07/06/2009
[I recieved an honourable mention in the 2009 National Magazine Awards for the photos and story below. Originally published in This Magazine.]
Admitting that I was a Canadian has never been as difficult as when I travelled to the Philippines to photograph two Canadian-owned open-pit mining sites last winter. The fact that I am also Filipino by blood didn’t help. (more…)
03/11/2008
Miarayon, Mindanao.
Filipinos don’t celebrate Halloween, they instead have a day dedicated to the dead on 1 November, the Araw ng mga Patay [Day of the Dead]. It’s a holiday that is the perfect metaphor for Philippine spirituality: an imported Catholic holiday that hints at an animist past. (more…)
24/10/2008
*** This is another old piece of writing from my big Asia wander way back in 2001-2003. I was working as an ESL school in Yogya, Indonesia at the time I wrote this. I was a kid just out of school looking for something that I couldn’t properly articulate, and thus couldn’t grasp. It was on this 2.5 year wander that I eventually picked up a camera for the first time.***
Monday 17 December, 2002
The girl who sat next to me on the bus to Semarang had the aura of one that worked in the fields of Java. It was not the way she dressed, nor anything else she carried that gave me that impression. It was her smell. (more…)
13/10/2008
I am not voting for Stephen Harper. I am writing this for those of you that are still considering the possibility. I am also writing this for those that are considering strategic voting in this election, but more on that later. (more…)
22/08/2008
A while back I went to a Filipino event at a large Toronto venue. It was an outdoor event and unfortunately it was raining, though luckily the venue had large open air tents to keep the people dry—but for some reason I smelled wet dog.
I was reminded of my youth when I was ashamed of being Filipino. (more…)
19/08/2008
So Canada is finally winning some medals. During that first week all I could hear on the news was the refrain of ‘when’ and ‘why.’ Canada was feeling a little down on itself for its poor showing. While I empathized with the sentiment, it also made me smile a little. I’m not sure if the everyday Canadian saw the parallels between the medal drought and race relations, but that’s what I saw every time the Olympics was discussed on the news. (more…)
12/08/2008
Just a little gentle prodding and Canadians are tripping over with racist glee. All someone had to do is use the right politically correct code words for racism in the 21st century.
Canadians are too polite to tell the gooks to go home, that just wouldn’t seem right. (more…)
06/08/2008
The Philippines is a poor country. It is also a country with public, large scale acts of religious devotion, and massive street parties (called ‘Fiestas’) that put families into debt. There is an argument that can be made to link one to the others, but whatever the case the people do alot of praying and drinking. (more…)
05/08/2008
I read the news today, oh boy…
Apparently Canada and the Philippines are talking about signing their own ‘Visiting Forces Agreement‘ (VFA). Only good things can come out of this… (more…)
25/07/2009
Connecting The Dots: Mining, the Philippines, and Canada
Posted by alexfelipe under Canadian Politics, Commentary, The Philippines | Tags: bill c-300, corporate social responsibility, economy, human rights, mining, philippines, poverty |[3] Comments
I am not a gold person. This didn’t start with any activism, or with any real reason other than the fact that I’m just not a jewelry person period. I simply have never felt the desire for shiny that most people seem to possess.
Now that I know how the extractive process affects people (including those that look like me), I consider myself lucky.
(more…)