Tag: globalisation

Philippine society is living off unearned pride bought with false achievement

July 6, 2015July 6, 2015 benign0 18 Comments

Groupthink for the sake of “stability”? That might work if you are a Germany or Japan — or even a China or South Korea. But this is the Philippines. Filipinos got groupthink all wrong. Whereas the other successful collectivist societies groupthought their way to scientific, technical, and economic achievement, the Philippines degenerated into a sad…

Culture, Development, Society

Why Filipinos deserve to be ruled by dynasties

June 23, 2015 benign0 14 Comments

A lot of Filipinos enjoy the hit HBO series Game of Thrones. But the strangest thing: They fail to understand why political dynasties exist in their own country. The fact that people can relate to the characters, stories, and conflicts in GoT is because the plot appeals to the deepest recesses of human nature and…

Development, Economy, Government, Society

Why it is wrong to spend P100M on a celeb wedding in the #Philippines

January 7, 2015May 6, 2022 benign0 68 Comments

Filipinos’ values are indeed perverted beyond recognition. In many Filipino movies, the bad guys are often pointy-nosed fair-skinned snobs (keeping to the narrow-minded way Philippine cinema’s jeje-culture traditionally portrays the rich) living in obnoxious tacky mansions while the “hero” is an other-side-of-da-riles lad or lass living the Pinoy challenge of scraping together a “decent” life….

Civics, Culture, Economy, Glitz and Glamour, Lifestyle, Society

Climate change activism: mere farts in the wind

September 25, 2014December 16, 2022 benign0 12 Comments

Another United Nations (UN) climate summit, another bunch of promises. Has the UN really been an effective body in efforts to mitigate the worst of humanity’s many scourges that Planet Earth suffers? Considering that China is, today, the single biggest producer of “greenhouse gases”, the role the UN plays in an effort to curb emissions…

Development, Economy, Environment, Government, Lifestyle, Science, Society

The persistent myth of economic growth

July 4, 2014August 4, 2022 benign0 5 Comments

Development in understanding in recent years is making real limits on growth a lot more palpable since it is becoming quite evident that our approach to measuring economic value and the costs of acquiring said “value” (i.e. our monetary system) is woefully incomplete. Yet economic growth remains the be-all-end-all that pervades every aspect of human…

Development, Economy, Environment, Lifestyle, Money Talks

Quaint outcomes on Day One of the 2014 World Economic Forum #WEF conference in Manila

May 23, 2014 benign0 12 Comments

Southeast Asia is a part of the world where much of the wealth was created by former colonial masters, inherited by a small elite clique of oligarchs, and is now largely held by the ethnic Chinese diaspora. The degree to which this wealth has trickled down to the greater population varies by country. Nonetheless, major…

Development, Economy

Can sport unite Filipinos?

April 20, 2014April 21, 2014 Ilda 21 Comments

Why are Filipinos not even good at sport? It seems like our athletes had been waved a red flag one day and then simply gave up on trying to achieve world-class status on all types of sport — I know, I know, aside from boxing, of course. A sport is commonly defined as an organized,…

Culture, Development, Education, Lifestyle, Media, Society

The 1986 EDSA Revolution’s legacy: Three key aspects of the 1987 Constitution that hobbles Philippine progress

February 24, 2014 benign0 21 Comments

It’s that time of the year again when we celebrate that supposedly seminal event in Philippine history when, according to the local lore, the forces of evil (porportedly the regime of former President Ferdinand E. Marcos) were vanquished by the forces of good (supposedly the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan). Marcos removed. Game over. The 1986 “People…

Charter Change, Civics, Development, Government, Media, Politics, Society