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
Tag: Philippines
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
Sounding “American” does not equate clarity or comprehension. Fluency is not imitation. It is ownership. I Grew Up Speaking in Two Worlds I grew up and spent a big part of my life in the Philippines. Yes, we used English in school. It was the language of instruction, of authority, of announcements shouted through broken speakers that nobody really heard.
I remember the Christmas morning after we lost everything. We had nothing left to give, except the will to smile. That was enough. The Longest Holiday on Earth We Filipinos are Christmas crazy. Always have been. Always will be. The moment September arrives, we start the ritual. The malls explode in red and gold. The parols light up like small
The Philippines once guarded someone else’s peace. Now it guards its own. The Center That Never Wanted to Be One The Philippines never asked to be at the center of the Indo-Pacific. Geography made that choice for us. We sit in the path of ambition, where trade routes meet, where power projects, and where history keeps repeating itself. In the
The Great Filipino Hallucination We’ve become a nation of highlight reels and hollow souls. Everyone looks rich online, but behind those posts are overdue bills, loan app notifications, and unpaid rent. It’s not poverty that defines this generation—it’s delusion. Take a walk through Instagram and it looks like we’re all living the good life. Café hopping, beach trips, unboxing videos,
Not a Broadway Number Do You Hear the People Sing? is not theater in the Philippines. It is not performed on a stage. It is performed in the slums, in evacuation centers, in the lines at pawnshops and remittance centers. It is the anthem of people who were promised a better life by every administration and then handed crumbs. The
Every nation has flaws, but not every nation repeats them with the stubbornness of a drunk who swears he’s sober. We Filipinos have perfected the art of messing things up, proudly, consistently, and sometimes cheerfully. From politics to culture to economics, we manage to sabotage ourselves with a creativity that could have made us great if only it were directed
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
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