We beg to differ.
What might be the true full extent of the devastation wreaked by super-typhoon Haiyan (code-named “Yolanda”) has been revealed in recent reports from “a Red Cross” official who quoted horrific numbers that dwarf initial death toll estimates… “We estimate 1,000 people were killed in Tacloban and 200 in Samar province,” Gwendolyn Pang, secretary general of…
Read More “Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) aftermath: How are Filipinos coping?” »
Hmmm… now I’m confused. Do I side with the jeepney driver? Or do I side with the Congressman’s son? Tough decision considering both types of people aren’t really in my top ten sorts of people to sympathize with. But here’s the context behind this personal dilemma of mine… A cellphone video earlier showed [King George…
Read More “Who do we hate more: jeepney drivers or Congressmens’ sons?” »
One of the videos recently making waves among Filipino netizens is this one of two professional wake-skaters Brian Grubb and Dominik Preisner. Apparently, the location they used was that of the Banaue Rice Terraces in Ifugao. According to the video caption: Respect for the environment was a priority from the beginning of this project! The…
Read More “Wake-skating video in the Banaue Rice Terraces: will it wake Filipinos up?” »
Some of you will go to Church this Sunday. In the event you are Catholic I strongly you recommend you email this blog to your priest. Tell them they can take off having to write the sermon for Sunday. Move over Rover, let Father Gogs take over. Get Real Philippines is my pulpit….
Joining our Muslim “kababayans” reflecting at the eve of Eid ul-Adha was most relevant for me. If it was a test of faith for Ibrahim/Abraham to surrender a beloved son, whose birth came to him when he was more than 80 years old; For Filipinos, it’s been the most trying months for our country devasted…
Japanese prime ministers resign every now and then, some of them for as little as the shame of breaking an election promise. One I remember from a couple years back won in a landslide victory but was forced to resign because of mounting criticism for his flip-flopping on the issues he promised to solve during…
Read More “Filipinos need to develop a sense of shame or guilt” »
The trouble with democracy is that it is premised on the assumption that people know what is good for them — a sad reality that people like current Philippine President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III owe their victory at the polls to. In a democracy, majority rules as they say. As far as fundamentalist democracy…
The raging controversy surrounding pork barrel thievery in Congress and Malacañang highlights just how weak a state the Philippines is. It is weak because its people rely on “strong leadership” as a proxy to what should be a grassroots bottom-up approach to applying what, by now, should be a deeply-ingrained sense of civic duty. Instead…
