GRPundit

According to former Akbayan president Joel Rocamora (writing for Rappler.com), activists "resort to 'Noynoying' which cannot be checked for veracity because it is, after all, no more than a cheap publicity gimmick". http://www.rappler.com/thought-leaders/2941-%E2%80%98noynoying%E2%80%99-is-the-ras-are-annoying If so then why is the Malacañang comms team locked in overdrive sending out these publicity photos of Noynoy supposedly being 'busy'?

What a shame. After producing a brilliant video exposing the banal stupidities of the Philippines, James Sieczka surrenders to a threat from a Cebu councillor that he will be made 'persona non grata'. Is that even possible? I thought this was a country that prided itself in guaranteeing everyone "freedom of expression"? Pinoy nga naman talaga, Parang aso. Matangkad lang kapag baka-upo.

I recall enjoying immensely the book Rocketmen which I mentioned briefly in my piece Great nations achieve great things : Craig Nelson introduces his book Rocketmen , with the story of a 1969 Senate briefing (shortly after Apollo 11 landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon) where Fermilab physicist Robert Wilson is asked how a $250 million atom smasher he proposes be built will contribute to the security of the United States. Wilson responded by saying that it will contribute nothing, but that the American people's capacity to undertake endeavours like those is what makes the United States of America worth defending. Perhaps from that simple anecdote we can begin to understand why Filipinos feel they owe nothing to their country. It is because they see in it nothing to be objectively proud of -- nothing to serve as basis for pride that is of substance .

Several years ago, a Singaporean told me, “EDSA cost you Filipinos more than you can ever imagine.” His reason was, Marcos was actually on the right track preparing the country for industrialization. The export processing zone in the Philippines was among the first and we were ahead of most of our neighbors. There was even a nuclear power plant ready to be turned on which can supply the power demands of electronic factories cheaply. But we kept protesting. So, instead of establishing the Philippines as a manufacturing base, most US companies invested in Singapore instead. For example, Seagate which was the major hard drive manufacturer in the 1990′s supplied more than half of Singapore’s income for more than a decade. He said, Philippines could have been the Singapore of Southeast Asia. Philippines could have been the rich guy in the block. But lucky for Singapore, we Filipinos kept protesting on the streets, while they limited their disagreements in the comedy clubs. [Commented on Get...