We beg to differ.
Sure, it’s possible to boycott Chinese products. But you’d first need to invent a time machine. You’d have to bring the Philippines back to a time when it had no more than a third of its current population. You’d need to find the sweet spot in its history over which it mined, grew, and made…
Read More “Is it even possible to “boycott” Chinese products?” »
Days after President Bongbong Marcos’ second State of the Nation Address, I still find myself gagging over the en faire tout un fromage over our political elite’s so-called red carpet pageantry. I don’t recall when traditional news media started featuring the fashion statements of this country’s politicians, but it should stop because it detracts from…
There was a time in the Philippines when priests were regarded as trophy guests in parties and family reunions. They’d also be essential members of every consequential gentleman’s or lady’s social network. Indeed, in social situations, they were figures that people would mill around to get their dose of basbas (sort of a stamp of…
Read More “Why Filipino priests are no longer the toasts of Philippine society” »
Many people have been wondering why Filipino films and television shows are such massive cringes. On the surface, the most obvious observation is that the emotional hooks used by the template plots of these products are overused and obsolete. Shouting matches, loud monologues, and slapstick chatter pepper stories about “love” between characters from opposite sides…
Read More “Filipino movie and TV actors don’t know how to play rich people” »
Back in the old days, televised news reporting used to be mostly done in English. The EDSA “revolution” changed all that. Practically overnight, Tagalog news shows such as pioneer shock “news” caster Noli de Castro’s TV Patrol turned what was once a public service into mass entertainment. Key to this was the pivoting of telejournalism…
Every now and then I re-share an article I wrote some time back, “Regine Velasquez is ‘Queen of Song’ in a country of low standards” just for fun, and every time I get the same rabid responses asserting the contrary. That Velasquez was crowned “Queen” and that the belief that she is “Asia’s songbird” persists…
We’re coming to the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century and the question remains as easy to answer as ever. The biggest red flag (literally) is the continued significant presence of communists in Philippine politics and in the terrorism they sustain in the countryside. Why do these elements continue to figure prominently…
Read More “Has the quality of Filipino thinking progressed?” »
The Tagalog dialect is the pale basis for “Filipino” which is a variant of it Filipinos were led to believe is their “national language”. This is why Manila — which started as a Tagalog settlement that was turned into a colonial outpost by the Spaniards — is referred to as “Imperial Manila”. That’s because non-Tagalogs…