Form versus Function

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I found this picture on Facebook, and I believe it applies to Filipinos who emphasize form rather than substance:


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Unfollowing @rapplerdotcom: On the growing irrelevance of Maria Ressa

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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...
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Duterte BPI bank scandal a trap set for Trillanes?

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There are now papers floating around that the BPI account in Julia Vargas has a running balance of around Php22,000xx from March 2015 to March 2016. It's peanuts, and Trillanes makes a big fuzz about it? Sonamagan, even call center agents would have this kind of bank accounts; definitely does not show a corrupt DU30. And then, Trillanes talks of 42 real estate properties, but mostly owned by the children of DU30. Yet, the first one that media checks is a unit in P Guevarra, which is only valued at 2.3 million. Even ordinary employees could buy such unit. That could hardly buy just the main door, an imported antique, in the house of Binay, which has been valued at 15 million, yes just the freaking door by itself. What is this, they are again using trial by publicity, which they effectively used on CJ Corona whom they accused him of having 80 properties. In the end, it comes out Corona had only four properties, three of which was purchased for investment purposes only. I don'...
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I was correct with my gut feelings. My friendly butiki, who listens to everything inside the executive offices of GMA7, confirmed that it was the network that paid for everything (repeat, everything) in the so called 'royal wedding'. It was over Php100m on the wedding day alone, not including other expenses in the pre-nuptial activities. This is an eye-popping amount if it is just a wedding expense (as I am one of those who think that a 20m wedding is already stupid and insensitive in a Third World setting, even if one could afford a 500m one). Over 100m, however, is a justifiable amount, even cheap vis-a-vis the ROI, if it is accounted as marketing and advertising expense of a large corporation that regularly spends much more anyway in their ads and promos. If the network has been able to project that their signature stars are bigger than those from competition, then they would have been able to deliver the message that GMA7 is the bigger kid in the block (don't get me...
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The Marcos Administration, during the 1972-81 martial law period tripled the country's road network, doubled the electrification of the country's homes, increased irrigated cropland eight-fold, and achieved rice and corn self-sufficiency. Minimum daily wage rates tripled, although inflation, driven by international oil price hikes and exploding U.S. interest rates, more than wiped out these wage increases. The oil price hike got Marcos thinking about Nuclear power. But the opponents of Marcos were soon being wined and dined in Washington, by both the right wing (Shultz and Wolfowitz) and the left wing (Rep. Stephen Solarz, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and Princeton's Richard Falk) of the "Project Democracy" apparatus, which performed the subversive tasks assigned by the synarchist banking institutions. Salvador Laurel, the son of the quisling President of the Philippines under the Japanese occupation, headed the opposition after Aquino's assassination, and in Februar...
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