We beg to differ.
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…
They say chivalry is dead. I say this generation of girls killed it. The sorts of role models they make popular now probably merely reflect their character. No wonder boys nowadays feel less need to impress where it counts — because they get sexually rewarded for merely acting like buffoons. Even before the advent of…
Read More “Wisdom versus passion: Miley Cyrus vs Sinead O’Connor” »
Would you go to a protest rally because someone told you to do so or because you feel passionate enough about an issue that compels you to go? If your answer is the former, then you should just stay home because you will most likely end up complaining about how your efforts were useless if…
Read More “Those who rally against Noynoy Aquino’s government’s abuse of power are heroes” »
I realise now after having read an amusing article recently published by one of the staunch apologists of President Benigno Simeon “BS” Aquino III that there is a fundamental assumption that needs to be questioned — the notion that Filipinos actually want a “better country”. Indeed; Can Filipinos be considered to be a people who…
Read More “Filipinos have to WANT a better Philippines badly enough to abolish the pork barrel” »
If the Philippines were a normal country, its government would be paralysed by now. We have a President who’s ability to govern fairly is complicated by his being part of a feudal clan that owns a vast northern Luzon plantation that is on the brink of insolvency and was found to have likely performed accounting…
Read More “Pork barrel thievery going unpunished as traditional Philippine activism fails” »
Even without external forces exerting much effort to do so, Filipinos can be easily distracted from whatever they are engaged in. When they manage to eke out some sort of civic responsibility or outrage against the ineptitude of their government is certainly no exception. Are they angry at the government? Just give them some feel-good…