We beg to differ.
Whatever it was said by whoever this James Soriano is, if it is the truth about the utter lack of intellectual tools Tagalog provides its speakers, then no apologies are needed to be given to those who take offense from these words. A Manila Bulletin column published on August 24 titled “Language, learning, identity, privilege”…
Read More “English vs Tagalog: James Soriano owes no one any apologies” »
Popularity contests seem to have taken a new turn in the last decade. It has become literally, just about being “likedâ€. Forget about working on your talent or congeniality. Joining a contest takes less effort than that. If you have no problem with shameless self-promotion, you can win just about anything. Gone are the days…
Read More “How popularity trumps talent in most ‘contests’ nowadays” »
Media spin, political slogans and catch phrases, and “majority rule”. Today, these seem to be the preferred bases for validating what we come to know about our world everyday. At the very top of the hierarchy of this flawed approach with which we validate the “knowledge” we live by is the very concept of democracy…
Read More “Fact by consensus: are we accepting beliefs in lieu of knowledge?” »
The death of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr is being commemorated today the 21st of August. The fact that this event, which happened 28 years ago today, is so revered illustrates a fundamental problematic aspect of the Filipino Condition. The issues that the Philippines faces in its journey through time — presumably towards that much aspired-for…
From a burst of Twitter exchanges Yours Truly (@benign0 on Twitter) had in the last 24 hours with Arnel Endrinal (@LeadPhilippines on Twitter), top political radio jock on his radio show Sentro ng Katotohanan which airs 8.30-9.30pm Tuesdays and Thursdays on DWBL 1242 KHz (AM Band, Philippines), I’ve recently acquired even more insight on the…
Read More “Pornography – the more entertaining alter-ego of religion” »
A few weeks now into my foray into the new-fangled “social networking” facility of Google and I am starting to wonder where the party is. Much has been made of the 25 million-odd signups Google Plus enjoyed over the first couple of weeks as a by-invitation-only Beta site and now the question seems to be…
Ill-equipped, ill-trained, ill-prepared, and ill-thought-out. These are words that can easily describe anything to do with the Philippines across the board — from its politicians, to its law-enforcement officers, to its Media, and ultimately to the very people they serve (and are consequently reflections of). The propensity to fail consistently is ingrained into the very…
Read More “The Mendoza bus hostage massacre: Remembering the victims of a preventable tragedy” »
Here’s an interesting claim from an article in today’s online edition of the Manila Bulletin, which is apparently too exciting to attribute to a particular author: Two factors – skilled workforce and competitive labor cost – account for investors’ choice of the Philippines as an ideal investment site. Many foreign companies reportedly prefer Filipino workers…
Read More “MB Claims Philippines Attractive to FDI Based on the “Because We Said So” Metric” »