We beg to differ.
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…
Read More “Is the Duterte presidency fated to be a wasted opportunity?” »
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….
Read More “Filipinos need to lighten up about Tito Sotto’s “Eat Bulaga” humour” »
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…
Read More “We Rip What We Sew: Hindrances to Genuine Progress in the Philippines” »
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….
Read More “The rich understand poverty a lot more than the poor do” »
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,…
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,…
Read More “KADAMAY squatter mentality at heart of chronic Filipino poverty” »
Filipino activists have it all wrong. The scope of their advocacies is defined by people, and not by principle, issues, and ideas. When one defines her interests or advocacies around a person, she necessarily locks herself into a non-negotiable loyalty to that person’s own advocacies. It is a lazy sort of advocacy — picking based…
Read More “Dutertard vs Yellowtard: Cult of personality is a hard Filipino habit to break” »
You made your bed. Now you have to lie on it. This is the underlying principle that guides whether or not “vice president” Leni Robredo was right to get onto the world stage to shriek about the “horrors” of the “extrajudicial killings” (EJKs) going on in the Philippines. The EJKs (whatever way it is defined)…
Read More “Leni Robredo epitomises the deep impoverishment of Philippine society” »
