benign0's blog

As usual, ProPinoy.net resident Mr Important is trying to be cute in his latest blurb where he presumes to tell current hero of the Illustrado class, James Soriano a thing or two. Too bad that thing -- even two of it -- falls short on sense . Nice try, Mr Manuel Buencamino. But do think again . English is just another means of communication . That is true -- among a people who have strong traditions of scientific, technological, and commercial achievement . Thus among successful societies, it does not matter whether you speak English, Japanese, Korean, German, French, Swedish, or Singlish. These languages -- and the people who speak them -- are peers among themselves.

Poor Manuel Buencamino. The title of his latest article on ProPinoy.net alone already sufficiently describes the sort of attitude that apologists of Philippine President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III tend to take. In " A clear message. Period ", Buencamino makes his appeal to the public on how they should regard Noynoy's recently concluded State of the Nation Address (SONA) delivered to joint sessions of Congress -- the message is clear, basta it is! End of conversation, right gramps?

It has often been highlighted that to get on a sustainable course towards prosperity, Filipinos need not a change of men but a change in men. It is a social transformation that needs to come from within . An article in Scientific American provides insight on how lessons learned from the success of some past initiatives that aimed to transform thinking in people and shape their regard for what were once deeply-ingrained beliefs and mindsets could be re-applied today.

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.

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...

Reading Maurice Arcache in his column Wild night with the Cosmo bachelor hunks where he describes a party where "the gals carried water guns, which they used to shoot the behinds of their favorite hunks while modeling on stage, dahlings " (emphasis on "dahlings" is mine), I came to thinking about the many other things the Church could have been stomping their feet about in Philippine society. Instead, our venerated men-in-robes today choose to raise a holy stink about the Reproductive Health Bill and wave their toy Excommunication Ray Gun at a Philippine President who stands by his position on the matter of universal public access to birth control products and services.

President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III (a.k.a. "P-Noy") apparently was not lacking in in-house expertise. He just happened to be too much of a numbskull to be a bit bigger than his adolescent beholdenness to Kabarkada Inc and his infantile imprisonment by Kamaganak Inc to separate the men from the little boys in his Cabinet. In a brilliant expose on the monumental tragedy of unprecedented presidential tunnel-vision, journalist Boo Chanco reports another heart-renting case of fatal missed opportunity on the part of Noynoy's government that could have prevented the deaths of eight foreign tourists. Apparently, Alberto G Romulo who was Executive Secretary of then President Gloria Arroyo was the chief architect of a kick-ass Crisis Committee that came into effect under Executive Order No. 121 in June of 2001...

Filipinos have always prided themselves in being a "resilient" people. So resilient, in fact, that even the worst disasters and tragedies couldn't wipe our silly smiles off our faces. Smiling is so ingrained in our character as a people that I dare say President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III couldn't really be blamed for the reflexive smile plastered on his face as he delivered his official statement on the 23rd August hostage crisis that resulted in the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists. He is Filipino after all. And that is what Filipinos do -- smile .

A British security analyst with experience working in counter-terrorism spelt out no less than ten things that the Philippine police got wrong in the handling of the 23rd August bus siege that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead. In the following, I quote the items verbatim from the report and snippets from what the analyst -- Charles Shoebridge -- had to say about the assault force...

This is a photo originally posted by a certain Dan 周董 on his Facebook profile. You can access the photo at its original location in this Facebook album . It shows what looks like a gang of college students giddily posing for photos in front of the wreckage of the bus that was the scene of the recent siege that claimed the lives of eight Hong Kong tourists .

Noynoy is so 20th Century. He gives currency to the saying "found under a rock" here ... I have to give her the courtesies. She’s the current President. She’s older than me. She's a woman. I would be doing injustice to my parents if I did not treat her properly. Perhaps the significance of how President Noynoy makes something of the outgoing President being a woman and her being "older" than him may be lost to the average Pinoy, but what is really consistently revealing about what sort of man he is, is his continued reference to his parents.