If Marcos Jr. signs Senate Bill No. 2699, the Konektadong Pinoy Act, into law, the Philippines might actually stumble into the modern era of connectivity. Notice I said if. Because this is the Philippines, and we can turn even the most straightforward reform into a circus act. On paper, it looks promising. The bill removes the congressional franchise requirement for
I’m sorry, Philippines. I love you. But we need to talk. We are bad at choosing our leaders. Not just bad — catastrophically, world-class bad. Other countries have bad elections. We have recurring nightmares. This Is Not New — It’s a National Pastime We’ve been miscasting our presidents since the Commonwealth. We had Manuel Quezon, brilliant orator, champion of the
The Myth of a Revolution Remember the Pink Revolution? Of course you don’t. Revolutions are remembered because they succeed or fail spectacularly—storming palaces, toppling tyrants, rewriting history in blood or ink. The Pink Revolution did none of that. It didn’t even scratch the paint off Malacañang’s gates. It wasn’t a revolution; it was a campaign. And a campaign is just
Here we go again. The Senate’s Konektadong Pinoy Bill (Senate Bill No. 2699) promises to connect every Filipino. A noble dream, like curing poverty by committee hearing. They called it “digital inclusion.” I call it Broadband Press Release 2.0. We passed the Free Wi-Fi for All Act in 2017. What did we get? Free lag for all. Free buffering. Free
Every August, the Monterey Peninsula stops being a sleepy stretch of California coastline and becomes the center of the automotive universe. For one week, reality takes a vacation, replaced by chrome, carbon fiber, and the sound of V12 engines echoing through the fog. This is Monterey Car Week—though “week” is misleading. It’s not seven days of car events. It’s seven
They call it the Konektadong Pinoy Bill, Senate Bill No. 2699. Cute name. As if baptizing it with “Pinoy” makes it patriotic and “Konektado” makes it competent. In truth, it is the legislative equivalent of plugging a broken router back in and praying it works. The Senate promises every Filipino will finally be online. What it really guarantees is that
Short answer: no.Long answer: hell no—but let’s talk about why it feels like we should. Congress in the Philippines isn’t a store where you can return defective products. If it were, customer service would be the busiest branch in the country, right after DFA passport renewal. You voted for them—or didn’t, because you were busy posting #IStandWithWhatever on Facebook instead
Singapore teaches us a lesson most Filipinos can’t hear over the sound of their own excuses: you don’t get spotless trains, clean streets, and a GDP per capita that makes your neighbors jealous by clutching every shred of “personal freedom” like a toddler hoarding candy. Singapore traded some of it in—cheerfully—for progress, order, and a government that doesn’t need to
I may have upgraded from a clunky CRT monitor to a 4K ultrawide and from instant ramen to a halfway respectable diet, but some things don’t change. I’m still a gamer. Always will be. You can slap on the titles — IT Administrator, cybersecurity whatever, network engineer-in-training, master’s degree candidate — but peel them off and underneath is the same
Look. I reinstalled Windows again. Because of course I did. It’s practically a spiritual ritual at this point—wipe it clean, feel like I’ve made progress in life, and then immediately spend four hours reinstalling updates I forgot to turn off. But this time, I didn’t just stop at Windows. I decided to learn Linux the way God, Microsoft, and a