benign0's blog

The Philippines with its population of 96 million registered a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $117 billion in 2006. Singapore for its part, with its relatively paltry population of 4.6 million delivered a GDP of $132 billion on the same year. For less than half a tenth of the humanity Filipinos apply to the job of adding value to the economy, Singapore delivers more in absolute terms .

The bid for amnesty of mutiny plotters Antonio Trillanes and Danilo Lim now hinges on the politics that surround their case -- the childish whims of an adolescent President and the brownie-points-sniffing people's "representatives" in Congress. Isn't this ironic? These are the very sorts of Pinoy-style politics upon which Trillanes and Lim justified the banditry they exhibited in the Peninsula and Oakwood.

From the year 2000 to 2010 the population of the Philippines increased by eighteen million people . At this rate we will likely have increased our numbers by almost the entire population of Australia by 2012 since the turn of the century.

The whole evaluation being made around whether Antonio Trillanes, Danilo Lim and their band of morons deserve to be granted amnesty misses the whole point. The whole point is in how they, with reckless impunity, endangered civilian life using weapons that were entrusted to them by the state. Perhaps it makes it easy for people like "Father" Joaquin Bernas to see this now as just a question of what the intent was and how much remorse is being expressed today, because no one was hurt or killed ...

Should Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew feel insulted? The latest ululation this time from a bunch of brown-nosing bozos comparing a man with a vision to a man who cannot plan his way out of a paper bag.

I gotta hand it to the fine marketing minds employed by the Neutrogena empire. They use "fairness" and "brightness" as euphemisms to describe what are essentially skin whitening products. Just check out the latest press release of the Neutrogena line of products to add to one's "skin-brightening beauty regimen". These are products that, according to the marketing tag line, "aim to brighten complexion and give fair, even-toned skin" (more info on the Neutrogena Philippines Facebook page ).

Singapore's survival as a resource-poor country depended on intellectual-capital-applied rather than on hawking raw materials and minerals to the rest of the world ad infinitum (a mindset that impoverishes countries like the Philippines). Here is an excerpt from a piece written by management expert Tom Peters which I cited in my book .

"Pres[ident]. [Barack] Obama wants to know if they can build a Manny Pacquiao statue to scare off Mexicans from illegally crossing US border." So goes a "joke" made by Filipino-American community leader Gel Relos Santos on her Facebook profile in a post that has since been deleted. The following screen grab showing the ensuing heated debate on the merits and demerits of this fine specimen of Pinoy "humour", however, was captured and is preserved here (and reproduced below but cropped to fit the page) for posterity.

Here's another one of those ironies that escape the renowned vacuous sensibilities of Filipinos. Bayan Muna "representative" Teddy Casiño gushes over the outcome of the latest bout that saw Manny Pacquiao emerge victorious once again: "Manny is the epitome of skill, competence, sportsmanship, perseverance and everything good about being Filipino. He makes me proud to be a congressman.

Just saw the photo below making the rounds on Facebook. The album from which it was lifted was posted by the Animal Welfare Coalition (see also AnimalWelfare.com.ph ). The caption of the album indicated that the photos were "proudly posted" by a certain Bigleng Arcilla on "November 8" and whose friends include "Jeff Pecson, Jannella Cruz, Ar Tubaces Jr., Arian Canlas, Jhenypher Sison, Aljon Masiclat, Jerome Cabuso, Aldwin Arcilla, Darwin Delos Reyes, Emanuel Dane Sevilla, Al Mungcal, Aw Arcilla".

A factoid we Filipinos often fret about has to do with the whole wasted opportunity we now struggle to come to terms with around our supposedly being a promising emerging regional star back in the 1950s -- our being Number Two to Japan's Number One in economic development back then while all the rest -- Singapore, Taiwan, the Koreas, Thailand, Malaysia and Hong Kong were all mosquito-infested colonial outposts. We were the poster child of American colonial legacy and looked up to as a role model to be emulated. What happened?

In the on-going debate around whether a shift in form of government will yield any significant change in our ability to prosper as a society over the foreseeable future (if there is such a thing), we have established that there is some validity in the assumption that quality of leadership has a strong causal relationship with system of governance. However, the second component that links prosperity to system of governance remains suspect; i.e. that Quality of elected leaders determines ability of a society to prosper .

South Korean government deports Filipino communists, and Filipinos get mad and try to get even! Indeed, the Philippines is living up to its place in the scheme of human civilisation as the butt of jokes exchanged by diplomats whenever they come together for grilled steaks and beers. According to Warden Bello ... "We cannot turn a blind eye to the South Korean government’s act of repression against Filipino nationals. This arbitrary act manifests a lack of respect for the Philippine government and the Filipino nation," Bello said in a statement.

Philippine President Noynoy Aquino (P-Noy) is turning into the very sort of person that he says he despises. For all the accusations of misconduct and transgression he hurls at former President Gloria Arroyo, there is now enough evidence for Filipinos to say that he is acting in the same way he is describing GMA and those associated with her – with complete impunity on all misbehavior and mismanagement in dispensing their duties as public servants.

No malicious intent in tweeting " Wine sucks " -- or so Ms Carmen "Mai" Mislang thinks. The reason she (and most of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's administration) thinks all's good in the aftermath of this tragic gaffe comes down to breeding . When one sees no harm done in what is an obvious act of rudeness, that indicates the nature of one's breeding. Ill-bred people do not know better . That is because they were brought up to not know any better .

According to Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, the fallout resulting from a crass Tweet of a member of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's entourage as he was graciously hosted by the government of Vietnam is just a "learning experience" . In the offending Tweet, Assistant Secretary Carmen "Mai" Mislang made a personal observation of how the wine served to them by their hosts "sucks". Apparently, this astounding display of lack of breeding did not seem to be something that Malacanang officials found disturbing enough to crack down on as severely as many people would have wanted them to...

Turns out eminent journalist Ces Drilon was also laughing along with would-be boy-watcher Carmen "Mai" Mislang. I picked up the following screen grab from a post by a certain "John Casey" on PinoyExchange.com ...

Got these gems courtesy of " starczamora " in his (or her) post on PinoyExchange.com. " Huwag ka na Sweet Twins. Salamat sa Google caching, nahahalungkat lahat ng chakang tweets mo. " (Thanks to Google caching, we were able to dig up some of [Carmen Mislang's] tacky tweets). Screen grabs follow (click to enlarge)...

Perhaps the whole discussion about bandwidth availability should be clarified and made more specific : i.e. more bandwidth for business and, say, just "enough" (state a number in MB/s) for consumers. That again boils down to the difference between adults and juveniles. The adults (on a macro-level business ) are bringing home the bacon and therefore are entitled to the tools (such as high-speed internet, for example). Juveniles (on a macro-level consumers ) merely consume and therefore should see said tools (which they most likely will use as toys ) more as priviliges access to which should be closely supervised and controlled .

So now there's this new hate site dedicated to wine connoisseur Carmen Mislang that was put up on Facebook . I first learned of it from a friend who emailed me the link to a news report on the GMA News TV site featuring that Facebook page. So off I went to check it out. One of the first things I found was this photo (Ms Mislang is the lady on the left with the tilted head). [Facebook photo location here ]

Eminent Inquirer.net columnist John Nery today published a quaint attempt to diffuse some of the flames burning through the blogosphere over the latest gaffe of a member of the Yellow Horde . This of course, has to do with the venerable speech writer and erstwhile rocker Carmen Mislang who, upon sampling some of the local wines of the excellent Socialist Republic of Vietnam (officially Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam ), promptly posted on Twitter: "Wine sucks", and went further to criticise the facial qualities of Vietnamese malehood. Here are some of his "arguments"...

"Social media" is the term we now apply to technology platforms and the networks of people created on them. Social media made mass communication universally accessible. This means that any moron with a smart phone and a bit of software installed on it can deliver their "thoughts" to a broad audience at the push of a button, a click of a mouse, or a tap on a touchscreen. In essence (highlighting the two terms in italics): Broad casting moron isms has never been easier.