We beg to differ.
Did we really expect a seamless, swimmingly-hosted Southeast Asian Games (SEAG)? This is, after all, the Philippines where nothing works. Filipinos cannot organise their way out of a paper bag and this is reflected in just about every failed system and ways of working borrowed from former colonial masters and sloppily-applied to their setting. It…
Look more closely at the facts surrounding the much-vaunted stellar growth of the Philippine over the last several years and one will find the same old disturbingly-familiar drivers of that growth. Or, rather, it is the absence of the right drivers that is more disturbing. Growth is still chugging along the traditional way — through…
Read More “Filipinos’ addiction to OFW remittances is incompatible with economic development” »
A trade war between the United States and China presents a wealth of opportunity to the Philippines — if, of course, Filipinos are up to the challenge of seizing them. Up for grabs is a bonanza for suppliers of goods and services that the US is set to cut China out of if this “war”…
Read More “The Philippines needs to gear up to exploit the US-China “trade war”!” »
Back to business as usual after Elections 2019. Like the end of the Christmas season, it is a letdown to realise that all the festivities have come to an end. The question, is are all the “issues” brought to the fore over more than a year of election fever which ended this month relevant when…
It seems quite hilarious that the possibility that the water “crisis” gripping Metro Manila at the moment has an obvious solution. Reports of a certain Angel Salazar who claims to have been an employee of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) from 1982 to 2012 that a certain “bypass” only needs to be “opened”…
Read More ““Open the bypass!” Are we talking about water flow or vehicle traffic?” »
The seeming aversion of Filipinos to large-scale infrastructure projects — the sorts needed to achieve the vast economies of scale needed to compete in the global market likely stems from the Filipinos’ heritage of smallness. This prescient snippet quoted from Nick Joaquin’s seminal piece describes the underlying character of Philippine culture that is at the…
Read More “Filipinos need to get better at killing in order to prosper” »
So-called “investigative” journalist Raissa Robles had a laugh at my Twitter post the other day about Philippine inflation. She wasn’t specific about why she thought I didn’t know what I was talking about though and I never got the chance to ask since she blocked me. What’s up with people like that? They block others…
Read More “Basic principles of inflation explained for dummies” »
Why did the Philippines grow a car culture to begin with? Filipinos can neither make cars nor fuel them using their own domestic resources. They neither have the roads on which to drive them comfortably nor the discipline and precision of design to keep traffic flowing smoothly. Indeed, what the supposed “car culture” Filipinos take…