Get Real Post

Filipinos’ fixation on “fake news” may be a symptom of an intellectual shortcoming

October 29, 2017 benign0 9 Comments

Media “watchdog” Blogwatch recently posted the article Fake News: 7 Types Of Mis- And Disinformation (Part 1) in which it listed satire and parody among categories of online content it deemed part of the “misinformation ecosystem”. It was suggested that the two genres could be dangerous in the Philippine setting because though its authors may…

Culture, Media, Society

It’s time for Trillanes to seek political asylum in the United States to escape Duterte

October 28, 2017October 28, 2017 benign0 3 Comments

It might be time for “senator” Antonio Trillanes to seek political asylum in the United States. After all, he sees himself as “persecuted” and the subject of attempts to “silence” him. In the West, that indeed constitutes “political persecution” and is enough grounds to consider providing refuge to the “senator”. But will Trillanes’s case meet…

Politics

How Noynoy’s incompetence made Duterte happen

October 26, 2017 benign0 6 Comments

The regime of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte happened not because of a template for “dictatorship” cut by vintage 1970s “tyrant” Ferdinand Marcos. Duterte “happened” because he represented a voters’ swing to an alternative to the status quo overseen by the progeny governments of the 1986 “people power revolution”. That revolution promised Filipinos change. Instead it…

Politics, Society

Can Catholic schools and their products ever be truly non-partisan?

October 25, 2017 benign0 5 Comments

I don’t think so — which is disturbing considering that three of the top four universitites in the Philippines are run by Catholic priests. Catholic priests, it should be highlighted here, have taken a vow of obedience, and at the very top of this hierarchy of obedience sits, guess who, none but the Catholic Bishops…

Education, Politics

Three ingredients essential for the Philippines to progress that ‘thought leaders’ fail to address

October 25, 2017October 27, 2017 benign0 7 Comments

The trouble with the Philippines’ political discourse today is that it is hopelessly partisan. As a result, there is no energy channeled into mapping a way forward for the Philippines. Instead, much of the talk is around discrediting one other. Whilst there is a small niche within the social media chatter that appreciates and rewards…

Culture, Development, Economy

This year’s CBCP Halloween stunt: ‘A Night of Horror during Duterte’s Time’

October 24, 2017 benign0 12 Comments

It is quite laughable the way Inquirer columnist Rina Jimenez-David in her opinion piece today trumpets the role of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) in “leading” yet another political stunt (disguised as a religious “mourning” ritual) in the lead up to the Day of the Dead this November. She writes referring to…

Culture, Politics, Religion

Dissecting Rappler

October 24, 2017 Khayri R.R. Woulfe 8 Comments

OVERVIEW The embattled website Rappler.com have been through many issues and controversies since the dawn of the Duterte administration in the Philippines, alleged of misquoting the President, using fake photos, publishing fake news and propaganda, using questionable graphs and data, and putting various bloggers and netizens under bad light. In return, the President himself occasionally…

Knowing the Mind of God: Einstein’s unfinished symphony, Hawking’s partial unification (part 2)

October 23, 2017October 23, 2017 Anthony Quilon 4 Comments

General Relativity + Quantum Mechanics = Troubled Marriage in Short Distances One of the biggest scientific challenges today is the unification of gravity and quantum mechanics. Einstein’s baby or prima donna, his general theory of relativity, described the laws of the cosmos and the birth of the universe, the orbits of the heavenly bodies and…

Science, Tech Talk