We beg to differ.
Everywhere you look — physically or conceptually — in the Philippines and you find systems and solutions that cannot scale. The most famous of these is the jeepney. The jeepney “system” (if you can even call it a system) is a public transport solution that requires more labour input with every unit of capacity expansion….
Journalists “reporting” on the devastation wrought by the passing of Typhoon Gaemi (along with southwest monsoon rains) may as well be copy-and-paste jobs. After all, there is a trove of past news reports on typhoons (and even minor weather disturbances) hitting the Philippines and causing disproportionate devastation. Indeed, what stands out is the embarrassing sameness…
Read More “Flooding in Manila following Typhoon Gaemi: Déjà vu all over again!” »
It’s important to the Americans that the Duterte brand in Philippine politics be destroyed since it advocates for an independent foreign policy. Witness how we have become the outlier in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) community. Among the original founding members, we are only ahead of Cambodia and Laos while Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia,…
Read More “US propaganda continues to be parroted by Rappler “thought leaders”” »
Certain “activists” take exception to a country’s people being referred to as “capital” to “invest in” in order to “get returns from”. This is in reference to the recently-published World Bank Philippines Human Capital Review report where some pretty damning facts about the collective ability of the Filipino people to compete in a rapidly-evolving world…
Read More “An entire generation of young Filipinos are growing up to be liabilities” »
For many of the world’s richest — or even emerging — economies, the biggest threat to continued prosperity is a rapidly aging and, in the worst cases, declining populations. The effect of wealth and better education on fertility has long been known. As people get better-educated, enjoy a greater variety of lifestyle options, and gain…
Perhaps it is time for the Philippines — and the rest of the “free world” — to reevaluate their regard for Western European civilisation’s presumed leadership in all that is supposedly “good”. Recent events have seen a growing rot within the core of these former crusaders. The “tolerance” towards deviant ideas that they packaged as…
Read More “The Philippines needs to reevaluate its blind allegiance to the West” »
Nothing is more confronting than statistical facts. Today’s Inquirer op-ed, “Dismal passing rate”, paints a sobering picture of the Philippines’ brains trust — perhaps an oxymoronic term to use considering that it is anything but. The Inquirer Editor in essence issues an indictment on the ability of the Philippines to sustainably implement good governance and,…
Read More “The Philippines cannot progress without an intelligent civil service” »
China had the opportunity to colonize most of Southeast Asia if they wanted to. Did they do it? Nope. The Chinese weren’t colonial in their mindset and this is mirrored by their political and social structures during the time of the emperors. It was the Japanese who had plans to compete with the Western powers….
Read More “All Filipino “revolutions” were co-opted by greedy and power-hungry oligarchs” »