Category: Lifestyle

Is anybody on the side of Farmers Plaza janitress Chayra Ganal?

August 20, 2019 benign0 9 Comments

For all the media attention “aggrieved” transgender person Gretchen Custodio Diez is getting, it seems nobody is giving embattled janitress Chayra Ganal fair coverage. According to the more popular account of what happened at the Farmers Plaza mall in Cubao, Quezon City last Wednesday, the 14th August, Diez, a transgender who identifies as female, was…

Lifestyle

China proves that might – and MONEY – makes it RIGHT

August 7, 2019 benign0 8 Comments

Hong Kong’s quaint experiment with liberal Western democracy is coming to an end. That, of course, is not the Hollywood ending a generation of snowflakes raised on a diet of Walt Disney dramas like Frozen is expecting. While there is a lot of noise on social media egging on the embattled protesters massing on Hong…

Government, Lifestyle

Prosperity for the countryside: Promote the Philippines as a haven for “digital nomads”

July 30, 2019 Kate Natividad 18 Comments

Here’s an easy way for local governments in the Philippines to stimulate their local economies — become havens for “digital nomads”. Digital nomads are mobile workers who are engaged in work that only requires an Internet connection and does not require them to be physically present in any one location. This type of work usually…

Development, Lifestyle

“Bakla” does not have anything to do with sexual orientation

May 31, 2019May 31, 2019 benign0 6 Comments

The word “bakla” is a derogatory term. When I was in grade school in an all-boys school, we called school mates who exhibited effeminate behaviour bakla. However, though we liberally threw the term around in the school yard, the notion of being a male person who is sexually-attracted to another male person was completely alien…

Lifestyle, Society

To Jim Paredes: Good luck and have a nice life

April 2, 2019April 2, 2019 benign0 8 Comments

Presumably the “scandal” is over now that Jim Paredes has owned up to and apologised for the grief a private video had caused after it somehow found its way onto the Net and went “viral”. Certainly the bigger lesson here — that nothing transmitted over the Net stays private forever — is not lost. It’s…

Lifestyle, Politics

Under Mayor Joseph Estrada, Manila is still a dump

January 1, 2019January 1, 2019 Ilda 13 Comments

Let’s get one thing out of the way, Manila is a dump — literally. Pictures and videos of Manila including the iconic Luneta Park littered with mountains of trash have been circulating the Internet support this view for many. It’s been a dump for decades and it will stay a dump as long as Joseph…

Lifestyle, Politics

Duterte quip about maid reflects widespread abuse servants cop in Filipino households

December 31, 2018 benign0 21 Comments

I’m not here to make excuses for a head of state making light of possible abuse of household help in his youth. That’s just not on. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte should really put a stop to making comments like that as it only makes him less effective as a leader. At the same time, however,…

Education, Lifestyle, Society

We need to find a peacetime use for social media

November 23, 2018 benign0 4 Comments

Like most technologies that permeate society today, social media, as it turns out, originally came of age as a weapon. Though it was originally pitched as a peachy digital hangout for catching up with friends and as a platform for “activism” aimed at fostering “social good”, what it is really being used for today is…

Lifestyle, Media, Tech Talk