East-West Panay Lateral Road Project in Antique. —PHOTO COURTESY OF AMLIG ANTIQUE

PANDAN, Antique—I clutched my jacket tighter as the cold, damp breeze brushed against my skin. The stillness of dawn carried just enough quiet to stir my thoughts. Around me, fellow passengers hurried on, each eager to reach their destination.

It’s 5:30 a.m. “Hindi kaw karian ma-late?” My friend’s message read. Right, I have a 10 a.m. class. The van ride would take about two and a half hours, and another 30 minutes on a tricycle to reach my dorm.

Won’t I indeed run late? Probably. The question hit me harder than it should have. 

Still, sitting there in that half-asleep silence, I can’t help but think how speed has become such a measure of our daily lives. Everything now revolves around getting somewhere faster. But the faster we go, the less we see what we’re rushing past. As if moving quickly is the same as moving forward. 

And yet, between the curves of Antique’s mountains, that concept weighs heavier than it should. While we’re all busy rushing, the Department of Public Works and Highways’ bulldozers have been cutting through slopes. Trees and funds fall in places most of us will never see. They call it “development.” But some roads seem to lead outside the towns, deeper into the ground.

Greed and gold

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau and Japan International Cooperation Agency confirmed the presence of deposits of copper, gold, chromite, and silver in the upland areas of Antique—particularly Barbaza, Patnongon, San Remigio, Valderrama, and Sibalom—that have been proposed as part of a 3,715-hectare mineral reservation.

But the story of progress doesn’t end with the mines—it’s paved over by roads.

A 41-kilometer project cutting through the mountain ranges of Iloilo and Antique, passes directly through environmentally sensitive areas of the Central Panay Mountain Range. The route from Lambunao to Valderrama carves into forested ridges that overlap with the same upland zones now being eyed for mineral extraction. 

And so, the question writes itself: Are these lateral roads truly meant to shorten travel, or to shorten the distance between greed and gold?

The roads make the mountains accessible. The minerals make them valuable. And together, they make progress look suspiciously like preparation. If this isn’t alarming enough, I don’t know what is. This is a pattern too convenient to ignore. 

The Central Panay Mountain Range is not just another stretch of land. It’s a living spine—breathing, protecting, and feeding our island. Its forests hold rivers that quench our fields. Its slopes keep flooding at bay. A natural shed for typhoons. The more we cut into them, the more we endanger ourselves—our safety, our future, and our home. 

These days, even a sudden rainfall can cause rivers to overflow, while the mountains’ soil stands on the brink of collapse. The damage no longer spares even the provinces. Sadly, this isn’t just the result of clogged drainage systems or deforestation. One night, we sleep peacefully; the next, we wake up drowning in a system consumed by greed. 

As my van sped toward the town, I looked out the window at the faint outline of ridges in the distance—still standing, still holding on. I thought about how I was running late for class, but how, in a much larger sense, we’re all running late in protecting what’s left of this island we call home.

Because once the mountains are flattened and gone, no amount of progress can make the journey worthwhile.

Nicole Faith Montiel, 19, is a psychology student at the University of Antique. She is a musician and human rights advocate whose interests lie in navigating the human psyche, music, and social justice.

First published in CoverStory – December 21, 2025

The sun blazed all morning Sunday and rain poured intermittently starting in the early afternoon in Metro Manila. Still, attendance was vigorous at the twin protest rallies—dubbed “Baha sa Luneta” at Rizal Park and “Trillion Peso March” at the People Power Monument on Edsa—condemning the brazen corruption in flood control projects and demanding accountability. Attendance at other mass actions in various cities and towns nationwide, while lesser, was no less impassioned.

“Di mahulugang karayom” was how the space between the Edsa Shrine and the People Power Monument was described at the peak of the assembly—in the picturesque but precise metaphor, a breathless crowdedness of bodies drawn to a specific occasion and mission: to deliver a message to those who plundered taxpayer money and those in the position to impose the correct punishment for the crime.

A variety of messages, in fact: corny or droll—for example, “Bahain ng galit ang mga buwayang kurakot” or (though it suffers in the translation), “Flood the plunderers with anger”—expressing not only outrage but also, in case the critical point is missed, an obvious intent to exact justice. 

It rang true in Bulacan (the province particularly stricken by floods, mostly manmade), where, in Malolos, whole families of parents and young children were reported at a protest march heading to the public market in Calumpit, where residents of 28 barangays took part in the demonstration. 

“Kurakot, ikulong!” (“Imprison the corrupt!”) is the overriding cry. As well: “Panagutin, magnanakaw ng pera ng bayan!”(“Hold the thieves of the people’s money to account!”). The aspired-for scene is obvious: all the crooked, cocky personages in suits and silk dresses who had gotten away with murder, past and present, finally making a perp walk on an imagined stage. 

Those who can read will doubtless detect the messages’ subtext of warning: Ignore at your peril.

“Baha sa Luneta” draws an estimated 80,000. —PHOTO BY BULLIT MARQUEZ

Rallies and pickets have been occurring almost daily after revelations of how the public coffers have been pillaged by public works officials, private contractors, and their enablers in strategic government posts such as the legislature. (The economist Solita Monsod is forthright in her view: The guilty lawmakers, whether in the House of Representatives or the Senate, should be made accountable.) Those driven to dire straits by the constant floods—farmers, food delivery riders, sidewalk vendors, housewives on side hustles, many more—are at the end of their rope. Even the wealthy grown jaded to chicanery in high places and the excesses of the politically privileged are revolted by the shamelessness of this crime that runs in the billions of pesos. (And the constant floods are now disrupting the convenience to which they are accustomed.)

Sunday’s mass actions, viewed as the biggest protest demonstrations yet in President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, and which ran the length of the archipelago in smaller versions, thus do not seem like a flash in the pan. (Although it has been made absolutely clear that regime change is not among their demands, they call to mind the protest rallies that sprang unstoppable after Ninoy Aquino’s assassination on Aug. 21,1983.)

For one, the Church, which led the Trillion Peso March, has become involved. Fr. Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ Commission on Public Affairs, said in an interview with dzMM that it’s unlikely nothing else will follow: “Hindi puwede na pagkatapos nito, wala nang kasunod.”

He spoke of how the Church has always looked after the poor, and coolly remarked that the protest actions will move forward—“Tuloy-tuloy na ito.” He said a pastoral letter on the matter may soon be issued.

For another, and most significant, young people, including those whose lives have been impoverished by the nonexistent and/or substandard flood control projects that finance the decadent lifestyles of the plunderers and their well-fed progeny—what else can be meant by Sarah Discaya’s blithe remark to her interviewer that the rise in their family fortunes began when she and her husband hitched their wagon to the Department of Public Works and Highways?—are taking their future in their hands.

Protesters at People Power Monument listen to a furious Vice Ganda speaking. —PHOTO BY CHELO BANAL FORMOSO

In an interview with dzMM, Ceejay Angela Bebis, secretary general of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), provided an encouraging glimpse of the state of mind of young people in these discouraging times. “Malinaw ang tindig ng NUSP,” she said, explaining in eloquent Filipino how her organization is clear in its stand that stolen money should be returned and used for public benefit, and that both the Marcoses and the Dutertes should be made accountable for crimes against the people, including but not limited to ill-gotten wealth and misuse of government funds.

She also said it is correct to put the burden on students to be critical, to uphold the people’s rights, to nurture the spirit of struggle—“ang diwang palaban.”

As it happened, Bebis’ group had spent Sunday morning at the Baha sa Luneta led by the Tama Na network. She said they were to proceed afterwards to Mendiola, where there was a similar although smaller protest action being held closer to Malacañang’s ear, as it were, and thence to the Trillion Peso March on Edsa. But along the way they encountered the beginnings of a scuffle between another group of demonstrators and antiriot police, at which point, she said, they embarked on an organized dispersal.

Police watch as a tire burns on a truck, set on fire by demonstrators from an undetermined group. —PHOTOS BY BULLIT MARQUEZ

Asked what she thought of these demonstrators throwing rocks at the law enforcers, Bebis said their action indicated a valid and understandable rage at the plunder of resources that keeps the people in poverty.

On the day made memorable by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s imposition of martial law 53 years ago (on paper; it was actually imposed two days later, on Sept. 23), one listened to this young woman speaking calmly and clearly about the continuing unhappy state of the motherland.

And one became convinced that she is on the way to becoming a socialist—in the manner Terry Eagleton defines the term: “just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.”

Read more: Martial law and the urgency of remembering

First published in CoverStory – September 22, 2025

Here we go again. 

Time was when every exhortation by then President Rodrigo Duterte to kill or threat to kill (“I will kill you”) was dismissed by his apologists as hyperbole or exaggeration. Until the dead bodies started piling up and no amount of deflection and denial could cover the fact that he meant what he said quite literally, earning him a lasting place in infamy as the first Asian head of state to face the charge of “crime against humanity of murder” at the International Criminal Court.

Obfuscation and misdirection are the favorite tactics of people who use language to cover up instead of reveal, to evade responsibility instead of face accountability.

Just as those who are truly shameless make no attempt to hide where their loyalties lie and behave like they do no wrong in being partisan, as certain senator-judges in Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment case did, even when they claim to represent the people and derive their authority from a national constituency. But in a twisted, ironic way, you respect at least their honesty and sheer audacity. Steeled and steeped in a culture of impunity, they feel that being in positions of power allows them to behave in unprecedented ways, like acting as defense lawyers a priori even just minutes after being sworn in as senator-judges.

What happened to decency and statesmanship? Certainly, politicians play politics and this influences their decision-making. But to be so blatantly partial? They have sunk to an abysmal level of shocking behavior. Somehow, I could not even ask “Why?” because I know that the utterly simple answer is “Because they can.” 

Lawyers speak of seeking remedy by accusing these senators of “grave abuse of discretion.” This is like fighting a main battle tank with a plastic fly swatter. Grave abuse of what? The discretion is so all-encompassing that they are practically untouchable.

The power of democracy is such that the illusion of choice is laid bare by the quality of the chosen.

In the rock musical “Jesus Christ Superstar,” Jesus chides Simon Zealotes, who has been urging him to help inspire Jewish resistance against the Roman occupiers:

“Jesus Christ Superstar” (1973) —SCREENGRAB FROM YOUTUBE

Neither you Simon

Nor the 50,000

Nor the Romans nor the Jews

Nor Judas

Nor the 12

Nor the priests nor the scribes

Nor doomed Jerusalem itself

Understand what power is

Understand what glory is

Understand at all

Understand at all

It is clear that Jesus was referring to something far greater than earthly power. A transcendental power. A power not fleeting. Even today, were Jesus and Simon Zealotes around, they would feel right at home and see no difference between the Galilee-Samaria-Judea of their time and the Netanyahu-led modern Israeli state. 

Power. Defined by Oxford Languages as “the ability to do something or act in a particular way…the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” Whatever those may be. Or whatever they may lead to, creation or destruction. While the entire world knows that the only answer to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the two-state solution, Israel insists on its genocidal behavior and blocking the creation of a Palestinian state. Why? Because it can.

At first glance, it might seem beyond us. Ungraspable. But we all can have it. When we put our values and principles beyond the malign hands and words of the rotten and the corrupt, we can have true power.

Power is that much sought-after thing. Like eternal youth. Like love. We all want it. But the world being what it is, there are many obstacles, limitations and pitfalls.

If our earthly power is limited to one solitary vote, we must use it well. That vote could be exercised through the ballot box, or exercised in our daily lives, in social media, in our physical exertions—we can use our feet to march, our voices to denounce. Little by little, we can exorcise the corrupt and the evil from our lives. That is the one true power we all have. 

Then maybe the senator-judge cum defense lawyer abomination can be but another expression of a misplaced power. Then maybe the bombing of an entire people to kingdom come can end.

Why seek an eternal power beyond understanding? Because we can.

First published in CoverStory – July 8, 2025