Category: Culture

Road rage and the Filipino ego – like navigating a bubble through a forest of pins

September 12, 2011 benign0 17 Comments

Any motorist who’s spent enough time negotiating Manila’s potholed streets will attest to how the Philippines’ surreal complex of culturally-ingrained bad manners, ill-thought-out road layouts, inconsistent law enforcement, and the overall unsightliness that blankets the Philippines’ capital cities contributes to an experience like no other. At the root of the banal dysfunction of Philippine-style motoring…

Civics, Crime, Culture

Ambassador Kristie Kenney and the awkwardness of what Wikileaks reveals about the Philippines

September 7, 2011 benign0 52 Comments

Of course the best policy is to shut up when faced with an awkward situation. Thus the term awkward silence. The Wikileaks-facilitated expose on what the United States really thinks of the Philippines is one awkward situation indeed. Of course it does not take a genius to work out how a bumbling basket case such…

Civics, Culture, Society

The truth about Tagalog that James Soriano failed to explain

September 4, 2011June 18, 2014 Ilda 42 Comments

William “The Chair Wrecker” Esposo of Philstar.com has joined in the debate about the Philippine national language (or lack of it) in his recent column. This was in response to the controversial and now removed article written by James Soriano from Manila Bulletin. While Esposo rabidly defended our constitutionally mandated national language, Tagalog, he wrote…

Culture, Development, Education, Society

How a simple question evolved into a heated debate: Is Tagalog a language or a dialect?

September 1, 2011July 26, 2018 Miguel Tajan 15 Comments

The answer is simple, Tagalog is a language. Why make such a simple question into something so complex? I believe that the answer lies in the confusion between the definitions of a language and a dialect. We all know what a language is; itâ€™s what we speak everyday to communicate, so letâ€™s take a closer…

Culture, Education, Society

English vs Tagalog: James Soriano owes no one any apologies

August 27, 2011 benign0 117 Comments

Whatever it was said by whoever this James Soriano is, if it is the truth about the utter lack of intellectual tools Tagalog provides its speakers, then no apologies are needed to be given to those who take offense from these words. A Manila Bulletin column published on August 24 titled “Language, learning, identity, privilege”…

Culture, Education, Media

A Planet-Sized Sense of Foreboding

August 26, 2011August 26, 2011 BenK 3 Comments

â€œIn times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.â€ â€“ Eric Hoffer Turn on your television, or log on to the Internet, or pick up a newspaper â€“ in whatever way you get your daily news, chances are pretty good…

Culture, Society

Jose Vargas: Does ‘coming out clean’ compensate for a life of deception?

August 25, 2011 Iya-J 11 Comments

It irritates me to a great extent whenever I encounter or hear about other people in the United States stealing resources that should only belong to American Citizens. Take the case of Jose Vargas, a journalist who wrote about the Virginia Tech shooting and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for it. He came to the…

Civics, Culture, Society

Fact by consensus: are we accepting beliefs in lieu of knowledge?

August 24, 2011 benign0 21 Comments

Media spin, political slogans and catch phrases, and “majority rule”. Today, these seem to be the preferred bases for validating what we come to know about our world everyday. At the very top of the hierarchy of this flawed approach with which we validate the “knowledge” we live by is the very concept of democracy…

Culture, Media, Politics, Society