We beg to differ.
It’s always the same, year in and year out. The opening of the new school year in the Philippines never fails to make headline news. The figure now is twenty million. That’s the number of Filipino school kids who trooped to their classes today — a number just short of the population of Australia. Their…
The Philippines has “all the ingredients of an emerging tech tiger” — on paper, that is. Despite an enormous population “addicted to social media” and low labour costs, the “patchy at best” mobile internet coverage and “atrocious” internet speeds — a “measly 3.6 megabits per second (Mbps), well below the regional average of 12.4 Mbps”…
Read More “Philippines to remain ‘paper’ tech tiger until local tech solutions applied” »
If the Philippines were to hold a Presidential election tomorrow, Senator Grace Poe would win by a landslide. Not only does she have everything the average Filipino voter is looking for in a candidate – a popular last name and connection to showbiz personalities – she also enjoys the privilege of using her late father,…
Read More “Dear Senator Grace Poe, Your father FPJ wasn’t qualified for the presidency anyway” »
As the rainy season draws near, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that the social, economic, and political scenes in the Philippines these past few months brought Filipinos face-to-face with very heated situations. The rise in temperature when talking about the weather in the Philippines is enough to cause one to blow his/her top. We…
Read More “The Philippines’ current situation: nakakapang-init ulo” »
Like the word “happiness”, another word Filipinos — specially their politicians — like bandying around is “hope”. As long as there is hope, the saying goes, there is life. What the quality of that life will be, however, is an altogether different discussion. The idea that Hope conquers all is as old as the mythology…
Everybody is excited over a proposal coming from San Miguel Corporation to build a new $10 billion airport to replace the hopelessly decrepit and congested Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA). NAIA is the main international gateway for travelers to the Philippines and is the hub for all Philippine airlines. The airport is named after the…
Read More “Manila airport upgrade up against tough regional competition!” »
Now that Department of Budget Management Secretary Butch Abad is in hot water over allegations surrounding (among others) his being lead architect of the gazillion-peso presidential slush fund — the ‘Disbursement Acceleration Program’ (DAP) — purportedly used to fund efforts to motivate Philippine Senators to deliver a favourable verdict in the 2012 impeachment of former…
Again, I’m seeing the Happy card being played a lot these days. Filipinos can’t get enough of that card. It’s a poor man’s Ace. You can’t make yourself rich overnight, but you can certainly make yourself “happy” in the next minute. And so that is why “Happy” is de facto the buzzword of the Loser…
Read More “Filipinos’ obssession with ‘happiness’ is what keeps them mired in chronic poverty” »