We beg to differ.
Much has been said about the poor being unable to escape the simple poverty equation I proposed earlier — that to escape poverty, one merely needs to spend less and make more money. For most Filipinos, the challenge is keeping ahead of inflation. For poor people whose spending is almost entirely confined to just the…
The spiralling of the peso to levels not seen in 12 years is alarming may pundits, many of whom use their large followings on social media to hawk imported goods or foreign-branded goods. These social media marketers face a possible hit on their online income streams if the traders of their goods themselves face dips…
Read More “Depreciating Philippine peso could spell doom for social media “influencers”” »
It’s “International Women’s Day” today. As expected, there are a lot of messages being shouted out about how far women have come and, of course, how much more needs to be done to achieve “gender parity” in the workplace and in society. As such, adding more verbage to all that well-established collective wisdom does not…
Read More “Appreciating why “gender equality” is important on International Women’s Day” »
For one thing, it is a bit presumptuous to think spying on the minutiae of day-to-day lives of ordinary Filipinos is an important enough main objective for a multi-million dollar investment in network infrastructure and telco service delivery capability. There really isn’t much to learn from data collected from Filipino Internet users beyond what Facebook…
Read More “Will a China-owned telco operating in the Philippines spy on Filipinos?” »
A typical evaluation, or discussion of the Duterte administration, usually begins with this underlying premise: Rodrigo Duterte was elected because Filipinos wanted change. For sure, Rodrigo Duterte is different in more ways than one. He is the first president who hails from Mindanao; as such, people are expecting a sort of “outsider’s perspective” from him,…
No, really. Why DO you? Have you ever given it much thought? Yes, this is probably for many one of those “let’s not go there” topics. But we will go there, simply because I can. Why do you subject yourself to the hassle of having to compete with other couples in your neck of…
Read More “So why do you REALLY ‘celebrate’ Valentine’s Day?” »
Some years ago, a Japanese visiting professor told a Physics professor of a Philippine university that was hoping to set up some local semiconductor research capability a rather condescending joke “our microchips for your banana chips” – commenting on the level of bilateral trade/exchange our two countries had. The Physics professor, unfortunately due to the…
Who does not love the word: serendipity (Kate Natividad’s Alden Richards and Maine Mendoza rock!)? It sounds like our Tagalog word: ‘suwerte’. Who wouldn’t want luck coming one’s way? I will be grateful to take it anytime. We should be grateful that from time to time we are afforded the opportunity to meet serendipity. I…
Read More “Destroying the Philippines’ social fabric one TV show at a time” »