benign0's blog

I noticed a few things in the latest "report" Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III issued to the Filipino public. " Gains are now being felt " was his "report" to reporters given after officiating Rizal Day rites in Manila. And what are these "gains"? He counts (1) a "budget surplus" registered now after a forecast of a P6 billion "deficit" when he first took office and (2) an "improved employment picture" mostly propped up by the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector. From all that he was supposedly given a thumbs up by certain interesting sectors of Philippine society which I will go into in the third point I make.

Rate of growth in the take up of social networking among Filipinos is among the highest in the world. From just 160,000 in July 2008, the number of Facebook users in the Philippines grew by huge leaps to 2.7 million in 2009 and then 14.6 million in 2010. The rate at which Filipinos are infesting Facebook is astounding, indeed. And while our immense numbers go on to pad Mark Zuckerberg's score card, the question remains: Are we adding intellectual, social, or cultural capital to the community?

In a recent article on ProPinoy.net , blogger Cocoy Dayao laments the implementation of volume caps on internet usage in the Philippines by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). Before we fly off the handle here, I believe we first need to step back a bit and ask this more fundamental question: How exactly does increased access to high-speed internet for the average Filipino consumer make her "more productive"?

Ten years ago, we thought that the biggest thing the Web was going to be was a high-tech mail order catalogue. Some of the most publicised tech stunts in the first Web boom of the late 1990's involved geeks voluntarily locking themselves indoors for weeks and subsisting on stuff that can be ordered via the Web -- all to highlight the foreseen downfall of businesses derided by first-generation Web heads and their Wall Street cheerleaders as "bricks-and-mortar" establishments. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com was rewarded for fitting that "vision" when he was made TIME Person of the Year in 1999 . We now know that the Web went on to prove that its biggest direct value to the average schmoe was as a forum for "social networking". Facebook.com enhanced real-world and real-person networking while a plethora of massively-multiplayer gaming platforms opened alternate realities for alternate-person networking. Ergo : 2010 TIME Person of the Year = Faceb...

What by most standards is already a "squeaky clean" society apparently is not enough for a people who set high standards for themselves. The Singapore Government has set a goal to make their 30,000 public rest rooms even cleaner than clean . According to the Restroom Association (Singapore) (RAS), only 500 of these public toilet facilities were "up to its standards". What are these standards that even antiseptic Singapore's toilet facilities struggle to meet?

Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III continues to be beleaguered by a Supreme Court that is "'singling out' his administration". Trouble is, it's all in his mind -- a mind conditioned to squeeze every drop of equity off the victim card that is. Poor guy. He can't seem to move on and focus on next steps . According to a PhilStar.com report , Noynoy almost three weeks since the Philippine Supreme Court junked his precious "Truth" Commission remains "disappointed" with that outcome. He further laments ...

Bombing a place of worship is just so unoriginal, and that also goes for the statements of "outrage" flying back and forth. For me, the heart of the matter lies in the more fundamental conjecture: if there was no organised religion, people wouldn't be sitting ducks in any church to begin with, whether it is a church in Jolo , a mosque, a synagogue or whatever the hell else people go to to "worship" and, as such, become targets for the zealous violence delivered by believers of other competing religions in the names of their respective gods.

Ana Santos shared on ProPinoy.net a letter from Pro-Life head honcho Eric Manalang. The letter was a response for a request from Ms Santos for an interview for IRIN News , the media arm of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Aside from the really appalling English grammar used in the letter there was one key point I noted and is contained in the following excerpt...

The holiday season is made out to be a time of reflective re-visiting of our personal bonds with family and friends. However, reading all these reports about the The Rush -- and the congestion it causes -- from both the Media and friends, it seems to me, that the very perspective that is encouraged in the greetings and messages we exchange is the biggest casualty of the Silly Season.

From a macro collective perspective, the Manila traffic situation is really a simple issue. What we call the "mess" that is Manila traffic is no more than an emergent property ; a collective outcome of the idiotic behaviour of the system's individual elements -- Idiotic Filipino Drivers. Tell-tale signs of a truly idiotic driver is a traffic negotiation style characterised by frequent rapid acceleration followed by hard braking, and awkward squeezing into tight spots. All are hallmarks of a habitual failure to anticipate , empathise , and foresee .

War, famine, pestilence, poverty, and child-molesting priests. There are millions of things that the men-in-robes of the Philippine Catholic Church could be raising a stink about. Instead they focus today on Dolphy's comedy film Father Jejemon , where certain scenes allegedly "disrespect" certain holy rituals of the Catholic faith. King of comedy told to respect King of Kings reports the Inquirer.net , perhaps inadvertently highlighting how our esteemed clerics forget that their "King" is not necessarily all Filipinos' king.

I recently came across a couple of on-line communities whose members shared an interest in following development of rail transport in the Philippines. One was on the PinoyExchange.com thread The New Look of PNR where forum participants shared photos of and news about the services and facilities being developed by the Philippine National Railways (PNR). Among the participants in that thread were the admins of the Facebook.com page PNR, MRT, LRT in the Philippines (PMLP@Facebook).

The call out "Where are the results?" is a rhetorical question. It is a qualifier to any assertions we make about certain things and can be used as a polite way of saying So what? or, better yet, to further qualify a response to the "So What?" question. When, for example, we make an assertion, the best way to test whether said assertion is relevant is to ask ourselves: So what?

As the famous saying goes. the winners get to write history . That, indeed, is what is happening as President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III launches The Inaugural -- a book about, what else, him and his family . Everything about the book has Kamaganak Inc written all over it. The book is published by Maria Montelibano, a cousin (surprised?) of Noynoy.

A " study " conducted by Synergy Business Consultancy (SBC) revealed the most powerful celebrity endorsers in the Philippines, with Manny " Aprub Agad !" Pacquiao, Vicki " Charice's face is getting wider " Belo, and Venus " Major Major " Raj topping the list. These are people who will be paid millions by Big Corporate to stand behind their products flashing their winning smiles at their adoring fans.

Thank you for your continued interest in the top network of commentary outlets in the Philippine blogosphere. There is no other community of pundits more insightful , more original , more consistent , and more open than the men and women who make up the Get Real Philippines Network.

According to a report released by the Philippine Central Bank (BSP), remittances by overseas workers to the Philippines was supposedly the "highest monthly level so far recorded". This was reported by the Inquirer.net as due to a "robust demand by foreign companies for Filipino skilled and professional workers".

It's safe to say that it is every unlikely that Willie Revillame will ever be a Supreme Court justice. But can we be just as certain with regard to the prospect of Revillame possibly making a bid for a seat in Congress or even the Presidency someday? Among the three branches of the Philippine government, it is only the judiciary that requires specialist expertise in the officers who serve within it. Compare that to the executive and legislative branches where actors, boozers, retards, rapists, has-been comedians, and other losers and misguided mutineers all have a better-than-average shot at a lucrative seat within them.

Rather laughable is the high expectations that the Usual Suspects of petty Philippine politics harbour of what may be revealed by WikiLeaks about the Philippines. According to an Inquirer.net " report ", Filipino "militants" expect the information from Julian Assange's infamous site to "reveal detailed information exposing the extent of US involvement in the country's internal affairs" and another bozo crowed how "never before have the secret workings of US foreign policy been opened to such public scrutiny".

If there was anything that the final "resolution" of the Vizconde Massacre -- the "crime of the decade" -- achieved, it was casting the spotlight, yet again, on the astounding incompetence of the state's law enforcement, intelligence, and investigation services. Missing witnesses, tampered evidence, lack of control over crime scenes, and spineless management of the Media characterised the case then just as these characterised much of the more recent spectacles of the Philippines' keystonian police operations.

Mistress of Jolog Central , Ellen Tordesillas, called the occassion "Proof that good things can come out of Congress". The Philippine House of Representatives today approved President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's Proclamation 75 granting "amnesty" to rebel "soldiers" Antonio Trillanes and Danilo Lim. Funny how what can now be considered "the first initiative of President Aquino which has been passed by Congress" involves the cutting loose of a bunch of crooks even as he coddles personal cronies whose gross incompetence had contributed to the preventable deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists in a tragic hostage drama back in August 23.

There's been a lot of trumpets being blown over how the Philippines had recently surpassed India as the world's biggest remote supplier of call centre and back-end business process outsourced (BPO) services. The value proposition of such services to the market is quite clear as far as Filipinos are concerned: they are delivered on the cheap by a society awash with under-employed university graduates who speak excellent English.

The Supreme Court was probably right in shooting down President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's pet project, the "Truth Commission". If you are going to define an entire term of office by a "reform" agenda directed against past improprieties, then you should go the whole nine yards. This means covering all cases of such that transpired over the entire period the current Constitution (the legal framework within which the "Truth Commission" will supposedly work) was in effect. That means all cases that came up from 1986 to 2010 as well as all people involved .

Proud to be like Manny Pacquiao Pinoys watch helplessly as China builds structures on territory claimed by the Philippine government. China had reportedly constructed a "lighthouse" on Subi Reef -- an area occupied by Chinese military personnel but also claimed by the Philippines and Vietnam. But what can we do? Laments Muntinlupa Rep. Rodolfo Biazon ...

Don't look now, but Akbayan party list representative Walden Bello has the distinction of being the first bozo to make that all-too-familiar but tired old call for "people power" a.k.a. Ocho-Ocho "Revolution" of the post-Arroyo era. According to Bello, the ten justices who ruled Aquino's pet "Truth Commission" project unconstitutional need to be "taught a lesson"...

Reading the address of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III to the Filipino people on the Supreme Court Decision junking Executive Order Number One was really painful. It was a painful read because it was in Tagalog. But I managed to capture a few salient points that stood out (indicated in italics after translation into English)... Is it wrong to seek the truth? Who said it is? Isn't it my duty to punish people who broke the law? Who says it isn't? Then again there's the matter of this "amnesty" you granted to "Senator" Antonio Trillanes and Danilo Lim...

I don't really give a rat's arse who is "unconstitutional" nor who is the Righteous One or the Evil One in this whole small-minded drama being spun around this whole "Truth Commission" failure-to-launch fiasco. What I do see is an amusing contest of wits, political acumen, and foresight . So far, the party leading the race as far as this set of contest criteria is concerned is quite clear. Former President, now House Representative, Gloria Arroyo has remained consistent to the winning form she's exhibited over the last ten years -- that of a tenacious and savvy politician; a stark contrast to the bumbling comedy-of-errors that is the Second Aquino Admiistration.

Crows the Inquirer.net at its top headline: " Aquino's rating hits 79% "! It is indeed a celebration of the rise of a president who truly reflects the character of the people he leads. But what exactly does being popular among Filipinos prove? Let me count the ways. Being popular among Filipinos proves...

Looks like it is turning out that "Senator" Antonio Trillanes, his pal Danilo Lim, and their band of rebel ex-soldiers were a lot better off in the hands of the justice system than coddled by the Second Aquino Administration. Hearings on Proclamation 75 have stalled due to another instance of the pwede-na-yan regard to work quality of Malacanang staff...

According to retired bishop Teodoro Bacani, Santa Claus is stealing the true spirit of Christmas and as such we are seeing this supposedly blessed holiday of Christendom "deteriorating into a shopping frenzy". Okay, padre , why don't we go back a bit and investigate what "Christmas" really is, shall we? Ask most people what they think Christmas is, and they will answer that it is the day commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ. But was Christ really born on the 25th of December? For that matter, is Christmas as we know it celebrated on that date, really a holiday introduced by the Christian faith?

I saw this Asian girl at the mall today sitting together with her family opposite from where I was sitting at the food court. She must have been about seventeen or eighteen, and she looked like the sort who spends quite a bit on her looks, judging from her exquisitely-tinted hair, her manicured eyebrows, trendy clothes, and designer spectacles.

I just recently came across the term " kuliglig ". It refers to a motorised pedicab -- a pedicab fitted with some kind of small gasoline-powered motor normally used for motorising small boats. It's another one of those instances of "Pinoy ingenuity", I suppose. A modern-day jeepney-style "adaptation" to the chronic dire situation that is the Philippine condition. These vehicles are flat-out illegal . But like that other renowned Filipino lifestyle -- squatting (which is also illegal ) -- operating kuligligs had recently become the latest fodder for the quaint ululations of Filipino populism.

The venerable Abe Margallo in his FilipinoVoices.com article House Bill 5043, quo vadis (whatever the hell does " quo vadis " mean, anyway?) makes another one of those typically irresponsible rah-rah assertions about the issues of population and reproduction -- the sort that fuels primitivism in already hopelessly backward Philippine society. The cornerstones of his thesis are the following ululations : (1) Filipinos are "assets", so the more such assets we produce, the more value is delivered to the society. (2) The reason Filipinos remain poor despite their being an "asset" is that they lack "opportunit[ies] to work and earn income". (3) The "economic elites" have not done their "duty" to invest more of their resources into creating said "opportunities" for the masses. Guess again, gramps . Here are some reality checks for you...

No heads have rolled yet in the aftermath of a botched hostage rescue that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead and we are already seeing a bunch of bandits led by "rebel" leaders Antonio Trillanes and Danilo Lim who needlessly endangered civilian lives in a misguided "mutiny" all set to be set loose back into society. Already the Hong Kong government had initiated its own public inquest into the handling of the hostage drama that left eight of their citizens dead.

It seems the government of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III's solution to improving access to publication is to make government less accountable for public education and leave it up to big private profit-oriented corporations to educate the next generation of Filipinos.