Category: Culture

“My Family’s Slave” is a story familiar to a lot of Filipino families

May 19, 2017May 19, 2017 Ilda 17 Comments

The treatment of household help or katulong by Filipino families has been put under the international spotlight thanks to the essay “My Family’s Slave” written by the late Filipino-American award winning journalist Alex Tizon. His article was recently published by the American publication, The Atlantic two months after his death. Many readers were moved to…

Culture, Society

How one becomes a Yellowtard

May 16, 2017 benign0 23 Comments

A person becomes a Yellowtard not because he is better or smarter than all the rest but because he prefers to allow popular but obsolete clique sentiment to hijack his better thinking faculties. Indeed, it seems too much of the “right” kind of education could be the culprit behind the scourge of Yellowtard disease. What…

Culture, Politics, Society

Is the Duterte presidency fated to be a wasted opportunity?

May 7, 2017May 8, 2017 FallenAngel 44 Comments

What happens if President Rodrigo Duterte is toppled? Easy. Things revert to the status quo. The Liberal Party (LP) – the no-results, hypocritically decent, group of politicians whom Filipinos have had to bear with for the past thirty years – will be back in power. The drug problem, which has been the cornerstone of Duterte’s…

Crime, Culture, Economy, Politics

Filipinos need to lighten up about Tito Sotto’s “Eat Bulaga” humour

May 5, 2017 benign0 5 Comments

The reality is, Tito Sotto has full license to crack misogynist jokes in Congress because it was the stardom brought about by his gig in popular noontime variety show Eat Bulaga that got him the votes to begin with. In short, Sotto’s character merely reflects the character of the society that ushered him into power….

Culture, Media, Religion, Society

We Rip What We Sew: Hindrances to Genuine Progress in the Philippines

May 4, 2017 zaxx 3 Comments

As if being relentlessly subjected to searing heat and powerful devastating typhoons, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes on the Pacific Rim of Fire was not enough, many Filipinos like savage wolves are having a field day tearing apart their little would-have-been tropical paradise. Analogous to termites which build their house by slowly destroying their host’s fully…

Culture, Development

The rich understand poverty a lot more than the poor do

April 24, 2017April 24, 2017 benign0 13 Comments

The old familiar bleed-your-heart-for-the-poor wars are raging once again amongst members of the Philippine intelligentsia. “Awareness” of the “plight” of the poor, after all, is quite the fashion statement in the guilt-ravaged Catholic minds of members of well-to-do cliques raised on the notion that camels have better chances of going to heaven than rich folk….

Culture, Lifestyle, Society

Four aspects of Filipino society that are unlikely to change, even in a Duterte presidency

April 20, 2017April 20, 2017 FallenAngel 7 Comments

A typical evaluation, or discussion of the Duterte administration, usually begins with this underlying premise: Rodrigo Duterte was elected because Filipinos wanted change. For sure, Rodrigo Duterte is different in more ways than one. He is the first president who hails from Mindanao; as such, people are expecting a sort of “outsider’s perspective” from him,…

Culture, Development, Politics, Society

KADAMAY squatter mentality at heart of chronic Filipino poverty

April 8, 2017 benign0 13 Comments

Whether one is rich or poor, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone pays their way. Rich people are rich because they were likely to be exceptionally clever or industrious (or both). Poor people are poor because they likely habitually enter into commitments they are inherently incapable of honouring. The common denominator,…

Crime, Culture, Development, Society