Tag: thinking

Why is it so exceedingly difficult for the Philippines to change for the better?

December 2, 2014 benign0 28 Comments

Ultimately this is really the only question that really matters. There is no disputing the fact that the Philippines must change. The alternative? Well, that’s really up to Filipinos. If the Philippines does not change, it will continue along its current path. It would be a matter of being content with that course and the…

Development, Economy, Lifestyle, Politics, Society

It is time for Filipinos to start REFUSING to be victims

November 24, 2014 benign0 41 Comments

Perhaps at the root of all the factors that contribute to the Philippines’ continued and foreseeable failure to prosper is a deeply-entrenched cultural artefact: victimhood. Filipinos like playing the victim card. It is the heart of its politics — a “victimised” people to whom populist appeals to hero rhetoric resonate. As such, Filipino politicians win…

Culture, Development, Education, Politics, Society

Who the next president of the Philippines should be

September 9, 2014 benign0 32 Comments

It’s election season again. So, as expected, a lot of people ask us who we think should be president. Personally I think that is a rude question. Ballots are cast in secret for a reason — because who one votes for is none of anyone else’s business. To be fair, good manners are really not…

Government, Politics, Society

Senator Pia Cayetano: Some proper perspective is due the whole Torre de Manila brouhaha

August 28, 2014 benign0 10 Comments

While I find a bit justified the whole stink being raised around the way the Torre de Manila highrise condominiums being constructed in Manila by developer DMCI Homes is supposedly “ruining” the view of the Rizal Monument, I think we are missing the bigger picture. Metro Manila is an ugly city. And that ugliness did…

Civics, Crime, Development, Government, Lifestyle, Media, Politics, Society

PNoy’s endorsement of a 2016 presidentiable: important because Filipinos are too lazy to think

August 12, 2014December 17, 2015 benign0 41 Comments

According to presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda, the biggest boost a presidential candidate can get in the 2016 elections is an endorsement from current President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III. “Everyone wants his anointment,” Lacierda reportedly said. Indeed, so important is this “anointment” that even presidential nemesis Vice President Jejomar Binay is willing to sellout to…

Politics, Society

The Extended ‘So What?’ Test and why this is very important today

July 9, 2014 benign0 3 Comments

The call out “Where are the results?” is a rhetorical question. It is a qualifier to any assertions we make about certain things and can be used as a polite way of saying So what? or, better yet, to further qualify a response to the “So What?” question. When, for example, we make an assertion,…

Education, Society

Filipinos need new innovative ways to nail #DAP crooks to the wall!

July 2, 2014July 2, 2014 benign0 8 Comments

Following the milestone ruling by the Philippine Supreme Court (SC) yesterday deeming the controversial presidential slush fund known as the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) illegal on most counts, the reckoning has started. Several courses of action are being considered which may be undertaken in any number of combinations. The three standout items include: (1) Impeaching…

Crime, Politics, Society

Singer Leah Navarro and the intellectual bankruptcy of Philippine society

June 14, 2014 benign0 10 Comments

Interesting insight into how the mind of a die-hard celebrity “activist” works. Attempts to discuss ideas simply fly over some people’s heads because of a seeming inability to lift the level of discourse from political people and events to the stratosphere of world-class thinking where ideas are the primary currency of discourse. Evidence of this…

Culture, Glitz and Glamour, Media, Politics, Society