China Rules . . . an essential guide for Filipinos
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visits the Philippines and lords it over his subjects. [Photo source: GMA News]
By JoeAm
It’s the dawning of a new day in the Philippines. The sun rises from the west, which may confuse a lot of people, so let me do my best to clarify the new China Rules, which is the way things work when a nation agrees to be subordinate to China.
First of all, democracy dies and the freedoms and rights that go along with it. Second, people are placed somewhere along a hierarchy of authority, one above the other. Equality no longer exists. Christian moral values no longer apply.
Those nations falling within the Chinese sphere of influence must operate differently. There is no alternative. It is required.
The Philippines is a nation that WANTS to be aligned with China. Go figure. It’s as if independence were the shits and freedom and equality were too much trouble. Filipinos, most of whom have no idea what is happening to their nation or future, follow their leadership obediently. One is reminded of sheep going to slaughter.
Those of us who can grasp the new rules will have a head start on things. So let’s get an edge up on other people. After all, that’s the way things work now.
Rule 1: Loyalty is required and criticism is illegal
Free speech exists as long as it follows “official think”, which you can recognize by considering the way Administration trolls work. They are given talking points by the President, his staff, or his propaganda team. The trolls and agents of government pump out manipulations across the land by managing mainstream media and infesting social media. Truth is irrelevant. Reason does not count for anything. Compassion is not in the vocabulary. What matters is your effectiveness at promoting the government’s ideas and agenda. Style counts. Arrogance is in. Logic is out. You can adapt to the new rules by becoming skilled at lying and pushing mindlessly unproductive programs as if they were genius. It might take some practice, but you’ll either get the hang of it or be jailed or killed. No worries.
Rule 2: The President is above the Constitution and we all find our place in the stacking order beneath him
The President is near godly in stature. His word is the law and the Constitution and its subordinate laws are just tools to be used or ignored, depending on the goal. This rule is easy to apply. Offer praise of the President and his initiatives at all times. Explain to the ignorant how genius the President’s random babblings, lewd jokes, and cursings are. Just pretend that he’s like Jesus, speaking in parables. It is not up to him to explain. It is up to us to reconfigure his thoughts into scripture and lessons and inspiration. And loyalty.
Rule 3: The Chinese President is above the Filipino President; so is the Ambassador to the Philippines
Did I mention stacking order? Look, these are China Rules and the Chinese are on top. Frankly, not only is the Ambassador above the President, but any full-blooded mainlander is of higher standing than any banana-peddling Filipino laborer, general, President, ambassador, or even senator. Get used to it. Xi is a god, for sure, and we should feel blessed to earn his scorn. He’s kind of like the Old Testament God and we are Job. But don’t worry, you can read English so you are higher in the pecking order than most Filipinos and if you are a lawyer who can use your skills to promote the alliance and its agenda, no matter what the laws say, you are above most of the rest. Panelo, Calida . . . they are your idols. The Lumads, I am sorry to report, are rather like the giant clams of the Philippines, down at the bottom and expendable.
Rule 4: Breaking the law is encouraged if you can rat out whistleblowers or steal secrets from America
A good way to rise in the stacking order is to step on other people. Rat out a drug user or video maker, draw up a nasty matrix, shoot a bishop, or otherwise help authorities clamp down tightly on trouble-makers. You can even get rewards if you increase the riches of others above you or take out a particularly troublesome critic. If it is a woman, you have a right to rape her first. Also, bear in mind that China places winning over rules. If you can steal trade secrets or pirate protected intellectual wares, you can definitely find favor among the gods. This will take some time to get used to if you have a conscience. Start small by ratting out a neighbor, then move up from there. Take pride in your ability to be cruel.
Now, I’m sure there are other rules, but those are the big ones. They’ll get you started right. I know that it is difficult if you are used to the idea of being a free individual not owned by others, and if you are kind. But that is not the future of the Philippines. In the future, you will be owned. You will be tracked and measured on your contribution to the Philippines and China.
So be proud.
Do not go astray.
Learn your lines.
Resistance is futile.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Again this would invite another “lecture” from first time readers like late in the incompetence norm blog.
We regulars no that these are the consequences if we do nothing to change the status quo.
Know not no.
Looks right.
The descent of the US and the ascent of China in the PH — a nation of sheep and opportunists. The cynical may ask, So what is new, Joe or Chu?
And thanks — a good follow through from the previous topic.
Not to diminish the message or impact of today’s topic but natives of most countries these days behave more or less like sheeps led by their respective leaders. Blame it on Climate Change?
I think you forgot another one, an extension of Rule 3: Chinese people are superior to Filipino people.
That is debatable. Superior in being more sheepish or [lately] display of bad manners or arrogance?
That is set forth in Rule 3.
Superior in number maybe, or in terms of technology, economy, military,etc. but no one is superior than any other unless they have a superiority complex.
Is there a country aligned to China who lost its democracy, lost its freedom and rights, lost the equal protection of law of its citizens, or lost its independence? The article would be great if it indeed points that certain country (ies) where we can compare and verify with.
North Korea is allied tightly with China. Together, they’ve built and sustained a formidable chain link of military and economic stature in that area of the world.
One would have to be blind not to see the erosion of independence taking place in Hong Kong, the pressures on Taiwan, the problems in Tibet, the instrusions into the sovereign territory of other states, the ball and chain weaponized debt, and the thuggish manner of China’s international relations and domestic activities, not to be able to project forward a scenario such as I have laid out, with some literary style points thrown in for those with good reading habits to appreciate.
HongKong, Taiwan and Tibet are of China, somehow China exercise significant influence or control over those regions. China is a communist country, and those regions form of government might as well be a communist or socialist somehow, least of Taiwan.
What i could give credit in terms of comparison with the Philippines are those “other states” you have mentioned which China extended loans. Take this for example, China takes over a major port from Sri Lanka because the later defaulted. What was the take-over all about? Sri-Lanka entered into a 99-year lease agreement with China for that port. Was it an intrusion by China of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty? Well it depends in Sri Lanka’s laws.
With respect to our country, the Philippines, if we defaulted will China take over our West Philippine Sea? The government said the West Philippine Sea is not a collateral to any Chinese loans. Benefit of the doubt, il give it to the government. For the recent $300M loan of the Philippines from China for the construction of irrigation and dam, only patrimonial assets are collateralize, no assets for public used was used as collateral. I could say that no territorial sovereignty was surrendered in terms of China’s loan.
Well, you are arguing the China side and the nits and nats can always be argued. I do recall an uproar over a reef being attached as collateral to a loan but I’m not going to run around proving the point. You may have your view that China is a benevolent state, and I’ll hold my view that, if she were, she would not have claimed and militarized international waters, nor would she be sending out fleets to swarm contested feature, and the lack of freedoms I cite is common, and her language reflects the thuggish tendency to lecture the ‘lesser states’ that contest China. China is counseling the Philippines on media usage (propaganda) and security (big brother). I’ll believe she is benevolent when I see a tipping of her acts and words toward consideration and respect. And it is certainly easy to see the Duterte slide to the same kind of imperial state that China represents.
I think there is no such thing as a benevolent country because in a way or another that country granting donation to the other expects returns. China is not a benevolent state, a businessman is no benevolent, and China is doing business.
What China stands is that the international waters, the South China Sea, is hers. But on how to exercise effective control over the entire South China Sea is the hurdle and the big question of how? I believe China could never realize this dream of hers. What she could do is control certain reefs and islets and the territorial seas around it. Freedom of navigation of others are still very much plausible by then. As Philippines we could care less on those international islets claimed by China, unless, those islets are ours to begin with. Let the US handle that freedom of navigation issues by flexing their US navies. A two powers in an area is always good. China’s strategy, after all, is not all about flexing her military muscles, but economic manipulation and control.
DU30 is indeed a China leaning leader, in words and in acts. But leaning to China does not mean regression of his own country, rather, leaning to China should yield progress for the Philippines. China is still growing, she need allies, she know that she could not deal with the world alone. She knows that a well feed ally is a loyal ally. If China will fucked the Philippines up, how can she garner the trust of other nations, South-East Asian nations that could help her realized her dreams of controlling the entire South China Sea?
China is a wave, an inevitable wave, you either face against it, or ride on it. What would be your pick?
Riding it implies control. You’re neither surfing nor swimming. Run to higher ground.
Well, you control your surfboard not the wave. But your picture is no wave, its a tsunami! And who can surf on that thing?
That’s my point.
Haha Dwayne Johnson, i remember he did went on top of that tsunami not with a surfboard though but with a speedboat.
How big is the Philippine speedboat here ???
Excellent question. I’d for sure work up some surfing skills rather than belly flop, helpless, in the water.
Yes, we should surf. But we need to learn it first. We should always see to it that the Philippines is surfing well the China wave.
Fair is fair, Joe. Hongkong was leased to UK. The lease ran out in the 1990s. It’s their territory, period.
The point is whether or not China has the will to allow other states to be independent.
*****
1. Highly perceptive.
2. Here we see two frameworks that mirror each other:
o The first is that of Confucian ethics which is about social harmony through ordered hierarchies as exemplified in the extended family.
o The second is that of the pre-colonial nobility which was also an ordered hierarchy of social inequality.
3. Rule 1 recognizes the preeminent virtue of loyalty which is the first of the three virtues in the Loyalty Triangle. As I have noted, loyalty is not necessarily a virtue.
4. The stratification in the Sino-Filipino hierarchy is spelled out right with any entity in China – president, ambassador, or queue-cutting and spit-hawking mainlander – ranked above all entities in provincial Philippines – president, general, senator, fisherman, Lumad.
5. I can think of some other rules but the two that hurt most are the perpetration and perpetuation of injustice and inequality in several forms. Economic. Social. Political.
5.1. Filipinos are being treated as second-class citizens in their own country.
6. Will Filipinos be able to rise above their conditioning in the election next week?
*****
5.1 Rev: Filipinos are being treated as second-class citizens by other Filipinos.
6.0 I doubt it. A whole lot of Filipinos seem to have a perverse need to prove they are losers, or else don’t understand how to give of themselves to the nation.
On 6. I will be glad to be greatly surprised, edgar.
I Ching: Following..
or I Ching: Oppression, Exhaustion?
similar states with different readouts.
Ped Xing.
(Top definition)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ped%20Xing
Wiki of I Ching
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Ching
Do we have the stomach or the balls to do what Indonesia has done in the name of sovereignty?
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1122900/south-china-sea-news-indonesia-china-tensions-fishing-rights/amp
ChInese customers only.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/05/06/19/dont-discriminate-against-pinoys-malacaang-tells-chinese-businesses
People in a hierarchy can be happy, why not?
If it makes them happy and they know it, they will clap their hands.
Karl are they people, these bowling pins?
They seem so., unless they all fall down when a bowling ball hits them.
Palace wants it investigated.
Hahaha. If they say so.
*****
For a lark and for the first time ever, I did an I Ching reading to divine the future.
No statistics. No math. Pure chance.
My question was: “Will Otso Diretso win?”
The answer was Hexagram 50 — Ting / The Caldron.
o Above Li the clinging, Fire
o Below Sun the Gentle, Wind
Introduction
The six lines construct the image of Ting, The Caldron; at the bottom are the legs, over them the belly, then come the ears (handles), and at the top the carrying rings. At the same time, the image suggests the idea of nourishment. The ting, cast of bronze, was the vessel that held the cooked viands in the temple of the ancestors and at banquets. The heads of the family served the food from the ting into the bowls of the guests. The Well (48) likewise has the secondary meaning of giving nourishment, but rather more in relation to the people. The ting, as a utensil pertaining to a refined civilization, suggests the fostering and nourishing of able men, which redounded to the benefit of the state. This hexagram and The Well are the only two in the Book of Changes that represent concrete, men-made objects. Yet here too the thought has its abstract connotation. Sun, below, is wood and wind; Li, above, is flame. Thus together they stand for the flame kindled by wood and wind, which likewise suggests the idea of preparing food. [Bplding mine.]
Judgment
The Caldron. Supreme good fortune. Success.
***
Caveat: I don’t know if the question is proper as it is not a personal fate question. Hope is a bird with wings that may not fly.
Source: https://ichingfortune.com/hexagrams/50.php
*****
Joe,
The way you describe it, looks a bit black-and-white to me. A bit NOW and THEN. But there is the intermediate stage, the stage of building up this “In the future, you will be owned”. The intermediate stage where China is pumping money (and people) in the Philippines. Money means income for the rulers. Build-Build-Build = kickbacks-bakshish-bribes. So, an ideal opportunity to line the pockets and with impunity (as Joe mentioned, press freedom gone, monitoring intensified, law owned). Before the THEN situation materializes in full, the top brass will be already long time in the US, Europe or other heavens because that is one thing all these top guys have prepared very well: A dual citizenship from direct family or relations abroad which enables them to join them and allowing them to resettle. Like always, it will be the people remaining, the poorer part of the country who will be owned.
That probably explains in part why those Indonesians you mentioned are not so happy to invite the Chinese: most of the top brass in Indonesia knows they have to face the music in their own country and cannot easily disappear to a well prepared safe-heaven.
This is a consequence of the huge OFW culture in the Philipines which I had not anticipated, but when I looked at the politicians and business people in my surrounding, it was easy to see that they had very strong foreign links and all (of the limited, but still significant number of people I know) could make a run for it.
I am struggling with this point of view as I have failed to find a positive angle people could use to change course. At the moment, it makes the picture just a bit more desperate.
The intermediate stage where China is pumping money (and people) in the Philippines. Money means income for the rulers. Build-Build-Build = kickbacks-bakshish-bribes. So, an ideal opportunity to line the pockets and with impunity (as Joe mentioned, press freedom gone, monitoring intensified, law owned). Before the THEN situation materializes in full, the top brass will be already long time in the US, Europe or other heavens because that is one thing all these top guys have prepared very well: A dual citizenship from direct family or relations abroad which enables them to join them and allowing them to resettle. Like always, it will be the people remaining, the poorer part of the country who will be owned.
That probably explains in part why those Indonesians you mentioned are not so happy to invite the Chinese: most of the top brass in Indonesia knows they have to face the music in their own country and cannot easily disappear to a well prepared safe-heaven.
Safe haven, not safe heaven.. but essentially correct. Even if the doors to migration are slowly closing, worldwide. Yet it is an even more awful variant of the usual Filipino egoism – leaving an entire nation to drown after having opened the floodgates and earned from it!
https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/05/04/philippines-can-escape-from-china-theres-still-time
The Philippines is already caught in China’s web, but there’s still the time and a way to escape from it.
The time is now that its economy isn’t heavily dependent on China. And the way is by saying “no” to Chinese investments that could leave the country heavily indebted to Beijing.
*****
“They” — the political elite — do not necessarily seek safe havens abroad. They see themselves as the new Principalia of Chinese Philippines.
*****
Living comfortably..
From a Chinoy paper, translated with Google..
https://worldnews.net.ph/epaper/view/6532/99352?fbclid=IwAR0ypl3D9AnQmhyZJSHIgiSpiwf8NgULYz4wK4khVPWBp1KErC0fLaJ5AnU
[Reporter] Fiji News – That was the weekend when President Duterte was immersed in NETFLIX movies. On Saturday in his bed in Labuan, he watched QUENTIN TRANTINO’s American Western film “DJANGO UNCHAINED”, although the Chinese wanted to know where he was in the past few days.
On the Saturday, attending the 52nd annual meeting of the multinational lender, the Asian Development Bank (ADS), which is based in the Pacific island country, is the Minister of Tourism, Bernard Vullo, and Fu Yue. I texted the message to the president and asked him where he was, telling the Philippine reporters here that GMA No. 7 TV reporter Joseph Mauron had asked her: Where is the president?
Luo Wuluo Fu Fuyue is one of the hosts hosted by CNBC on the topic of “Transparent Tourism: Driving Growth and Sustainability”, where the Minister of Tourism talks about the successful primary destination of Boracay Six months of recovery.
She said: “Boracay has become a buzzword – everyone is talking about Boracay.”
At 4 pm Fiji time – at 12 o’clock in the Philippines – Rovullo Fu Yue’s phone rang, and she had to ask for permission to leave the reporters who were interviewing her. These included Mindi, the Philippines’ visitor’s daily newspaper, and the Philippine Star’s Ami Bamin Duan and the commercial mirror. The newspaper’s Cai Wei Orina slipped.
When she rushed to the outside of the WESTIN suite where she was interviewing, she said, “Please forgive me, that is the president’s call.” “Hello, mayor…”
Luo Wuluo Fu Fumin’s ringing tone from the president is one The theme song of the British film “CHARIOT OF FIRE” in 1981.
The reporters heard her ask the president: “They are asking why you have disappeared in five days?”
The phone conversation lasted about eight to nine minutes.
When Luo Wuluo Fu Yue went into the room, she was telling the president: “I want them to see (you), and then say goodbye to the call.”
The tourism minister then told reporters: “He will Send it to me at VIBER’s photo, he said I can let you see three.”
Transferred to Rovul in about twenty minutes The photo of Fu Fuyue shows the president watching a movie in NETFLIX. Assistant Secretary of Tourism, Holland, ̇兰斯 ̇ Huang Jing later identified the film as the “Death Order” for the 2012 film. ,
On his desk placed some newspapers on Saturday.
Luo Wuluo Fu Fuyue said that when she asked the president about his disappearance, he reportedly replied: “Why is it not good to watch NETFLIX movies? That is Saturday.” The
president also told Luo Wuluo Fu Fuyue, he Also like to watch “BREAKING BAD”.
*****
Bernadette Romulo-Puyat has incarnated into several spirits:
o Bernard Vullo, and Fu Yue
o Rovullo Fu Yue
o Luo Wuluo Fu Yue
*****
‘he Also like to watch “BREAKING BAD”.’
the IRONY.
For “educational” purposes.
This is an excerpt from a blog that I read – granted it is about Brexit but I think, we Filipinos, can learn something from it:
The fact is that Nationalism vs Foreign Imperialism is the only issue that matters today. Left vs Right, Labour vs Conservative, Conservative vs Liberal, all of these past divisions are totally irrelevant because if you are all ruled by a foreign, anti-democratic imperial master, it makes no difference what your local politics are. Which is precisely over 1,300 Conservative councillors learned yesterday. voxday.blogspot.com
The fascinating thing about the internet is that we can communicate what is happening in the West and warn the East of what is coming. We are being invaded by imperialist – and we, as a nation, don’t know how to go about it. Filipino socialist vs. Filipino capitalist is not important anymore if a much stronger invader occupies the land.Our Filipino politics is not important if China invades us – much like the days of Rizal: it was Spaniards vs. Filipinos.
The smart strategy is for us to unite and maintain our nation’s sovereignty – but treacherous oligarchs are selling our nation.
On the other hand, if China is promising prosperity, freedom would be a tough sell.
That last line is a humdinger. If prosperity is broad and deep, great. If it is a few thousand entitled souls, not so great.
Replace Africa with Philippines.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2019/05/04/what-china-wants-from-africa-everything/#4330baa9758b
Thanks. Yes . . . everything.
China is merely picking up where the US has been.
Which can be summed up as,
Time to study the quantumverse, time travel and how to mass produce Pym particles.
Have heart, karl…
This is also Thanos’ fault.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/05/06/19/scientists-warn-a-million-species-at-risk-of-extinction
Far from that. US rule in the Philippines lifted up those willing to educate themselves the American way and swear by the rules of democracy. Spanish rule also uplifted at least the sacristans, scribes and priests plus all others who went by the rules of Christianity.
But apparently, what Filipinos love is to be total servants. Kung paano kayo nagreklamo sa Kano at kay “Panot” at sa mga “delawan”, di niyo magawa sa Tsekwa at kay Digong, di ba?
Wala na talagang asenso ang Pilipino ngayon, kahit bilang trabahador man lang.
The Filipino elite had always been the beneficiary of American colonial influence. That has always been the case in every country that comes under imperial sphere, coddling the economic and political elite.
So while the wealthy class would sing hosannas to American influence, the trabahadors and the peasants aren’t that much enthused.
The 30 year period from Cory’s time in 1986 to the end of Noynoy’s presidency in 2016 had been particularly brutal for the lower class. This was the period of unrelenting neoliberal policies of structural adjustments and austerity measures prescribed by imperial masters.
Duterte and Dutertism is the inevitable product of that elite coddling, peasant trashing 30 year cycle.
Will he overhaul the ship of its old system? Apparently not. He just handed over the control to a different master which now coddles the same set of elite adding his dakilang alalay into the ranks.
What say you of the Thomasites then, Micha?
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/modern-living/2012/09/08/846468/lifestyle
MANILA, Philippines – Tarlac National High School (TNHS) celebrates its 110th anniversary today as the seat of the oldest public school system established by the Thomasites in the Philippines in 1902.
This first high school nurtured the minds of many great Filipino leaders, from prominent statesmen to business pioneers, to academic chancellors and international diplomats.
It was the learning ground where heroes walked, foremost among them the distinguished politician, spokesman, diplomat, journalist and author, and Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo, signatory for the Philippines to the United Nations Charter when it was founded in 1946 and first Philippine President of the United Nations 4th Session General Assembly in 1949. Romulo was also aide-de-camp to General Douglas MacArthur.
The TNHS roster of distinguished alumni includes UP president Onofre D. Corpus; and the late government officials, such as UP president Jorge Bocobo, Senator Jose Roy, Congressman Constancio Castañeda, Philippine National Bank president, Panfilo Domingo, founder of the old Osias Colleges in Tarlac Camilo Osias.
World-renowned architect and sculptor Lor Calma is also an alumnus. Calma continues to bring honor to his alma mater — and his country — with award-winning designs and works of art here and abroad.
Prof. Lino Dizon, Tarlac’s contemporary historian and chairman of the Center for Tarlaqueño Studies of the Tarlac State University, said the TNHS (formerly the Tarlac Provincial High School, later renamed Tarlac High School) was put up at the eastern end of what was the Plaza del Toro. That was during the incumbency of Tarlac’s second Filipino governor, Alfonso Ramos (the recognized first Filipino governor of the province is Gen. Francisco Makabulos, who founded the local Katipunan chapter in his hometown of La Paz and liberated Tarlac from Spanish control).
Plaza del Toro, along Romulo Boulevard, is now the main campus of the Tarlac State University. The country’s first high school was founded on what is now the three-story Smith Hall, home of the TSU’s College of Arts and Sciences.
Dizon said the TNHS’ first principal was Dr. Frank Russell White, one of about 600 American teachers who arrived in the country on board the USS Thomas — thus, the term “Thomasites” — on Aug. 21, 1901.
The Tarlac historian insists that White should be similarly recognized as the country’s first public high school principal.
The TNHS’ establishment, Dizon said, was in compliance with a March 7, 1902 order of the American colonial government which authorized the establishment of such schools which the Thomasites were to manage.
White, however, only served as principal for two months, as he was later appointed division superintendent for the province.
According to Dizon, the school initially had 35 enrollees, which increased to 93 before the end of 1902.
One of its first students was Bocobo. The academician’s daughter-biographer wrote: “Dr. White took special interest in my father because he was always at the top. He predicted that my father would someday be an ‘eminent man of his country.’”
Dizon said the TNHS’ first building, a two-story structure, was made of Oregon pine. It had two classrooms and an assembly hall on the second floor, while the principal’s office and four other classrooms were on the ground floor.
Except for the equipment, which Dizon said were all imported from the US, the total cost of what was the Tarlac Provincial High School was P48,000.
White initiated the school building project, while Gov. Ramos directed its construction. But it was not until January 1904 when the school building was finally completed.
“A large flag of the United States, the gift of the Martha Washington Society of New York, was unfurled at the time in honor of the first public high school in the Philippines,” said Dizon.
The following year, Don Marciano Barrera, a native of Concepcion, hometown of martyred former Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., donated a monument in honor of national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.
“There were those who (said) that this was the first statue ever built for the national hero in the whole of the Philippines,” Dizon said.
When you’re a colonial overlord about to administer the affairs of the natives, it is but natural to educate them of your ways.
Tarlac of course is one of those provinces where the feudal structure is most visible – vast tracts of lands (sugar haciendas) are owned by few feudal families. Why did the supposedly democracy loving Americans through its governor-general did not bother to demolish the feudal structure?
But isn’t the point that these public schools, broke apart or turned upside down, the very feudal structure you speak of, Micha?
“Carlos Peña Romulo was born on January 14, 1899, to Gregorio and Maria Peña Romulo.4 The third of six children, Romulo grew up in a prosperous family in Camiling on the island of Luzon, about 100 miles north of Manila. He described his childhood home as a blend of “Malay and Spanish” influences. His grandparents lived across the street, “and there would be times as I grew,” he said, “that our town seemed like one large family group, for everyone seemed related to me in some fashion.” Outside his neighborhood, rice fields stretched far and wide. “I learned early that all we had had come to us from the land,” he wrote as an adult.5
As a boy early in the new century, Romulo grew up amid a regime change in the Philippines. His father was a guerrilla fighter against American occupation forces after the War of 1898, and when U.S. troops reportedly hanged one of his neighbors at a nearby park, Romulo resolved to “hate [the Americans] as long as I lived.”6
His father eventually surrendered and years later even became mayor, but the younger Romulo’s lingering resentment toward the United States did not dissipate until he was in high school.7 After he completed his studies at the University of the Philippines at Manila in 1918, he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, graduating in 1921. He later received a degree from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, in 1935.8 He married Virginia Llamas in 1924, and together they had four boys, Carlos, Bobby, Ricardo, and Gregorio. Virginia died in 1968, and Romulo married his close friend, Beth Day, 11 years later.9
At the age of 16, Romulo started as a junior reporter for the Manila Times. The newspaper paid him only in streetcar tickets, but it gave him the start to what would become an award-winning career in journalism.10 When Romulo returned to the islands after college, he went back to work as a writer and an editor in Manila. From the early 1920s to about 1941, he thrived in what the New York Times called “the hurly-burly Filipino newspaper world.” During that period, he grew close to Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon and became increasingly active in the territory’s political future, meeting with U.S. officials six different times (1921, 1924, 1928, 1929, 1933, and 1937) to discuss the possibility of an independent Philippines.”
https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/20605
BUT, what I wanna know is why Tarlac, of all the towns and cities, why did the Thomasites start in Tarlac ???? What was in Tarlac at this time?
“After being quarantined for two days after their arrival on August 21, 1901, the Thomasites were finally able to disembark from the USS Thomas. They travelled from the customs house near the Anda Circle then stayed at the walled city Intramuros, Manila before being given initial provincial assignments which included Albay, Catanduanes, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, Sorsogon, Masbate, Samar, Zambales, Aparri, Jolo, Negros, Cebu, Dumaguete, Bataan, Batangas, Pangasinan and Tarlac.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomasites
Well..
or this one, Ireneo… Lol!
https://www.rappler.com/nation/229939-philippines-china-eye-expand-mandarin-training-filipino-teachers
——
Speaking of education.
Nothing is more precious to a master than a willing slave.
Good way to put it.
If I may, TSoH has a lot, lots of eche bucheche questions, silly questions that punctures great brains. Should a country (as has been alleged or hinted here) be a powerful nice big corporation like China? run by big business minded men, big in anything regardless? Are businessmen die-hard for success regardless, HAPPY? See them, look hard at them everywhere they are; do they look happy; when these people of big business country gather for occasions like eating in their great restaurants; when you see them gather for protests or whatever being very reserved, cultured and proper, do they look HAPPY like the FILIPINOS wherever the PINOYS go. Hell who wants to be UNHAPPY in exchange for power and lots of MOOLAH? Do Filipinos want to be looking like serious, unhappy millionaires, stern and strict bosses? Are happy, friendly people likable everywhere they go? Pardon this eche bucheche.
quite accurate.
one other thing, no catholics to report to the pope.
another point. duterte is good at it. he is setting the example for the new normal.
third, many pinoys don’t have any clue. easy to manipulate. transition should not be too difficult.
Three excellent additions to the scene-setting. Thanks.