We beg to differ.
Since language is once again on the topic table, I’ll put out this piece that had been waiting for the right time. Filipino hostility towards English and foreign languages, as well as towards intellectualism, is not hard to see. People with such attitudes say it is a “patriotic duty” or more nationalistic action to be…
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When the term ‘self sufficiency’ is mentioned, what often comes to mind is food. On that alone, self-sufficiency in terms of food is already a big issue in the Philippines. The Philippines is the world’s biggest importer of rice and is a major market in the region for the agricultural exports of many countries. The…
Read More “Can the Philippines compete in the 21st Century global economy?” »
Here’s a certain reaction I heard about English-Speaking Filipinos: “Ha? Bakit tayo nag-i-Ingles? Mayaman ba tayo? (Why should we be speaking English? Are we rich?)” When I also noticed that people always assume I was rich and moneyed, I asked my mom about it and she said, “How could they not? You look white and…
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The Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins, sometimes called the Seven Blunders of the World, is a list that he published in his weekly newspaper Young India on October 22, 1925. Later he gave this same list to his grandson, Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper on their final day together shortly before his…
Read More “The #Philippines is guilty of the Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins!” »
It suddenly occurred to me why Marian Rivera has so many frothing fans. It’s because she looks sosyal but sounds palengkera. The psychology there being that there is some sort of perverted appeal to seeing a person who looks like she comes from the colonial elite speaking the language of the masa. Yeah, I get…
Read More “What Marian Rivera’s fan base reveals about Philippine society” »
Don’t look now but Marian Rivera’s come out swinging at her detractors, presumably over the subject of her famous English language skills (or lack of it). I’ve always found Marian fascinating. Her face and physical stature does not match her style of speech. Perhaps this is what endears her to her fans — she physically…
Read More “Is diskarte more important than good English as Marian Rivera says?” »
It seems the Philippines has been singled out by a company in Malaysia as its single biggest competitor for investment in the region. A promotional video produced by a Aegis Malaysia, a global business process outsourcing (BPO) company makes a pitch to its clients to locate their BPO needs in Malaysia by highlighting that country’s…
Climate change continues to loom as one of the biggest risks to the Philippines’ long-term future. Speaking before the United Nations World Tourism Organization’s ASEAN International Conference on Tourism and Climate Change in Legazpi City yesterday, Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III, asserted that the ‘new normal’ it will bring will compromise the long-aspired-for…