Category: Culture

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

Dutertard vs Yellowtard: Cult of personality is a hard Filipino habit to break

April 3, 2017April 3, 2017 benign0 12 Comments

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…

Culture, Politics, Society

Leni Robredo epitomises the deep impoverishment of Philippine society

March 23, 2017 benign0 10 Comments

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)…

Culture, Government, Society

Has the Philippines EVER been truly a country FOR Filipinos?

March 21, 2017 benign0 19 Comments

Think about it. The Philippines is named after a Spanish king. Its current sovereign territory was one defined by its Spanish colonial masters. Its current state religion is an imperial legacy of the Spanish Inquisition — an epic geno-“evangelisation” of an entire native culture by colonial forces. Then the “Philippines” became an American colony at…

Civics, Culture, Society

Go forward with Duterte, or slide backward with the Liberal Party – Filipinos are left little choice

March 20, 2017March 22, 2017 FallenAngel 32 Comments

Of course, the “logically obsessed” would beg to disagree. They will contend that just because one criticizes Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, it doesn’t mean that they are “dilawan”, or siding with the Liberal Party (LP) – arguably the loudest voice in the opposition, or some people would like to say, the anti-Duterte camp. And vice…

Culture, Development, Politics

Killing The Culture of Idolatry and Personality Politics

March 9, 2017March 9, 2017 P. Farol 2 Comments

Despite the best efforts of the current crop of social media superstars in the Duterte firmament, the discussions of late have been mired in a clash of whose idol is better or worse and seems devoid of any discussion of policy or strategic direction other than the political death of one idol or the other….

Culture, Politics