We beg to differ.
Why is it that Filipinos are struggling to convince the world — and even themselves — that the bullet planting scam in their premiere airport, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), is just a relatively small problem that affects an almost negligible percentage of travellers? According to Department of Transport and Communications (DOTC) Secretary Jun…
The public puts its trust in government officials to look after the best interests of the public. A very simple tenet. Yet it is one that seems to elude the fundamental sensibilities of Philippine society. When was the last time we rested assured that a Philippine government bureaucracy, bureaucrat, or official is doing its, his…
Read More “Endemic corruption in Philippine society stems from a national Trust Deficit Disorder!” »
It seemed like an eternity ago that Joseph “Erap” Estrada was a whipping boy of the Philippines’ chattering classses. The late Teddy Benigno summed up the pickle — what he called “Our Crisis” — Filipino voters had gotten themselves into when they voted Erap to the presidency in 1998… As many of us in the…
Read More “Has Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada changed for the better?” »
Australia has a new old Prime Minister. Kevin Rudd has been sworn in as PM three years after being ousted as head of the Australian government by his then deputy Julia Gillard in a bitterly-fought jostle for leadership of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in June 2010. At the time Rudd had served for only…
This has remained the single most consistent question directed at the owners and contributors to GetRealPhilippines.com and its network of affiliated sites (which we shall, for the sake of efficiency, henceforth in this article simply refer to as “GRP”). This has always been a topic embraced by GRP and we will, for the umpteenth time…
Read More “Does Get Real Philippines vilify Filipinos and their culture?” »
[The following is a copy of an article written by the late great culture-is-culprit champion Teddy Benigno originally published on the excellent Philippine Broadsheet The Philippine Star on the 9th May 2003.] * * * Parliamentary system not for Philippines: The wherefores by Teodoro C. Benigno Philippine Star 09 May 2003 The raging debate in…
Read More “Parliament and the Philippines: A match made in hell?” »
There’s really not much you can say about the outcome of the 2013 elections other than to invoke those famous last words: Told ya so. The proverbial pig is a lot bigger than its proverbial lips. So you may put as much lipstick as you want on said lips, and the fact will still remain…
The grand-daddy of our culture-as-root-cause thesis, the late great Teddy Benigno, in his classic 2002 Star article Why investors avoid us: The trust factor highlighted what, at the time, was a very conservative forecast regarding China’s fortunes made in a Nomura Research Institute (NRI) study that foresaw a China that could “burgeon into the world’s…
Read More “Without operational excellence, capital is squandered” »