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Photos / RandomCameraGuy  
  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Quiapo Fiesta
9 January 2008 (Quiapo, Manila, Philippines)

The Philippines is a poor country getting poorer by the day.  With their lot not improving religious devotion remains a powerful outlet for their worries.  The Black Nazarene is a statue of Jesus brought to the country by the Spanish that is believed to be able to perform miracles.  So every year more and more devotees come to the Basilica where it is housed to pray for a better life--and every year a few lives are lost in the crush of the masses.

But that's not all there is to the Quiapo Fiesta.  I'll take you for a tour, starting from the famous and popular religious aspect, to the periphery where the community celebrates away from the devotees.
6 photos   Created on: 12/02/2008   Modified on: 15/02/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Childrens Rehabilitation Center
CRC webpage: http://members.tripod.com/~childrehab/home.html

Children's Rehabilitation Center (Philippines):

The CRC provides psycho-social therapy for children and parents that are victims of state violence.  The Philippines is one of the worlds most corrupt counties (taking over the #1 spot from Indonesia for Southeast Asia) and it's government is anything except a government for the people.

The current Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) administration is actually doing worse for human rights than the dictator Pres. Marcos for the length of time she's been in office.  According to a recent UNICEF book ('Uncounted Lives: Children and Women in Conflict in the Philippines') over 200,000 women and children have been victims of military atrocities since GMA came to power in 2001.

According to respected human rights watchdog 'Karapatan,' the GMA regime (from 1 Jan to 31 October 2007) is accused of:

Extra-Judicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions… 68 // 209 in 2006, [Total: 887 (since 21.1.01)]
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances… 26 // 78 in 2006, [Total: 185]
Torture… 29
Illegal Detention… 116
Forcible Evacuation or Displacement... 7542

Karapatan 2007 Human Rights Report: http://stopthekillings.org/stknpv2/files/karapatan_2007hr_report.pdf

UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston confirmed much of this in his 2007 report and clearly points the finger at the government.  To download his final report please visit: http://stopthekillings.org/stknpv2/?q=resources/60/alston%E2%80%99s-final-report-rp-extrajudicial-killings

The above numbers dipped for 2007 (and will probably continue to remain low for the first few months of 2008) most likely because of increased international attention and the visit of a UN Special Rapporteur.  In early 2008 the Philippines, which ironically sits on the UN Human Rights Commission, is due for a periodic human rights review.
10 photos   Created on: 17/02/2008   Modified on: 25/02/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : The Midas Touch
The Midas touch is often a colloquialism used positively, as in 'wow he's so lucky, everything he touches turns to gold!'  However a quick look back at the original Greek myth reminds us that Midas' power was no boon, but a curse.

* * *

This colour set will take you to two Australian owned large-scale mining sites in the Philippines: Didipio in Luzon, run by OceanaGold and Rapu-Rapu Island, run by Lafayette.

[*note:  I also visited two Canadian sites:  Marinduque (PlacerDome/Barrick Gold), the site of THREE of the worlds worst mining disasters; Mt. Canatuan (TVI Pacific), site of multiple human rights infractions.  I may show these images at a later date.]

The Philippines is ranked second to South Africa in production (per unit of land area). Gold is found throughout the islands and mining is one of the centre pieces of the government’s economic strategy--that's part of what makes this so tragic for me as I don't see any of that wealth reaching the common people.

The Philippine Mining Act (RA 7942) allows:
- 100% foreign ownership.
- Renewable 5 year tax holidays (after which they pay 2%).
- Tax and duty-free importation of capital equipment and spare parts.
- Tax credits and exemption from the Value Added Tax.
- 100% repatriation of profits, investments, remittance of loans and obligations, and freedom from expropriation.

There are three main financial centres for global mining multinationals.  They are:
- London, England
- Toronto, Canada
- Melbourne, Australia

* * *

On a positive note there is a drive to create a kind of international branding for gold. There is a major initiative called ARM (Association for Responsible Mining) that is developing standards and verification systems to certify gold from small scale producers so it can be marketed like fair trade coffee. And there are also a number of organizations that are working on something called the Green Gold campaign.

Links:

The Association for Responsible Mining: http://www.communitymining.org/
MiningWatch: www.miningwatch.ca 
Oxfam-Australia: www.oxfam.org.au/campaigns/mining/
13 photos   Created on: 01/03/2008   Modified on: 08/03/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Shot in the Dark
Hello, hello everyone!  I've been away a while and having just seen Peter's (Homerhomer's) pics of me, I thought I should drop in more often.

I thought I'd present something a little different with this project.  I've done a few portraits and theatre/event stills in dark rooms or on black stages this year and I've had fun with shadows and negative space.  It's a bit different from what I usually shot in the past so I think that would make a nice reintroduction of my work for holik.

Now some of the images are colour, and some are b/w, and some are in between--the common link will be the heavy use of black and shadow around my subjects.

I hope you like them...
7 photos   Created on: 29/11/2008   Modified on: 30/11/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Memories Not My Own
These images are of memories I've imagined based on a short account of a woman who as a child shared a home with a foster child who had suffered abuse. 

They were shot within a half hour for a workshop.
6 photos   Created on: 20/12/2008   Modified on: 20/12/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Canadian Winter
The snow fell and I thought that I should capture some of that mood...

Winter Quotes:

Every mile is two in winter. ~George Herbert

Winter is nature's way of saying, "Up yours."  ~Robert Byrne

To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring.  ~W.J. Vogel

Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat.  ~Author Unknown
5 photos   Created on: 26/12/2008   Modified on: 26/12/2008

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : Vegas Wasteland
Las Vegas, USA.

This is really not my kind of town.  I went for a family trip in early December 2008, this is some of what I saw.

- - - - -

*I unfortunately lost 75% of my photos from Vegas in a hard-drive crash [luckily my other photos on my laptop was backed up]. 
9 photos   Created on: 29/12/2008   Modified on: 12/01/2009

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : What Could Have Been
I am currently preparing to return to the Philippines (in March 2009) with an Filipino arts collective to create an installation about Manila, the Philippine capital, here in Toronto, Canada. 

As a lead up to that trip I will show some older work from the Phils in this project.

I was born in the Philippines, but having been arrived in Canada when I was two my memories of youth are all Canadian memories.  I went back for the first time in 2001, I was twenty-six.  What I saw was foreign and yet familiar, what I felt was foreign with a yearning for it to be familiar.

Everytime I return, I can't help but but wonder what could have been, what I would have been, had my family not migrated to Canada...
0 photos   Created on: 05/01/2009   Modified on: 05/01/2009

  randomcameraguy / © alex felipe      Project : tych tych tych
This is a set of diptych and triptychs.  Some where put together years ago, some more recently...

A diptych is a photograph that uses two images (three for a triptych) side by side to form one single artistic statement. The two images can literally be in contact with each other, or separated by a border or frame.

4 photos   Created on: 13/01/2009   Modified on: 13/01/2009

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