We beg to differ.
I am finding the nearest nuclear bunker. Locally we are witnessing the simultaneous crucifixion of Maria Ressa , journalism, good manners, good looks and civilization. Abroad the #metoo movement has worked its way into banning staple holiday songs. Over the next few paragraphs I will make a case about censorship and assignment of meaning but…
Read More “So Now A Christmas Song Is Really Talking About Date Rape” »
Suddenly Katipunan Road is “home” to every UAAP basketball fan and, worse, to every millennial “social justice warrior” (SJW) and her cat. Now I know what it feels like to be an indigenous inhabitant of Boracay Island whenever the LaBoracay crowd comes to town. A basketball “battle” of the Katipunan universities is a relatively rare…
Read More ““Wear black”?? How Katipunan Road mirrors the degeneration of Boracay Island” »
Historical parallelism – because two or more significant events happened in the past, then one similar event happening again will lead to another of the corresponding event. And the most recent example, being bandied around by critics of current president Rodrigo Duterte, is that the University of the Philippines (UP) Men’s Basketball Team’s UAAP (University…
Indeed, the Chinese know how thing “work” in the Philippines. They have, after all, been prominent figures in Philippine industry since the Middle Ages. They know enough to fly above the radars of the natives and deal directly with the powers-that-be. That strategy of knowing and dealing with the right people continues to this day….
Read More “China knows how things “work” in the Philippines” »
If there is one thing that has long baffled observers of social norms and collective behaviour, it is the predisposition of Filipinos to clanishness and distrust for one another. This lack of trust and extreme insularness that seem to be roadblocks to large-scale cooperation and organisation are what could likely be signficiantly hindering progress at…
Read More “Science may hold the key to understanding why Filipinos distrust one another” »
The seeming aversion of Filipinos to large-scale infrastructure projects — the sorts needed to achieve the vast economies of scale needed to compete in the global market likely stems from the Filipinos’ heritage of smallness. This prescient snippet quoted from Nick Joaquin’s seminal piece describes the underlying character of Philippine culture that is at the…
Read More “Filipinos need to get better at killing in order to prosper” »
I earlier wrote an article providing my viewpoint on the idea that there is such a notion as a “Philippine economy in the time of Marcos and Duterte”. This cites the topic of discussion in a symposium pitched using that title that features renowned PhD of Economics candidate and Rappler contributor JC Punongbayan. The points…
Read More “To “economists” like @JCPunongbayan “Troll!” is a SOUND argument” »
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance.’ – Hanlon’s razor When a person is intelligent, and it shows, he is often referred to as a show-off and seen to be arrogant. Well it can be that that person is indeed arrogant, or it may just be an inaccurate perception of…