There are countries that lose wars. There are countries that lose money. There are countries that lose leaders, elections, industries, borders, and dignity. Then there are countries that lose faith in themselves. That, to me, is the quieter death. Not sudden. Not dramatic. Not the kind that arrives with smoke, sirens, or a final scene worthy of history books. It
Category: Philippines
I promised myself I was done. Finished. Retired. Emotionally pensioned off from Philippine politics. I had decided – quite sensibly, I thought – that I would stop watching what was happening back home. No more news. No more political drama. No more headlines so absurd one initially assumes they were written by satirists with unresolved anger issues. I was going
The Moment You Realize Nothing Is Moving There comes a point when you realize you are writing the same story over and over again. Different headline.Different politician.Same damn outcome. For a while I wrote a lot about Philippine politics. Corruption, dynasties, performative outrage, the usual cycle of promises followed by disappointment. At first it felt necessary. Maybe even useful. Writing
Here we go again, dressed up as responsibility. This week, The Manila Times reported that the Philippines is considering mandatory social media user verification to curb abuse. The pitch is neat and comforting. Order over chaos. Safety over noise. Names over anonymity. The subtext is even clearer: if everyone can be identified, everyone can be managed. That is not about
Somewhere inside Malacañang Palace, there is a comforting belief that corruption can be outsmarted by software. Not confronted. Not dismantled. Outcoded. Just add blockchain, say transparency a few times, roll out a pilot, and suddenly decades of theft, patronage, and selective justice politely excuse themselves and leave. It never works that way, but we pretend it does. Yes, Filipinos might
This week I just started reading The Dictator’s Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, and I am only up to Chapter 2, Coming to Power. That is already enough to make me question my book choices. Some people unwind with novels. Others read productivity manuals. I apparently relax by reading a cold, clinical explanation of why bad
I grew up being told that utang na loob was virtue. That it was the glue that held us together. That without it, we would become cold, Western, selfish. That gratitude was our superpower. What they never said was the price. You feel it early. The tone shifts the moment you do well. Not celebration. Accounting. Who helped you. Who
We are not ready for what’s coming, and we still think we’re fine… … and yet we do not realize how much we are f*cked. Not mildly inconvenienced. Not challenged. Effed in the quiet, structural way that only becomes obvious when it is already irreversible. In the Philippines, flooding has been downgraded from crisis to background noise. It is something
“Not only am I the head of state responsible for a nation of 80 million people. I’m also the CEO of a global Philippine enterprise of 8 million Filipinos who live and work abroad and generate billions of dollars a year in revenue for our country.” — Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Robyn Magalit Rodriguez’s Migrants for Export was published in 2010, but
As Marcos Jr. smiles for the cameras beside his ASEAN counterparts, the region’s leaders once again mistake ceremony for strategy. ASEAN preserved peace by staying silent, but silence is no longer diplomacy, it is surrender. A Table of Smiles As Ferdinand Marcos Jr. meets with his fellow ASEAN leaders for yet another summit filled with handshakes, choreographed smiles, and carefully