and did my part regardless of the outcome 🇵🇭

Speak truth to power.

For anyone who needs to hear this today.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.” - MLK Jr.

The judicial branch relies on the confidence and support of the people to work. Without these, it’s the weakest among the branches of government - it has no police power, military power, or purse power.

In a constitutional crisis, it would be the first one to collapse, and justice along with it.

“The legal profession is a bridge between the law and the legal profession. We are all travelling that bridge. For some, that bridge is short, beautiful and through a scenic route. For many, that bridge is long and winding, and is the only way.”

We are all travellers, riding a pale blue mote suspended in the rays of the sun, hurtling blindly through space, dodging planet-ending asteroids (thank you for this perspective, Carl Sagan).

How dare we be afraid.

Let me hold your beer, Bishop.

The Ghosts of Bud Dajo How an American massacre shaped the Philippines.

Kim Wagner’s new book, “Massacre in the Clouds,” argues that the 1906 massacre at Bud Dajo established a template for future American war crimes: gross abuse leading to a cursory investigation, a coverup, impunity, and, finally, erasure.

Read Sheila Coronel’s review:

😂

Me: Hope is a tyrant.

Emily Dickinson: “Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
…
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And in the strangest sea,
Yet never in extremity
It asked a crumb of me.”

Me: Fine.

"You better fix my entire life"

~Me to my coffee

Why I'm quitting the Washington Post Democracy can't function without a free press

This is, or should be, a big deal -- Ann Telnaes, an absolute legend, quitting WaPo due to censorship of a cartoon criticizing billionaires

anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

[In This Economy] The Philippine economy in 2024, and prospects for 2025 All in all, 2024 is a wake-up call to Filipinos that the Marcos administration is brazenly and shamelessly corrupting and playing around with taxpayers’ money

My first Rappler column in 2025, where I look back at the economy in 2024 and offer ideas about where we're headed in 2025. Incidentally, this is also my 400th Thought Leaders piece! 🫶

www.rappler.com/voices/thoug...

Transitions and growth

Nowadays, it is not as important for me to be right, at the expense of delaying a case, taking care to avoid getting intoxicated on meaningless wins at the expense of genuine victory.

open.substack.com/pub/headwayj...

You know you’re getting old when finding a lost pen makes you really happy.

You know you haven’t grown up when finding a lost pen makes you want to celebrate by buying more pens.

Listening to Experience By Cliff Potts Baybay City, Philippines — In a world inundated with noise and distraction, it can be all too easy to overlook impactful insights. I’ve dedicated much of my life to understandi…

Listening to Experience wps.news/2024/12/29/l...

Heard from a Brit comedian: this is our chance to retake America. It’s weak and divided!

Pinoy-Ams: over our cold untouched adobo on Christmas morning, you will.