- World Report 2024: Philippines (hrw.org)
The human rights situation in the Philippines remains dire amid extrajudicial killings, attacks against political activists and journalists, and abuses committed during the armed conflict with the 54-year-old communist insurgency. The government has increasingly constricted democratic space by using the justice system to target leftist activist groups.
- We believed a man could fly (rogerebert.com)
The first time we see Superman in his red, blue and yellow uniform is nearly an hour into “Superman.” Perhaps the filmmakers agreed with Spielberg’s famous statement that “Jaws” would work better the longer he kept the shark off the screen. That means the film doesn’t open like most superhero movies or James Bonds with a sensational pre-title sequence. To be sure, it opens on the planet Krypton with his father Jor-El preparing him to be launched into space. But those aren’t action scenes; they provide weight to the origin story every superhero requires.
- Philippines (Wikipedia)
The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. In the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of 7,641 islands, with a total area of roughly 300,000 square kilometers, which are broadly categorized in three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the south. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. It is the world’s twelfth-most-populous country, with diverse ethnicities and cultures. Manila is the country’s capital, and its most populated city is Quezon City. Both are within Metro Manila.
