Pinoy Pie

MAKATI CITY (MindaNews / 10 April)  –  It’s as if the long-simmering national discourse between the pro-liberal (yellow/pink), the pro-Duterte (green) and the pro-PBBM (red) has found renewed vigor, new lexicon — even, perhaps, new fractures. But this time, the colors aren’t just political. They are theological. They are moral. They are existential. After the resurfacing of takfīrism in the country immediately following the U.S.–Israel war of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran (as I reflected in “ The Resurrection of Takfiris ,”  a similar pattern now unfolds closer to home. The registration this week of political parties for the long-delayed BARMM parliamentary elections has not only opened democratic space; it has also exposed fault lines. On one hand, there is the invocation of a slogan: “we hear and we obey.” On the other, the enumeration of past sacrifices, past credentials, past heroism. Both sound familiar as we have heard them before. We have wr...