Typhoon season in the Philippines puts the dismal quality of life of Filipinos in the spotlight

By -
Entire families hanging on to a semblance of an existence in little stilted shacks on flood plains, in cling-ons along the edges of storm water canals, and in hives hanging off the undersides of bridges. These paint a picture of a city straining under the weight of population growth that has outpaced an ability of the society to meet the commitments in resources and productivity gains demanded by that growth.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular this week

Hypocrisy of Philippines' "disente" crowd exposed by President Rodrigo Duterte

By -
Image
The problem with the "disente" crowd (i.e. Mar Roxas, Risa Hontiveros, Winnie Monsod, wannabe hangers-on like Leni Robredo and Leila de Lima etc) and their oligarch backers is that they only care about themselves and about appearances. Notice how the words they use to criticize Duterte like "unpresidential" and "foul-mouthed" are all premised on some form of pakitang-tao. It's like they don't care that the guy has cut processing times at government offices, given OFWs a one-stop shop, significantly lowered the crime rate after less than 2 months in office. They just fixate on how he talks, his broken English, his bombastic demeanor, and fret "oh, what will the world think of us?" Mas importante pa ba ang iniisip ng UN at ng mga ambassador at mga foreign media kaysa opinyon at kapakanan ng mamamayang Pilipino? Even the very use of the word "disente" by this oligarch-backed group as their tagline reeks of condescension and d...
Read more

Huge achievements crammed within Duterte's first 117 days goes UNREPORTED

By -
Image
POST FACT. POST TRUTH Wait a minute.... Did you know that we have a leader who .... ... Has visited 14 military camps in just a month, including installations that no sitting president has ever laid eyes before. He also visited military hospitals and has invited wounded soldiers for a dinner get together in Malacanang. He was also able to conduct an actual command conference in Basilan. ... ...Has initiated peace talks with the left with the hope on ending a long standing armed struggle. Established goodwill by freeing prominent leftists leaders. Also pursuing peace talks with muslim secessionists. ...Has managed to negotiate for the release of foreigners held hostage by armed bandits in the south. ... Has handled a terrorist crisis well (Davao bombing) managing to immediately restore normalcy, personally visiting the dead and comforting the injured, and enabled the authorities to immediately track down the perpetrators.  After which, he also managed to direct an a...
Read more

Unfollowing @rapplerdotcom: On the growing irrelevance of Maria Ressa

By -
Image
How the mighty have fallen—Maria Ressa, former CNN bureau chief and former head of the ABS-CBN news department, has been reduced to picking fights with Mocha Uson. Ressa’s website Rappler has been posting a series of articles against pro-Duterte netizens who lambasted the yellow media for their biased reporting. Mocha Uson was singled out by Rappler because she’s one of the most vocal Duterte supporters, and her blog has been overtaking Ressa’s Rappler in Facebook engagements. What a humiliating blow for Maria Ressa’s ego. A mere “sexy star” (as Rappler calls Mocha), with none of Ressa’s credentials, experience, or funding, has beaten her at her own game. How could this happen? As a netizen who used to read Rappler but who now prefers to read Mocha’s blog, let me offer an explanation. I prefer getting my news from Mocha Uson because she provides the updates that none of the yellow media are reporting. For example, it was through Mocha’s site that I found out abo...
Read more

Why is an agricultural country like the Philippines now importing rice and fish?

By -
Image
[ Public post by Facebook user Benedict Exconde ] Four things: 1. Basic supply and demand. If your country has 100 million (and increasing, no thanks to Roman Catholic Church meddling, lobbying and politicking) mouths to feed and your local food production cannot keep up with demand, how do you plan to address the supply gap? 2. All administrations between Marcos and Duterte did not give value to agriculture and fisheries as important elements of the economy and national security (i.e., food security). They wanted agrarian communities to do away with agriculture and become laborers in the manufacturing and service sectors, which are controlled by the ruling class, with the "pro-masses" Maoists getting regular payola from them. The failure of these administrations to come up with a comprehensive long-term national food security and rural development plan and their sheer lack of regard to agrarian communities brought us to where we are now, a clusterfuck that Duterte ...
Read more