Category: Lifestyle

Manufacturing can be a key to Filipinos enjoying a free and healthy life

April 25, 2012September 1, 2014 Ilda 42 Comments

Former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan defined a developed country as: “… one that allows all its citizens to enjoy a free and healthy life in a safe environment”. In theory, his statement is simple enough to understand but quite complicated to put into practice. Annan wasn’t specific about which country or…

Development, Economy, Government, Lifestyle

What Miss Universe really stands for and why feminine beauty exists

April 22, 2012April 22, 2012 benign0 15 Comments

The recent furor over a ruling issued by no less than Donald Trump himself owner of the Miss Universe Organization (MUO) allowing transgender contestants to vie for the Miss Universe title sparked numerous debates around what it means to be a “woman” and what defines “beauty”. The Miss Universe pageant after all is a beauty…

Culture, Glitz and Glamour, Lifestyle, Media, Science, Society

Filipinas are forced to look for real men from overseas

April 18, 2012February 4, 2023 Ilda 323 Comments

Aren’t there enough Filipino men in the country good enough for some Filipino women (Filipinas)? As far as I know, there is no shortage of Filipino men and I haven’t heard of any reports that say there is an imbalance in the sex ratio that would compel some Filipinas to seek men from overseas either….

Culture, Lifestyle, Society

Walking a fine line betwen critic and crab

April 15, 2012August 22, 2013 FallenAngel 11 Comments

A familiar concept to us Filipinos is the utak-talangka, or crab mentality. Explaining it in the simplest terms possible, I define it as the “if I can’t have it, neither can you” kind of mindset. Take crabs in a pot. In order to avoid that one of them escape from the pot, they all pull…

Culture, Lifestyle, Society

Megamall flash mobs vs SM Baguio: still missing the point

April 14, 2012 benign0 13 Comments

There is something about the hoo-ha around pine trees being uprooted from SM property in Baguio City that kinda just bores me. Last I heard there were some “flash mobs” organised by some “activists” in one or the other SM mall in Metro Manila to protest this latest atrocity. Perhaps these “cause-oriented” groups derived some…

Development, Environment, Lifestyle, Society

Why credentials matter in a non-thinking society

April 13, 2012 benign0 22 Comments

We need to exercise a bit of that non-Filipino trait of lateral thinking when we regard this whole issue of “credentials”. I find that the best way to induce this rare form of thought is to ask a child-like question: What are credentials? Any schmoe can Google the term or look it up in Wikipedia…

Civics, Education, Lifestyle, Society

Behind the silly smile is a sad sad nation

April 10, 2012 benign0 36 Comments

The Philippines used to be or perhaps is still known as the place “where Asia wears a smile”. It is true. Filipinos are prerpetually smiling. The most powerful Filipino himself, President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, is famous for sporting a grin on his mug even as he assured the public that his administration was on…

Culture, Development, Lifestyle

Day of Valor in modern times

April 9, 2012 FallenAngel 28 Comments

April 9 in the Philippines marks the Day of Valor (Araw ng Kagitingan), where in 1942, Bataan as the strongest opposition to Japanese invasion fell. To many of us, it’s just another day off from work. On a side note, it kind of feels weird for me to be writing about topics related to Bataan…

Civics, Culture, Development, Economy, Government, Lifestyle, Society