Category: Education

Education: how big a factor it REALLY is to Philippine national development

June 8, 2011June 8, 2011 benign0 4 Comments

Making headline news today and filling the columns of the opinion sections of mainstream media are laments (both factual and opined) on the derelict state of Philippine education. According to the Philippines’ Department of Education (DepEd), 27.5 million elementary and high school students marched into schools last Monday. That’s more than the population of Australia…

Development, Education

Foreign direct investment: Are Filipinos up to the task of seizing opportunities served up to them?

June 4, 2011September 22, 2014 benign0 18 Comments

Seeing foreign direct investment, cash handouts, and subsidies as the silver bullet that will cure chronic Filipino poverty? Think again. Lots of lessons are to be learned in what former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad said in a speech at the Harvard Club of Malaysia dinner on 29 July 2002 about how the presence of…

Culture, Development, Economy, Education

Jinkee Pacquiao says no to Ellen Degeneres because her English sucks

June 1, 2011 benign0 35 Comments

Pac-woman Ms Jinkee Pacquiao reportedly turned down an invitation to guest in The Ellen Degeneres Show recently “because she feared she would be criticized for her lack of fluency in English.” Specifically she was afraid of making a mistake on live television… “Sabi ko ayoko ‘yong live (I said I didn’t want it live),” said…

Education, Glitz and Glamour, Society

Iran: model of successful population control and an inspiration to Filipinos

May 23, 2011July 23, 2013 benign0 9 Comments

The Iranian experience in implementing a successful population management program has become a model for many countries that seek to overcome the debilitating burden overpopulation presents to development aspirations. The most remarkable aspect of Iran’s program is in how what was once a religious directive to go forth and multiply had been repealed by the…

Development, Economy, Education, Media, Religion, Society

The RH Bill: Economic growth alone will not solve overpopulation

May 20, 2011May 24, 2011 Ilda 23 Comments

I cannot say in absolute terms that I am a strong advocate of the proposed Reproductive Health bill (RH Bill). In a perfect world, we wouldnâ€™t need to introduce such legislation. But we do not live in a perfect world and if one’s intention is to seek flaws in the proposed bill, one will surely…

Development, Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Politics, Religion

RH Bill debate: PacMAN not KO’d by LagMAN but beaten on points

May 19, 2011May 19, 2011 benign0 11 Comments

Unfortunately, the much-promoted “debate” between boxing champ Manny Pacquiao and House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman — billed “PacMAN vs LagMAN” — aired on ABS-CBN’s Harapan (literally “face-off”) was inaccessible from Australia. But it does not really take a genius to imagine how such a spectacle might have transpired. Blogger Joe America in a recent comment…

Culture, Development, Education, Media, Religion

Overpopulated Philippines: reduced to panhandling for foreign investment

May 11, 2011May 11, 2011 benign0 33 Comments

Everytime I hear this and that initiative to “attract” foreign investment to the country and then see these touted as “solutions” aimed at uplifting Filipinos from the clutches of poverty and the setting of our economy on a “firm” path to prosperity, I find my eyes rolling up to the high heavens as if to…

Culture, Development, Economy, Education

The funny way Filipinos talk about sex

April 30, 2011October 5, 2015 benign0 5 Comments

Do Filipinos like talking about sex? Answering that question is a journey in itself, and the journey begins with a concept I coined a while back — the Filipino’s tradition-religion complex. The tradition-religion complex represents a narrow framework in which a person finds moral clarity. In the case of the Filipino, it encompasses a small…

Culture, Education, Lifestyle, Religion, Society