We beg to differ.
It’s final. To the plea of Hacienda Luisita Inc (HLI) that its vast plantation in Tarlac is worth P5 billion, the Philippine Supreme Courte voted 8 to 6 for a final valuation just short of P200 million. This is based on an assessment of P40,000 per hectare made in 1989 when the Department of Agrarian…
Back in the Dark and Middle Ages, the Church was practically the State. It maintained a firm and oppressive grip on the lives of the people, bending them to its allegedly holy will. People suffered and were persecuted, and all of these were done in the guise of God’s divine providence. Faith became the sharp…
Read More “The 27th Law: Playing on People’s Need to Believe” »
Introduction When I visited Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia last year, I saw a banner run across the two Petronas towers with the following words in Malay on it: Daulat Tuanku As soon as I could, I searched on Google what this phrase means. It is more or less the Malay equivalent of the English expression…
Read More “Filipinos: like a ship lost at sea searching for a beacon” »
Does the solution to the multitude of ills that plague the Philippines reside in politics? Is it really the quality of government that is behind the chronic failure that is the Philippine nation? Think again. [Photo courtesy Today in History.] Perhaps there was a time when there were lots of scapegoats that Filipinos can count…
What did League of Filipino Students (LFS) “activists” hope to accomplish by burning the American flag and defacing the United States embassy facade today (the 16th April)? Did they actually think that they could send whatever noble “message” they imagine their quaint movement to possess to the powers-that-be of what is still the planet’s mightiest…
So I heard there was a 125-strong flash mob assembled at six locations to “occupy” SM Megamall last week. There could be more organized protests to come in the following days until the whole issue fizzles out and goes back into the Filipino people’s unconsciousness. I noticed that not only is rallying in vogue in…
Read More “PNoy government approved the uprooting of pine trees in Baguio City” »
The Philippines is increasingly finding itself in the middle of military flash points across the Far East. Over at the West Philippine Sea, the country’s biggest warship, the BRP Gregorio del Pilar is engaged in a standoff with two Chinese surveillance vessels standing in the way of the arrest of Chinese fishermen caught allegedly poaching…
The Japanese have a proverb/saying: 仏の顔も三度 – hotoke no kao mo sando Literally, this means “Buddha’s face lasts only three times”. What this means is that even the nicest of persons can get angry after being provoked to a certain extent. Why three? I don’t know, but for simplistic reasons just think of it as…