We beg to differ.
There isn’t much about living in Australia to complain about. This is, I think, the reason why I haven’t written much about Australia. I realise though that my long silence about life in Australia is a bit disturbing. Maybe it is just me getting a bit uncomfortable with being too comfortable. Indeed, when things simply…
Do Filipinos like talking about sex? Answering that question is a journey in itself, and the journey begins with a concept I coined a while back — the Filipino’s tradition-religion complex. The tradition-religion complex represents a narrow framework in which a person finds moral clarity. In the case of the Filipino, it encompasses a small…
Solving the mass transport problem of large Philippine cities is one of those hard problems. Much of its hardness is accounted for by that inescapable fundamental nature of the poverty that defines the Filipino’s very existence — the Filipino’s habit of entering into commitments that they are inherently incapable of honouring. Such commitments are almost…
Read More “Three fundamental roadblocks to improving Philippine public transport” »
In her article “Between Sensationalism and Censure†(Philippine Journalism Review, April 2002, pages 35-37), Diana Mendoza observed how the bizarreness of Filipinos’ regard for sexuality is reflected in Philippine cinema. Her observations are gleaned from among others, comments made by sociology professor Michael Tan of the University of the Philippines in the Sixth International congress…
Read More “Sexuality in Philippine society: imprisoned in an obsolete tradition-religion complex” »
What is up with some modern day proponents of freedom of speech? Do they really know what they are talking about? Sometimes they give me the impression that all they are good at is quoting some dead bigwig who advocated freedom of expression in the past. Unfortunately, these same bigwigs could never have imagined that…
Read More “Do Filipinos know how to use their freedom of speech?” »
Religion is a favourite topic of mine. I find pleasure in pointing out the wonderful variety of paradoxes, incoherent constructs, and logical conundrums that tend to reveal themselves quite easily when using religious dogma and doctrine as building blocks for developing one’s thinking. An example is how one can piece together two fundamental Catholic beliefs…
Read More “Has atheism become nothing more than the latest fashion statement?” »
There are certain “battles” that are worth one’s while choosing a side and joining the fray. And then there are some where it is best to just step out, sit back, and enjoy the show. The whole “Jan Jan Incident” is one of these “battles”. The whole thing had just turned into a circus. This…
Read More “Lawsuits flying back and forth over Jan Jan: a good show in the making!” »
Defeated, humiliated, freshly nuked, and under American military occupation, Japan rose from the ashes to become, within three decades, one of the biggest, most prosperous, and most powerful nations on the planet. South Korea, also utterly devastated by a war with the Communist Bloc beavered away; and one day the world woke up to find…
Read More “A tragic life is one spent noisily demanding respect instead of quietly earning it” »