Tag: nick joaquin

Resistance to Jeepney Modernization symbolizes Filipino Primitivism

October 6, 2019April 6, 2025 ChinoF 23 Comments

Our webmaster Benign0 and other bloggers have all mentioned how the jeepney is a symbol of the Philippines’ backwardness. Recently, efforts to improve it, or replace it with a better vehicle, met resistance from the likes of “transport groups” like PISTON and Manibela. What’s funny is how even celebrities and middle-class commenters insert themselves and…

Culture, Development, Lifestyle

Why are Chinese workers WORTH MORE than Filipino workers in the job market?

March 3, 2019 benign0 12 Comments

For all the noise about the growing number of Chinese workers flooding the Philippines, very few “activists” have raised this most important question of all. Why do Chinese workers attract bigger wages than Filipino workers? Furthermore, it seems employers of Chinese workers in the Philippines are willing to take significant effort and incur the cost…

Development, Economy, Money Talks

Filipinos need to get better at killing in order to prosper

October 23, 2018October 23, 2018 benign0 36 Comments

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…

Culture, Development, Economy

Duterte possesses that much-needed “MURDERER mentality” to lead the Philippines to GREATNESS

July 30, 2018 benign0 8 Comments

To be fair to the Philippine Opposition led by the Liberal Party (a.k.a. the Yellowtards), a strategic vision for the Philippines hinged on building infrastructure is counterintuitive to the average Filipino mind. This is because Filipinos do not have a strong historic tradition of building stuff. Indeed, much of the really large historical civil works…

Development, Society

Survival Mentality makes Philippine Society Nasty

August 4, 2016August 6, 2016 ChinoF 47 Comments

Recent articles, such as that of our webmaster Benign0, have reminded us how the murders we’ve seen lately have long been part of Philippine society. We have warlords, killings and Filipinos who hate each other just for having different ideas. Philippine society can indeed be nasty, and it has been for a long time. But…

Culture

The #Philippines is guilty of the Mahatma Gandhi’s Seven Social Sins!

April 16, 2015January 6, 2023 benign0 8 Comments

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…

Crime, Culture, Economy, Education, Media, Politics, Religion, Society

The Philippines is too big a country for Filipinos to govern on their own

February 26, 2015 benign0 22 Comments

It’s no wonder the government fatally screwed up to the tune of 44 dead Special Action Force police officers last January — and even more baffling that Filipinos are actually shocked that such a monumental foul up could actually occur in the Philippines of all places. The operation involved lots of coordination, up-to-the-minute planning, and…

Development, Society

Life is cheap in the Philippines: recent events prove it

December 9, 2013 benign0 28 Comments

The sad economics of human life is plain as day. Close to 6,000 Filipinos died just recently after super-typhoon Yolanda (a.k.a. Haiyan) struck the Philippines’ coconut growing heartland in November of this year. The Philippines made international news, the world’s great powers moved their men and steel into the disaster zone to help, top Filipino…

Civics, Culture, Development, Economy, Government, Media, Religion, Society