Who REALLY knows the Philippines?
A recent Facebook posting by Atty. Leni Robredo showing where she has been in the Philippines based on https://my-philippines-travel-level.com/map made the rounds as she has truly been in every province, which is a feat in such an archipelago. Two FB friends of mine – one formerly in government, another formerly an aid worker – came quite close though with a few white spots. My profile would be mainly Luzonian – Joe and Lance would surely win hands down when it comes to Visayas and Mindanao.
Former VP Leni once mentioned that being on the ground was far superior to relying on reports only in calamity and development situations as it gave a more accurate view. Certainly different from those who might believe that walking around the countryside is just for peasants, and might feel they are like Harrison Ford in the movie Air Force One when they fly over disaster areas. But who really knows the Philippines anyway?
It occurred to me that I have been to more islands outside the Philippines than in it, and that I know more European languages than Philippine ones. Growing up in the 1970s Philippines, I experienced a time when news of the “provinces” was rare in Manila. The Visayas were far away and Mindanao was Terra Incognita, a place of “strange beasts”. Cebu Pacific budget flights were from the mid-noughties, and nowadays Boracay, El Nido and Siargao are places a lot of people have been. So much has changed really.
Before the Spanish came there certainly was a lot of trade and exchange between the small polities of the archipelago – and beyond. The galleon trade of Spanish times focused stuff on Manila, people were tied to the land by colonialism and raids from Mindanao (which had lost its business in the Spice Trade between the Moluccas and China) made the Visayas an uncomfortable place – until steam gunboats began to be used from 1848 onwards. Two centuries spent looking mostly inward and locally.
All this may have led to an attitude I often have observed of those Joe America calls Filipino 100-percenters – the “when you know you know!” attitude, the exact opposite of the Socratic principle of “I know that I know nothing” that leads to ever new insights. Parochialism is about not understanding that there are more perspectives than one’s own, and that knowledge is found by putting together varying perspectives, getting an idea of where the other person is coming from. TSOH is the latter, not the former way.
This is why I fully support Karl’s previous article to revive this blog, as it has been a source of insights to me and hopefully to many others. Our knowledge is ever incomplete, but the more we open our eyes the less we feel lost. Let’s keep going.
Irineo B. R. Salazar
Munich, 18 April 2023
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Thanks for posting!
The Philippines itself.. knows it’s HOT.. according to Tarantadong Kalbo of course.
super el ninyo at super la ninya, extremes of weather are here to stay: days hotter than hot, dryer and longer drought foreseen, super storms with super cells, often with extreme flash flooding, matira ang matibay! I certainly hope not. phew, ang init!
I think, students should be wearing Tshirts at school. polo shirt is too hot at the collar and students long hair is not helping. wear tsinelas and sandals instead of socks and shoes. short pants instead of long pants and track suits. but not the short, short pants, lol! surots loved them.
Used to be that April and May there was no school in the Philippines. And in the 1970s there were no heat waves over 40°C that I can recall. Isn’t it 45°C now?
closer to 45 degrees na ang temperatura. to make matter worse, often walang electricity and electric fans are idle, aircon is dead too. many businesses are resorting to using portable generators. whether energy efficient yang generators – I dont want to know!
the heat ngayon seems to bite the skin, mahapdi. I wear wide brimmed hat and use umbrella with 50% UV protection sent to me by my aussie friends overseas.
anyhow, kaming mga pulubi are travel challenged, stationary kami and often stay in one place. no money for meaningful travel kasi at ayaw naming mangutang. but we know all there is to know about our neighbors and that is good enough for many of us.
sometimes, the only travel we do is when it is work related. during holidays and enforced vacation, we fix our houses, mend the fence, plant foodstuff, visit friends and neighbors, watch teleseryes, and complained about erring politicians!
Well, it was always like that for the poor even in Lapu-Lapu’s time, though some fishermen did go far. Benham Rise has a name of its own in Bikolano – Kapulingaw-an, the far and lonely place, as a result..
Or how Pigafetta mentioned that a ship from Siam (Thailand) had just been in Cebu days before Magellan arrived – so clearly the Philippines was a “discovery” for Europeans but not for fellow Southeast Asians – even in Malacca they had “Luçoes” (Luzonians) as traders, as the Portuguese chronicler Tome Pires documented in his Suma Oriental.
Hydrate KB and the rest!
hydrate – yes! thanks for the reminder.
👍
No problem just here to facilitate
Thanks for the article. I told you that you can write briefly and shortly.
Philippine provincialism is literally that, Ireneo. Smart degreed folks always say stuff, like this is soooo provincial. I’m like dude you don’t know provincial. til you’ve been in the Philippines.
You add in the yearly staggered scheduled fiestas and you get folks visiting the next town over or to go to their in-laws or classmates’ towns. Wowoweee just brought the fiestas to people’s TVs.
So WowWillie had a very Filipino purpose, to creat the feeling of Filipinoness in the comfort of their own TVs with people watching together and feel your “when you know you know”, Ireneo.
As propaganda goes, i’m sure not intended, his show showed that you can construct a whole identity virtually via TV. the identity being constructed was just fiesta identity, dancing laughing tagay type identity. shallow end of culture.
I suggest (and this was in my now missing post form karl’s article) continue this, pust for Inday Sara to teach geography and if ROTC (i prefer Team Rubicon type ROTC is they’re gonna have it) then focus on getting more HAM radios around the islands.
these HAM radios and its expertise will be useful in times of calamity.
school to school. have them interact then map those interactions out. DEPED can set up a website like garden dot radio : http://radio.garden/visit/bislig/IqmCRDvV
travel, visit, not just during fiestas, be like Israelis. know your land.
And focus on those new American bases (within Filipino bases) wrest control from the seedier parts of the Philippines dirrrty Filipinos, ensure no KTV and buy-me-drinkie bars, bar fines etc. sprout. Hold Americans accountable!
Thanks, Lance. I used the word parochialism as one can be provincial, nationalistic and globally oriented at the same time – the Swiss are, even as every area has evening news in their own dialect of the four main languages. Well, they have really good train service and one can be in any part of Switzerland in maybe four hours at most, kids have discounts and all. Europe has the Eurail program mainly for youngsters, that postwar train discount certainly played a role in building new bridges across nations. The venturesome years of youth are important.
You have mentioned Israel a number of times and of course the Philippines is more scattered. Aparri to Jolo is like Oslo to Rome. Today the Lingayen-Lucena corridor is almost like the central area of Japan’s Honshu Island – a fast train is still missing. Even Java has one now.
Not a fan of ROTC, but a volunteer youth program to help in calamities, building communities etc. – basically a youth component for Angat Pinas of Atty. Robredo might be an idea too. Something like UNV but nationwide. Outside of leftist agitation and stifling authoritarianism.
I once took a bus from Quezon to La Union. and seeing the conductors switch from Tagalog to Kapampangan to Ilocano was impressive. I’d assume had i started from Lucena it would’ve been a deeper sort Tagalog. which would be harder to discern. but those three languages so different it was for me just hearing the difference i was in awe.
The different pastries and snacks being sold as you proceeded on changed with the languages. there were a really good type of candy treat like Taffy almost that was really good around Tarlac area. Anyone know it? i’ve forgotten what its called but would kill for those now.
Hi Irineo. You suggested a volunteer youth program to help in socio-civic and emergency situations.
I was in Baguio City last Holy Week and witnessed an impressive thing. Young men and women, boys and girls actually, acted as traffic enforcers, conducting pedestrians at intersections & stoplights, cleanup drives, more.
Interesting that the BSP (Boy Scouts of the Phils) was founded there in Baguio City.
Their dedication and diligence in carrying out their mission was profoundly meaningful to me.
Thank you for sharing about Switzerland. I lived in Zurich 6 years until I returned in 1980.
It was there that I evolved into a Filipino, no longer indifferent nor apathetic to my own race.
There I realized I was a foreigner, and I knew next to nothing about my own race, my country and its history, mostly due to a colonial mindset. But I made sure that all changed by embarking on a journey inspired by Dr. Jose Rizal, “One who finds his way to his origins finds his destiny”, paraphrased by me.
Thanks, Mike. Yes, Zurich is, on one hand a cool place where everything is like Swiss clockwork, but it is also a cold place. Even for Germans it is, I am partly German so I feel at home in Munich even if it has flaws just like anywhere, but Zürich I never could.
The Swiss have a deep sense of nationalism, so deep they will let you feel that you are an outsider. They will never be rude of course. Ideally, one has to be born or at least raised there, and a physically able man should have done his military service. I know a Pinoy partly raised there who is proud of the rifle he has at home, just like every Swiss reservist. The patriotism of the Swiss is interesting but one also knows one will never fully belong – one’s kids might. I know a Sicilian-Swiss whose father applied for citizenship for the family, and the village voted on it..
As for Rizal, imagine him in Berlin finishing the Noli for publishing by February 21, 1887. His apartment in Jägerstr. 71 is close to the center. Pretty much freezing, away from home for a long time in an age without even long distance calls, much less Internet. No Asian shops, no Thai eateries, not even Jolibee! Seriously, the German people he knew there were big shots introduced to him by Blumentritt, so he was not discriminated but wasn’t at home either – and his German was at a level that wouldn’t even pass the B-level test a nurse has to pass today. There was a Filipino student community in Madrid but in Berlin he was mostly the only Filipino. That is why his descriptions of San Diego and its people in the Noli are so warm and alive. But.. some think Rizal trying to translate Wilhelm Tell in 1886 might have inspired the rebel Elias.
Hi again, Irineo. It was indeed cold in Switzerland but being a natural athlete I endured it well.
One needs context to understand the Swiss. During World War I and World War II, Switzerland maintained armed neutrality and was not invaded by its neighbors, in part because of its topography, much of which is mountainous. I find that history and geography play important roles in shaping mentality. With understanding comes compassionate tolerance.
This “Swiss inclusivity mindset” which may or may not have actually happened, greatly benefitted my quest for my national identity. It drove me even further into my inward journey. I was profoundly grateful for the experience.
There were 5 reasons why Rizal stayed longest in Germany, specifically Berlin:
-To gain further knowledge of ophthalmology.
-To further his studies of science and languages.
-To observe the economic and political conditions of the German nation.
-To associate with famous German scientists and scholars.
-To publish his novel, Noli Me Tangere, just as you said.
Since he had not intended to take any qualification tests there, it was not necessary for him to be overly proficient in Hoch Deutsch. Just enough for him to understand the lectures and expand his knowledge of science and Opthalmology.
I am quite certain that Dr. Rizal endured not only the weather but the “cultural distancing”. Firstly, he was an athlete with strong physical prowess, skilled in martial arts and fencing. His Filipino colleagues in Europe were intimidated by him. They recovered his dumbells of wood and stone from his prison cell.
Secondly, I suspect that the “cultural distancing” towards him in Europe, in general, aided him in his inward quest as well. History tells us that he conducted intensive & extensive research into our culture and colonial mentality which was widespread even then.
He told his former mentor at the Steneo that his mission was “to make men (Filipinos) worthy”.
The elements of his environment were somewhat similar to mine because the years that I was in Europe, mostly in Zurich, were from 1974 to 1980. There was neither internet, video chats, nor emails. Only snail mail and very expensive long-distance calls. In the years I was there I met only one other Filipino.
But I am confident that had he prioritized escalating his German language proficiency, he would have excelled. When I was not working, I was studying at a business college where the medium of instruction was in Hochdeutsch for subjects such as mathematics, bookkeeping, French & German, etc.
I am no Jose Rizal but I was receiving perfect scores in German essay writing, surprising not only my classmates but myself. Dr. Rizal knew of which he spoke when he said, “I am convinced that that the Filipino race is equal to or greater than other foreign races”.
His deep personal strength of mind and spirit, of which he wrote often, was his source of mental, emotional, and physical stamina, and these were rooted in his unshakable faith in God. He was fearless and purposeful even in impending death.
The lack of personal conveniences would not have fazed him too much, I suspect. Yet all the bigshots, including the rich and prominent Filipinos in Europe, did not dare speak out, let alone write extensively, against the harsh regime that brutalized the Filipino people, at that time. No one but him.
He wrote, “I wish to show those who deny us patriotism that we know how to die for our country and convictions”. -(inscribed at Fort Santiago Walls)
And, “One only dies once and if one does not die well, a good opportunity is lost and will not present itself again”. – (Letter to Mariano Ponce – 1890)
The Germans I met in my travels spoke highly of Rizal for his near-prophetic sayings, his timeless wisdom, and his unwavering courage.
As a 10-year-old boy I traveled for the first time with my parents and siblings and we were in Madrid, Spain. Returning from a tour in Segovia we stopped by an inn to eat dinner. It was evening and the place was preparing to close.
But upon learning we were Filipinos, they sat us down at the best table, turned on all the lights, flash-roasted 2 cochinillos, and brought out their musicians to serenade us. When the bill came, we received a hefty discount.
Before leaving, the innkeeper invited us to view a shrine in the corner with candles and photos. In the center of this “shrine” was a vintage photo of Dr. Jose P. Rizal.
I could not understand Spanish but from his words, facial expressions, and body language, he was extolling Dr. Rizal.
It was many years later, in Switzerland, after I had bought and read every Filipiniana and books of Phil. history I could find, that I finally understood why they had afforded us such deferential treatment. It was a mix of shame and compassion for what we had suffered as a People at the hands of their forefathers.
a good man’s legacy does not end with his death, sometimes it begins with it. What a heartwarming anecdote. Thanks for sharing
Thanks Mike. Yours I hope is a journey more Filipinos take, the journey of finding their destiny as a Filipino. As recent violence in what once was a place so welcoming to immigrants, the Philippines is home
It doesn’t have to be outright violence, the experience of being othered, or the experience of downright strangeness abroad can be a catalyst as well. There is an entire book “Banwa at Layag” recently come out with individual articles by Filipino academics about their experiences abroad. This academia.edu article is one contribution, but there is also a full table of contents of the book at the start of the PDF.
https://www.academia.edu/97971515/WAAROM_BEN_JE_HIER_OMDAT_JIJ_DAAR_WAS_ISANG_REPLEKSIYONG_DEKOLONYAL_UKOL_SA_EU_REFUGEE_CRISIS
I have the conjecture that the huge explosion of knowledge generated by Socrates and those who followed him had an earlier trigger: the realization by Ulysses/Odysseus (of course he was mythical so it was the real travellers who went around the hitherto unknown world of the Western Mediterranean to encounter monsters and wonders) of a huge world out there – AND his reverse culture shock of returning to Greece and not even his wife recognized him. The ilustrados of the 1880s were few, the traveling Filipinos of today are many, so let us see.
Thanks too, GianCarlo, for re-publishing this blog. It has been a source of insight for me too and I am grateful.
I share your hope that Filipinos will “take the red pill” offered by Rizal, and awaken to their true identity (Reference to “The Matrix”).
The greatest obstacle to rediscovering our culture is colonial mentality, which is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by Filipinos as a result of colonization. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one’s own.
All we know is the “what”, i.e. crab mentality, ningas cogon, disrespect for authority, etc. But the “why” has been lost in translation.
To know the answer to the “why” necessitates the journey pointed to by Dr. Rizal.
But knowing the “why” will neutralize the “what”.
The challenge is how to convince Filipinos to learn the truth. But if they learn it, the truth will set them free to attain their destiny.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16594851/#:~:text=Abstract,among%20Filipinos%20and%20Filipino%20Americans.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/filipino/en/article/decolonising-the-mind-why-colonial-mentality-is-a-difficult-attitude-to-abandon/nhjtcjj1m
Please share as you see fit. Thank you. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7184660_Colonial_mentality_A_review_and_recommendation_for_Filipino_American_psychology
Thanks. Joe’s best article on those matters is in my opinion this one:
https://joeam.com/2013/01/18/zen-and-the-art-of-filipino-character-maintenance/
I wrote a lengthy article on March 16, 2021 for the Quincentennial:
https://joeam.com/2021/03/16/half-a-millenium-after-magellan/
A bit of an attempt to explore what Rizal did in his article “The Philippines, a century hence” where he went back to the start of colonialism and explored the entire road taken to try and map a road ahead – I asked that as a question in the end as well.
Learning about colonial mentality (the mentality that its white peoples’ fault, like all of it) and overcoming it are two different things. I would argue that overcoming does not necessitate wallowing in the first.
Move on. as quickly as you recognize it. just a road bump. bump in the road. make your money, get yours. that’s what rappers always rap about. And I agree with them.
Make your money, help others if you can. beware of crab mentality not necessarily same as colonial mentality, just human nature.
CRT is wallowing in the past, not moving on. CRT and colonial mentality are the same. CRT is our new religion here in the US. its bullshit. CRT (critical race theory, theory that its all white peoples’ fault and reparations are in order, which is related to mendicancy, which I argued could be
a
positive feature when dealing with China and the US, eg. Show me the money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ! ).
Indians and Filipinos got colonized yes. one more than the other , but look now (keep this in mind, divide and conquer always solutions to problems should be dealt with in bite size pieces not swallowed whole):
This was before we came to this blog, written by Dee Mayer aka Juana Pilipinas, about the need for a “Filipino dream”:
https://joeam.com/2014/02/17/the-filipino-dream-waking-from-the-colonial-nightmare-into-a-genuine-reality/
@Mike: Dee/Juana is one of the classic members of TSOH and a Fil-Am.
Nice. thanks.
that was before my time. missed this. LOL! and you were the LCPL_X of this blog for a bit, then I took over, and eventually everyone mellowed down. hahahaha. 2015, so karl failed in the previous blog to mention that you and me are ka-batch. hahahaa.
but seriously now.
these American dream, Chinese dream and Filipino dream,
i think can be whittled down more to Little Hunger and Big Hunger. from this movie titled “Burning” which was adapted from a short story by Murakami which he adapted also from Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” same title both.
review:
“Hae-mi, part-time sales model and protagonist Jong-su’s love interest, is obsessed with the idea of two “hungers” that the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert talk about. There is Little Hunger, the physical need for food—and Great Hunger, that pesky, unquiet existential yearning within us. The Kalahari Bushmen’s dance of the Great Hunger is a tradition handed down through the generations—comforting in terms of cultural continuity, but also profoundly depressing, knowing that these questions of existential purpose have perplexed and tormented Man through the ages. Lee’s Burning inserts itself into this universal experience of the “Great Hunger,” the sacred ancient search for meaning.
Lee’s film, on one hand, is so rooted in the Korean historical and cultural context and so intimately interrogating the inequalities and class structures in Korean society. At the same time, there is something that feels native in Lee’s film, even to a non-Korean outsider like me. For one, the rich literary lineage that spans histories and geographies—Murakami Haruki’s Barn Burning short story (1983), William Faulkner’s story of the same title (1939)—behind Lee’s otherwise very recent production, opens up the film to various transnational, intercontinental receptions (that I have gladly become a tiny part of). The film’s success has been global, picking up numerous accolades internationally, including the FIPRESCI Award at Cannes. But I think that crucial to the film’s acclaim is that Burning, like all great art (dare I venture), boldly attempts to engage, clarify, and question the human condition. “
can you repost the comment Lance
Wait. what? I’m so lost. what comment?
As for Burning, not sure if I saw it on Netflix (i’ll check again), but for sure Beef was Netflix, if you cannot watch Burning on any streaming, watch Beef. really good.
just have to find the correct netflix region
Lance the one that was lost.
oh. i usually don’t rewrite lost or moderated comments, gian. But my points all get repackaged in other comments so no need. these are thoughts just bouncing around in my head. will eventually escape. nothing special.
I did mention vis a vis EDCA and new bases that people to people connections should be focused on. not just this US and Philippines vs. China stuff. like for example the graphs above lots of well to do Filipinos in the US, why not tap into this relationship even further instead of just balikbayan boxes or remittances.
Oh i remember did mention and ask you about INC (thanks for jarring my memory). also Medical Mission Sisters, LDS Mormons, Jehovahs Wits and 7th Day Adventists. if you Google map and zoom into small towns there, lots of these denominations. not on Google map, but also met lots of Lutheran Filipinos.
get more people to people interactions. didn’t INC buy a town over here, whatever happened to that?
Also colleges and universities here, demand from Uncle Sam that more college cultural exchange happen at university level. Why not also invite Team Rubicon and have them open a similar branch in the Philippines lots of Filipino-Am US military vets there, and revisit getting US veterans to live retire there, but subtract all the KTV/bar fine stuff. VA is already there. logistically feasible.
my bigger point was Philippines and US should be on equal footing. metaphor should be the bar girls and US service men/women. thats not equal footing.
(well i guess that ended up being a good part of the lost comment, lol. thanks for reminding).
Oh also posted that quote by Nietszche about how theres no facts just interpretations.
but I’ll even go a bit farther and post these Philip Dick videos, if Filipinos get into sci-fi I gotta feeling that article by Dee Meyer would be realized even further.
Inday Sara ‘s DEPED should promote more sci-fi. And for ROTC, make Catch-22 mandatory reading.
Philip Dick is a good place to start.
THE sci-fi production in the cinemas now in the Philippines (pilot film) to be followed by a GMA teleserye from May 8 is the live action remake of Voltes V.
https://youtu.be/EYGj7jJXX-M
Was a hit in the 1970s in the original Japanese anime version, was banned by Marcos Sr., was remade in a Tagalog version at some point, and now there is this all-Filipino remake. With even the Japanese theme song sung by a Filipina, singer and actress Julie Anne San Jose – who already did so excellent job of speaking Spanish as Maria Clara in the Maria Clara at Ibarra teleserye that even Latinas said she sounded native, but having known a lot of music pros, a good singer with a feel for the melody of a language can sing operas they don’t understand..
https://youtu.be/xod6BPlPFME
What could Voltes V say about hidden Philippine aspirations?
1. It is about a mecha robot that is the last line of defense for the Earth. A lot of Filipinos noted how the Ukrainians defended themselves against huge odds. The Philippines was not so lucky or ready when not aliens, but other powers came in 1571, 1898, and 1942.
2. It is about a race of horned aliens that treat all non-horned beings as slaves. Somehow, I find their depiction by Filipino actors reminiscent of the entitled in the country.
The father of three of the five ace pilots is the outcast brother of the ruler of the aliens who flees to earth and is rescued by a female pilot with whom he has the three boys. Dr. Ned Armstrong as he is called on Earth helps develop the Voltes V robot. He is played, incidentally, by Dennis Trillo who plays Roman in On the Job and Ibarra in Maria Clara at Ibarra. There are of course aspects of Tom Cruise esthetics in the way the young pilots act in the live action film.
Other than that the only other Filipino sci-fi movie I can think of is Instala, and indie movie about an era when people can buy expensive instant knowledge uploads, making the rich-poor gap in education even worse. A poor cousin of a rich kid asks his relative for money to upload. The deal is that the poor kid will pay it off as a servant to his cousin, not an uncommon arrangement for poor relatives being made to study in the Philippines even in the far past. Watched only the preview but it seems things play out totally differently than expected..
Third try posting.. Instalado is a 2017 Filipino indie sci-fi movie with a Philip K. Dick like premise.. a future where knowledge is bought and “installed”..
https://youtu.be/RCO-iuw-HkU
I wonder if I can see this in Netflix
Gian, my comment to LCPL_X mainly re Voltes V was eaten by the blog monster.. anyhow just for Lance a short repost of two sci-fi shows I mentioned, one a recent all-Filipino live action remake of an anime classic and the other one and indie movie from some years ago:
https://youtu.be/EYGj7jJXX-M
https://youtu.be/Hkln2_yOsc0
To LCPL_X (@LCPL_X), I sense you don’t have a full grasp of the difference between crab mentality and colonial mentality. The former springs from the latter. Crab mentality evolved during the Spanish rule in the Phils and it became part of the whole that is known as colonial mentality.
I’m aware there are people who blame the Anglo-Saxons aka the West for colonial mentality, e.g. Communist China.
I do not blame the West. In fact, I understand them. It was their way at the time.
I have learned that the sooner you accept responsibility for your fate and your life, the sooner you gain control over it. You begin owning it.
I am not familiar with the concept of CRT as I do not believe in it.
Your definition of colonial mentality is flawed and I quote, “that it’s white peoples’ fault, like all of it”.
That suggests you didn’t even read my objective description of colonial mentality which is based on years of studies and research by historians and psychiatrists:
“It is the internalized attitude of ethnic or cultural inferiority felt by Filipinos as a result of colonization. It corresponds with the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to one’s own.”
If you understand the meaning of the above definition, it does not lay outward blame on the colonizers but rather takes an inward objective view of the effects of colonization.
A ten-year research by two recognized *Fil-Am psychiatrists, “Colonial Mentality: A Review and Recommendation for Filipino American Psychology”, concluded that it is a personality disorder.
Personally, I think of it as cultural PTSD. You can do your own research and look it up. It can be downloaded as a PDF file. Or not. That’s fine.
As opposed to what you referred to as “wallowing”, I have an actual field-tested recipe to help Filipinos counteract and shake off colonial mentality.
For six years I trained Filipino call center agents at the very first BPO company for PayPal in the Phils. Many were terminated for failing to meet the customer service standards set by the US mother company.
This also cost the local BPO company a substantial loss of revenue in the form of a management bonus. As customer service is a gray area, the local management was clueless about how to address and resolve the issue.
Fifty agents were given less than 2 weeks of employment to redeem themselves. They were extracted from their respective teams to help the latter earn their bonuses. I realized that the management didn’t really expect them to be saved.
So for 2 hours each night in the training room, I shared with them a mixture of history, culture, and knowledge from 20 years of personal reading and study.
If you know PayPal call centers, they use very expensive software to measure performance down to the decimal point.
According to the software, the agents’ negative scores soared over 500% in 8-10 days. We eventually returned them to their respective teams and monitored their performances over the next 6 months.
From their previous cellar-dweller positions they became the consistent top agents of their teams. Later, many of them rose to management positions in the same or different companies.
Filipinos were intentionally implanted with a sense of inferiority during the colonial era to help make it easier for the Spanish regime to control us. This was done not only by the Governor General’s office, it was also done from the pulpit.
Jose Rizal uncovered this and it is referred to as The Golden Legend: When they discovered us, the Filipinos were animals and cavemen, retarded from birth, etc. They taught this to our forebears for almost 400 years.
We’re all too familiar with the saying that “a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth”. If four generations of people were continually told that they were inferior, they would believe it and act out that belief in their daily lives.
Filipinos are like computers with bad programming. What I accomplished during that training was to rewire them to connect with their innate abilities which had been there all along.
I have read it has been established psychologically that the mindset, ideas, beliefs, conclusions, and paradigms of past generations are inherited.
Unlike yourselves, the majority of Filipinos lack education until now. So they do not possess the enlightenment of educated people such as most of the subscribers here. Add to that the burden of poverty and near-poverty.
You said, “Move on as quickly as you recognize it. Just a road bump”. That ten-year study I mentioned above concluded that one of the symptoms of colonial mentality is that those afflicted with it are unaware that they are.
Crab mentality is not necessarily human nature. In the case of the Filipinos, it’s different, it was cultivated in us.
The Spanish took our lands from us and forced us to till it for them, subjecting our ancestors to forced labor, unjust taxation, discrimination, and widespread injustices.
History speaks of “ration’, the excess harvest is given to Filipinos for food. Well, this was also weaponized at times to punish those who were dissatisfied with the enslavers. The food ration of the erring parties was reduced. Well, we were already starving even with the full rations.
But because of this many of us tried to outdo each other in doing more work in exchange for added rations. When bellies are aching, relationships tend to lose importance. So the disadvantaged others would spread lies and fake news to defame those who were getting more food.
Because of the need to survive, the crab mentality grew and evolved as part of our negative traits. So too, with the other bad habits, e.g. ningas cogon, stealing, and breaking rules. The latter evolved because we resorted to them as a form of silent revenge against our captors. We broke their rules when they weren’t looking.
You said, “CRT is wallowing in the past, not moving on.”
I disagree. There are parts of the past that are still alive in the present. If you don’t resolve your past, it’ll never really go away and there will always be a part of us that is stuck in the past, whether we admit it or not, and we drive the steering wheel with our eyes on the rearview mirror.
It will affect our decision-making. There will be options available that will be invisible to us because our filtered perceptions make us blind to them.
The call center agents I trained? They were in trouble because of their choice of reactions to angry clients from the US and Canada who had money-access issues with PayPal. Americans like to use the F word a lot when they’re emotional. Most Filipinos reacted mutually (Andres Bonifacio). Others capitulated (Maria Clara).
I helped the Filipino agents recognize who they really are, and how their reactions are influenced by their perceptions of themselves, and this allowed them to identify their other options and how to respond. They became more confident in themselves and their abilities. They gained self-respect.
There’s more but I think have demonstrated that I have indeed broken it down into bite-sized pieces, to borrow your phrase. Makes it easier to digest and understand. Obviously, no one has done it for you so I understand.
But I have done that for myself since the seventies and the learning continues for me.
I also realize that I chose the wrong forum to bring up colonial mentality and its continuing negative influence on ordinary Filipinos. I should not expect others to share my point of view. That’s on me.
Thankfully there are other forums where it will not be dismissed or mocked. Thank you all for your time.
Thanks, Mike, for these explanations. I personally believe the closest that “masa” Filipinos came to “puti” was in the time of Bonifacio (who worked for the German company Fressel and Co. as a warehouseman) and call centers.
Pretty much a place where the inferiority complexes inculcated by colonialism were an issue for many of them, but also a place to find more confidence by developing competence. I wonder how that process was for school drop-out Boni – because Germans do respect good work when they see it. I can also imagine how the respect Rizal got in Germany by Virchow and the others, far more progressive than Spain, gave him the guts to face the Kastila.
The key, I have always said, is for Filipinos to realize one thing about “puti”: in German they say “Sie kochen auch nur mit Wasser” – they just cook with water like all people do, there is no magic and no mystery about “them” (I am from both worlds, that’s why the quotes).
Mike, we are a mixed group here. Lance is a US Marine BTW. His style is rough for some.
Joe, of course, is an American but has lived in the Philippines for long with his Visayan wife and his now teenage son. Yes, most of us are indeed privileged, but some of us, like Karl, were also in BPO. The experiences you have mentioned of Filipinos faced directly with Western mentality at its worst are by now well documented. A UP Professor once mentioned how his daughter came home crying because a BPO customer from the USA had called her a (b-word).
We also have kasambahay here, a Visayan who says she is poor, probably is, but I believe she has worked abroad based on her confidence in dealing with us. More like her are needed.
Re call centers and Filipinos either reacting “Boni” (in your face, also the typical DDS reaction actually, as in the way Dutz liked to insult “whites” and “elitists”) or “Maria Clara” which is to be submissive – that is also an issue in general with people coming from underdog situations in hierarchical societies, the solution is to train assertiveness and firmness without aggressivity, Mike’s approach.
As an IT professional with decades in the business, I have seen and experienced many situations and also seen how proper communication and confidence is trained.
https://www.manilatimes.net/2023/01/17/opinion/columns/the-emancipation-of-rizals-characters/1874593 Prof. Xiao Chua also wrote about how a Gen X Filipina (very confident) who strays into the past of Rizal’s novels influences especially Maria Clara to be more outspoken in the recent teleserye “Maria Clara at Ibarra”. It isn’t just Maria Clara, even Ibarra learns to drop his passive-aggressive attitude (as per Manolo Quezon typically Filipino) and confront the friars. I would add it doesn’t help Ibarra because he still ends up nearly stabbing Padre Damaso, even if he real talked him some episodes before, and he still turns into Simoun even as he started a bit of a “peaceful revolution” in the Dinggin Niyo Kami episode of MCAI.
https://twitter.com/kfanghorl/status/1612738827671699462?t=CbKfBQZH3_3Eu36azXRjQQ&s=19
Maria Clara stands up to Padre Salvi and avoids her original fate in the Noli/Fili even as the evil priest kills her in the end. That is the part I didn’t like about MCAI BTW, that fate seems so inescapable, though the final message seems to be past can’t be changed, today we control.
Maybe, maybe, the Philippines is inching out of the psychological trap of colonial mentality. Even as that is a long, painful process. The term of President Duterte was the “Rage of the Bound” bursting out, as Joe America wrote in an article of the same name some years ago.
https://images.gmanews.tv/webpics/2022/09/maria_clara_at_ibarra_2022_09_29_17_30_20.jpg
@Mike,
May we invite you to write articles for TSOH?
Again I ask the old contributors to submit articles.
Many thanks.
@lance, NH, KB, Sonny?
Mike,
Thanks for your BPO expertise, i do wonder what you taught them that made them understand themselves better to be able to become better customer service personnel.
As for colonial mentality, its literally baked into said phrase. That its a mentality created for you by your colonizers, hence the blame whether is the point. master: slave / colonizer mind: colonized mind.
The West (whites) gave it to you, thus you suffer from it.
Crab mentality is totally different. to say that its a sub set of colonial mentality is presupposing noble savage pre history stuff, like native Filipinos never screwed each other over, you had to learn it from whites.
Utter bullshit. So,
I’m pretty sure crab mentality came before colonial mentality, cuz its basic human nature. someone’s up you pull ’em down.
Now CRT is the kicker here, and am not surprised you don’t know it cuz its something just now being kicked around in our schools.
CRT is the logical end of your colonial mentality,
this is the actual ‘Fuck let’s blame someone for this’, like literally whites, for reparations (descendants of black slaves want money from whites, not necessarily their ancestors’ masters), the law and institutions are there to keep you down,
then notions that mathematics is inherently racist, so in SF school district they’ve cancelled math classes for equity sake.
I’ll let you Google the rest, won’t belabor the point.
But CRT is the logical end of colonial mentality. Crab mentality is independent of them, cuz screwing over your fellow man is just basic human nature.
That said, I’m really curious what you taught your BPO folks that they were better call center reps. cuz i honestly don’t see the connection between colonial mentality or knowledge of it,
and being better at customer service.
Since customer service is no rocket science, you just keep telling yourself
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
in the end, you realize that’s all bullshit, and either decide to quit, just relax be a robot, or shoot up the place.
So if that’s what you taught them , THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT then you’ve effectively just made them better slaves. see the irony there?
Hence, why i think this is all bs. Just move on.
I would just add that before customer service was outsourced, they were doing it here whites doing customer service is the same lots of Yes, ma’am NO, sir and being able to just take aggression over the phone. that’s the reason for such high turn over rates when this industry was back here.
But for those who have the gift of gab, its The Wolf of Wall Street all day every day for them.
so instead of
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT,
it should be
TREAT THEM LIKE SHIT, CUZ THEY’LL KEEP COMING BACK FOR MORE.
(shit, i shoulda been a call center trainer! )
its just this:
Lance, as Cebu City is now highly modernized with much BPO of its own, I wonder how many of your Mango Ave. ladies found jobs in BPO. After all, they know how to deal with difficult customers by default. Or is there also an inability to upscale their act due to colonial mentality or maybe due to the class differences and all that do play a major role in Philippine society, or do they rather get sucked into the kind of stuff Sen. Hontiveros has recently warned about?
https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1199711
interesting https://twitter.com/mlq3/status/1651402590817763328
Sadly, they won’t quality for BPO. though I’m sure the escort service types would, those are runned by baklas (bayots in Visayan). and the pool of women tend to be college students hand picked at malls by these homesexual men who give them an offer hard to refuse.
but escorts are more expensive. and tend to be less fun, cuz they are always looking about for family and friends. lol.
I’m sure you’d have escort slash BPO workers as well, why not do both. escorts speak English fluently. though some escort as picked from casa bar settings due to extreme beauty.
casa and bar (and KTV) girls tend to have no pedigree. most would not have graduated high school, no papers. no address. they are NPA, no permanent address (that was the joke, lol).
But both escort and casa girls would both be fans of skin whitening products, as well as too much foundation make up to look lighter that would be their commonality.
i doubt they’d care about talks of colonial mentality, they’re just trying to survive.
so the inability to upscale more has to do with education and like we’ve talked about here maybe nutritional growing up. and shoddy education by provincial teachers, not to mention Catholic priests who take a stab of them, cuz they are usually lookers, at least body wise.
Oh and if i had to do more compare and contrast, casa/bar girls would have toes more spread out. due to not wearing shoes while growing up. escort girls would’ve been wearing shoes not running around bare feet in the province.
Your Sen. Hontiveros article is more akin to online porn stuff i think, i’m less familiar with that aspect, as online porn wasn’t as big in the mid2000s. but i have read about it.
Irineo, a number of those mango ave ladies marry foreigners, settle overseas and have families over there. often when their children become adults and leave home, they find enough time to study in universities and colleges, become degree holders and land good jobs. hubbies are sometimes surprised, their wives got what it takes. some hubbies are supportive others not so, threatened by their wives new status.
other mango ave ladies are hard workers, made enough savings and start their own local bar, restaurant, and dressmaking businesses. they hire lawyers and accountants and eventually become lawyers and accountant themselves.
still many of the ladies have mental health issues, very insecure and turn to using recreational drugs and become addicted. some recover, others dont.
many also invest their hard earned money for plastic surgery, usually for nose bridge.
http://www.medhanceclinic.com
I rather think based on Mike mentioning the extremes of Maria Clara (meek) versus Bonifacio (aggressive) – at least those were the old cliches of them – that he taught assertiveness without impoliteness. Not exactly the disagreeableness they teach US Marines as you once mentioned, a friendlier customer service version of that. Kinda like telling them to check the basics like did you plug in the computer without telling them they are stupid, not an easy balance at all.
While it is true that a “slave” background can give you underdog advantages as Malcolm Gladwell wrote, that African-American slaves had to know their master’s moods as their lives depended on it – or what my father said that Filipinos of old had to know the friar’s moods – and lo and behold, long colonized (by the Turks) Romania has a lot of BPO as well and 1/5 of its population working abroad, but I wonder how people deal with it in the long run. The attrition rate in the BPO business is incredible from what I gather, take in the abnormal hours.
There are a few outfits that make more out of Filipinos than call center agent, take the German outfit msg global solutions (Munich-based with a huge programming center in Manila) or Accenture which has outsourcing for accounting services there, dunno about data centers.. what might be an issue with putting data centers in Metro Manila is the relatively high cost of electricity.. but my knowledge of these matters is a bit dated, haven’t kept up with the latest..
For sure theres a tricky balance to obedience and obstinance, Ireneo.
And in a customer service setting, you working for a company that can easily fire you becuz you are a dime a dozen. Well theres really no room for obstinance. You’ll get fired! like if you’re seaman working for a cruise ship and you get into a fight with another Filipino seaman, cuz Filipinos like to fight.
Cruise industry is designed as such that it sees these seamen from 3rd world as simply slaves (sure paid measly but still in the end subject to the whims of corporations). so no matter who started it, two seamen are sent packing back to the provinces.
So if Mike was hired by say Princess cruise lines to teach customer service to these two seamen, whatever coloninal mentality they have boarding the ship would be the same coming off ship. Thus i don’t buy this whole
teach colonial mentality and you’ll be better at customer service crap.
Customer service by its very nature is slave mentality.
Its like working for McDonalds , sure get paid get yours, but just keep in mind that you’re not seen as something of value, so you have to think of these things as temporary. not as a career.
why i’ve always been against BPO.
For customer service and said training of “Fake it to make it”. I think karl can elaborate. But IMHO its bs this “Fake it to make it” philosophy in life. Though I don’t discount that Mike was able to make money off of these int’l corporations, thats his diskarte. I dont blame him or shame him for getting his.
Only that he is selling us this crap like its solution, cuz you know it worked for BPO. i don’t buy that. and bs I’m not a fan of.
I’ll write more about US Marine culture vis a vis colonial mentality cuz that’s an interesting segue. as you know i’m a big fan of Sowell who is a former Marine. heres his take to the modern discourse now, its spliced with Noah’s monologue.
Hmm.. thanks, but isn’t that the internal discourse within American society?
Yeah, I know, it is linked to a global discourse. But what does the Philippine discourse about overcoming the effects of colonial mentality have to do with that?
Sure, the study Mike has referred to is by EJR David, a Filam psychologist. He does have a paper on internalized oppression – colonial mentality is an example I think.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260125784_What_Is_Internalized_Oppression_and_So_What
The question to me is not whether it exists or not, but how it should be overcome.
In the international arena nobody will give Filipinos a “handicap”, so the way out is indeed more like what Joe wrote about confidence thru knowledge as a way out of victimhood, which is another name for the learned helplessness called colonial mentality. The race discourse of THE USA is totally irrelevant to the Philippine challenge if you ask me, unless I have missed something, if ever Sowell is the one who has overcome internalized oppression the most.
https://joeam.com/2015/04/09/in-defense-of-knowledge-philippine-victimhood-the-sequel/
I’m not saying it doesn’t exist, Ireneo. I’m making the same point Joe is. Essentially move on. Get yours. this is capitalism, until theres UBI, we all have to be good with diskarte. hustle.
Crying about it and wallowing in it, takes away from the hustle.
slave mentality and colonial mentality are in essence the same thing. like being in or having been in an abusive relationship, but somehow unable to escape it. its a positive feedback loop, only negative because it doesn’t help. anyone.
black Americans also suffer from what Mike is talking about. and like Mike theres a whole industry dedicated to wallowing instead of moving on.
They also suffer from this light skin dark skin stuff. its related i think.
Chris Rock made fun of Jada’s bald head most likely caused by chemicals she put in it, who by the way has a new movie about Cleopatra in which Cleopatra is black, but we know she comes from the Ptolemy from Alexander the Great’s buds who were Macedonian Greeks, so white.
So with colonial mentality is this notion also of rewriting history, like all that “Maharlika” stuff over there, is like Queens (and Kings) with blacks and black history here, as if pre-colonialization everyone there were datus of nobility. wallowing then becomes a sort of delusion. all to feel good, but not actually doing anything.
Now if Mike woulda told us that he told the int’l corporations about his program to make better customer service reps, his diskarte to the corporations. took their money.
But acutally in his seminars he instead encouraged these BPO types to steal from these int’l corporations their clientele and create their own businesses, expand on said concepts and improve them.
Now that would be de-colonizing. That’s how to escape colonial mentality, not making better customer service reps. that’s just ironic, slave to being a better slave. irony. see.
We had Votron, i wonder if that’s the same thing. Or related. like Gundam and Robotech were one Japanese the other Americanized. thanks!
Voltes V was basically the predecessor of the Transformers, or Pacific Rim.
The mecha genre is pretty much about huge robots defending the planet.
Often with beasts like Godzilla or the Kaiju of Pacific Rim to fight against.
Voltron live action.
https://www.ign.com/articles/a-live-action-voltron-movie-is-in-the-works-with-red-notice-director-rawson-marshall-thurber
I’m not black and I’m not Filipino, so theres a good chance I dont know what I’m talking about here vis a vis colonial mentality. and how individual process this.
But culture I do know. and culture is comparative, if you really wanna understand it. and yes it is possible for a culture to be broken, or not optimal.
Wallowing is an example of this.
I think Thomas Sowell is leveraging Marine Corps culture, and a lot of Marine culture is this notion of being special not because you yourself are special but because the bigger whole is special.
Army, Navy and Air Force don’t really have culture. and this showed in GWOT.
SOCOM, Green Berets, Rangers, SEALs, Delta , PJs et al have culture but its exclusive only you are special thus this group you now belong to is special no one less belongs in this specialness.
the Marine Corps is inclusive. you’re not special but you become a Marine you become special.
So in much of Sowell’s writings he’s an economist by profession, he’s leveraging this inclusivity, that this thing called American is for everyone and if everyone fight for it , this experiment will be stronger for it. participaiton taking up the mantle.
Now i’m still curious what Mike taught his BPO students if in fact it was just customer service or did he attempt to indoctrinate them to infect other Filipinos to escape said predicament, or to just be more useful to said int’l corporation.
In the Marine Corps, obedience and obstinance look very similar. but theres a perfect balance. obedience like the Jesuits is encouraged, but because of the nature of war and folks getting killed unnecessarily, being obstinate is key. knowing when to be is the point.
“Sir, this is fucking bullshit, we’re gonna do something else!”
I suspect the fault isn’t really colonial mentality for Filipinos this just some academic phrase taught to them and use it, then unknowingly getting caught up in a positive feed back loop.
The fault i think is in many Filipinos cannot find this balance, too many chiefs not enough Indians.
chemp always talked about LKY and Singapore, and i suspect Singaporeans learnt to look past their petty differences and decided to see themselves as something bigger and greater, just like Marines. with a bigger mission.
the Japanese and South Koreans did it thru corporations.
But i think like Europeans who ended up dominating the whole world, they discovered the balance of obedience and obstinance. that too many chiefs and not enough Indians will get you dominated by cultures that have figured out one chief at a time is probably best.
And that’s it, colonial mentality is masturbation you wallow in it like Odysseus and those dang lotus , you’ll just wallow and leave open to neocolonialism. that’s BPO by the way.
One chief at a time in the Philippines has this problem very often: the chief is seen as the only arbiter of right or wrong, true or false. That works on small settlements on islands and if there are no technologically complex or long-term challenges.
We have seen how flawed that mindset is. Someone high up says Dengvaxia is bad, and it is nearly treason to be against it. Someone high up maintains De Lima as guilty because if you know you know, and Papa Digong knows best.
Western society by the Middle Ages at least separated who says what is to be done (King) and who says what is right or wrong and true or false (Pope). From Galileo onwards to Darwin, the right to determine true or false was taken from the Pope.
In the Philippines, one can be both Jesus and the Secretary of Justice at the same time. Susmaryosep. One should try to see if he can order the sun to rise and to set.
And, of course, no one powerful admits a mistake in such a culture.
Colonization was so successful due to corporations, which the Dutch perfected.
Had there been only conquistadors eventually the savages would have mounted their offensive mano y mano. but with corporations, light years difference.
There are no true corporations in the Philippines, all are done thru families and patronage. favor here favor there.
No creative tension, as you say.
So if corporations which the Dutch perfected, then the Japanese, now the Chinese (with PLA hovering over) are to be copied. then you have to have boards, and a chairman of the board.
the flidside is to open up criticism from peons and customers alike,
Remember to understand culture, you have to be comparative. use what works from others, throw away what doesn’t work. thats the cultural process.
One chief at a time is this, its knowing also when to be a good follower,
“It’s when you know that you don’t know, is the beginning of knowing.”
– Werner Erhard, EST
“It is not given to us to know how many steps it will take to turn the next corner. But if we take the next step, and the next step, we will turn the next corner.”
– Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World.
“If you don’t know it, you need to go there.” – Unknown
Knowing is half the battle –
Script writer of GI Joe
maybe that’s why we have drills: earthquake drills, fire drills and now war drill (balikatan exercise). earthquake, fire, or war – handa tayo!
very nice to see pbbm nanuod sa balikatan exercise: observing. hopefully, in case there is war, he will stay and take charge and not run away to other countries and hide there.
Exactly. After knowing you practice.
so true! practice makes perfect until it becomes automatic. with newer discoveries and better knowledge aided by advanced technology, we review past practices and likewise update, and then practice anew.
Korek
The subject of colonial mentality is fascinating. I tell my wife, who married a white guy and instantaneously became the envy of all the other young women in her home fishing village, that “brown is beautiful” as she strives mightily to stay out of the sun. She knows what I’m saying but ignores me just the same.
Colonial mentality flows from the exercise of power, and global power has been a white man’s burden and joy. I think the Spanish were looked upon as white, too, huh? Philippine leaders do little to promote the beauty of brown, or the confidence of being “who we are”, because they are mainly greedy or corrupt or, ala Aquino, letting their work speak for them.
There is so much to be proud of, for Filipinos, and so much to be ashamed of. When people broadly can discern which is which, they’ll be on the path to developing a beautiful sovereign mentality. Chuck the colonialists into the back pages of the history books.
How to get there may harken back to this classic of yours inspired by one of Edgar Lores’ analyses. The last paragraphs say what must be done.
https://joeam.com/2018/10/31/diskarte/
Of course, how Filipinos will get there is another question, as the country the author Ninotchka Rosca called Land of Constant Beginnings seems to like going in circles.
My, my, thanks, Irineo. Waves of nostalgia roll over me as I read these old posts. When you’re hot, you’re hot, haha. When you’re not, you just do lazy tweets. Thanks for pointing out that thinking is extraordinarily enriching.
This skin whitening products stuff, I think is also problematic , joe.
vis a vis Mike’s take above.
I seriously doubt the worship of white to light skin originated from colonization. Colonization may have institutionalized it, but i gotta feeling theres been this pattern since.
I think this is human nature, light to dark. for example, light seems to have dominated the darker peoples. namely austronesian and negritos. then more asiatic types come did the same. then whites come and did much worst, due to tech advancements and institutions (eg. corporations, military, etc.)
Maybe light to dark domination is the wrong hypothesis here, and its simply human aesthetics to equate beauty with the lightest skin. but even East Asians sport umbrellas in the sun too, Joe. but Scandanavians lay it all out for the sun at the beach.
This part i’m not as sure of. Only that I doubt that all this light is better than dark comes only from colonization. theres something inherent thats related to what humans value in skin tone.
will research this more…
women cannot all have the white alabaster skin type of actress nicole kidman, but there’s a way round for mere mortals like me.
I loved brightening (whitening) skin cream; the term whitening is not woke and now replaced by brightening: same product, same purpose, same brand, only the name has changed.
despite being brown, I got freckles on my face and sometimes I stood out and got easily picked out in a line up! many were throwing rocks at a poster and yet, I got singled out for law and order violation.
brightening cream fades the freckles and even out my skin tone. it also beautifies. though wearing hat when out in the sun helps stop my freckles from becoming more pronounced, else freckles are the 1st thing people noticed about me.
bye freckles, hello brightening cream. it’s big business and cosmetic houses are earning millions. men use brightening cream too.
want to brighten an overly dark skin? there is a cream available only under doctor’s prescription, cannot be easily bought over the counter and carries a therapeutic goods safety warning.
And would you say UP is the source of all this colonial mentality?
I can think of misuari and joma. joma’s been decommissioned and wont be heard again. colonialism, communism, activism, etc. UP has much to answer for. the charity of christ urges us!
I agree. Its those damned affidavits right?
Also the preference for witness accounts as opposed to forensic evidence.
I love the logical thinking of Edgar and his trademark numerically organized presentation (1, 2, 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.2, 2.2, …) — appealing to my number sense too.
Now, I digress and enter again the thought I expressed in karl’s blog immediately before this one by gian — that of AI-powered ChatBot.
Fed enough of Edgar’s way of thinking and organization, which probably means mining the blogs and comments of Edgar here in TSOH, ChatBot AI in its machine learning algorithm component can come up with an AI-Edgar. [Forgive me for the thought, Edgar.] But I doubt the humans here at TSOH can be fooled.
But continuing with the sub-topic immediately discussed on colonial mentality and skin tone, AI-Edgar may come out with a persuasive commentary on colonial mentality and skin tone. That will be interesting.
Me? I like the center-right skin look (with the right being dark) — meaning more brown or tan ala Filipina than Filipinas themselves wish for. Have you folks seen a very white-skinned woman or man? [Not Albino mind you.] It’s impolitic of me but in the extreme, I may say naka-didiri .
Without Edgar to structure my often chaotic articles of the earlier years – he even went thru some of the articles in my old blog enumeratively – I would not have developed the degree of mental organization with which I write today.
Even then in discussions today I tend to just go with the flow and play by ear, classification and enumeration would be better but I usually don’t do it.
Hmm, how could one classify and enumerate the entire discussion here on colonial mentality?
Yes, Irineo. How indeed? 🙂
I asked Chat GPT on how to overcome colonial mentality, it answered:
“Yes, there are ways to overcome colonial mentality in the Philippines.
1. Awareness: People need to be aware of the existence and negative effects of colonial mentality. Education and open discussions can help in spreading awareness.
2. Embrace Filipino identity and culture: Filipinos can take pride in their own identity and culture by learning about their heritage, traditions, and history. Celebrating local festivals and participating in community activities can also help.
3. Language preservation: The Filipino language should be preserved and encouraged to be used in formal settings to promote national identity and to avoid linguistic inferiority complex.
4. Critical thinking: Filipinos should critically evaluate their beliefs and actions, and not blindly follow Western ideals and trends.
5. Support local products: Rather than relying on foreign products, Filipinos can support local businesses and entrepreneurs to promote local industries and innovation.
6. Decolonization through education: Filipinos should challenge dominant historical narratives and decolonize education. Education should include more inclusive and diverse perspectives and histories.
7. Rejecting neocolonialism: Filipinos should be wary of and resist neocolonialism in the form of intellectual imperialism or lopsided economic policies that limit the country’s autonomy.
Overall, it will take continuous effort and commitment from individuals, society, and government to overcome colonial mentality in the Philippines.”
Briliant!!! LOL!!!
100% agree with A.I. I guess I’m just focused on number 7.
I gotta feeling though that ChatGPT is just going off existing literature on this subject hence the priorities.
But 7 and 6 would’ve been my 1 and 2. in order of importance.
ChatGPT’s 2 and 3 are essentially the same, culture. I would just add that for 3, keep mastery of the colonizer’s language for competitive advantage. English is the language that pays.
Number 5 is related to Chris Rocks documentary about black hair and how now those products they buy from are not black owned at all. Its the same with other products, there isn’t really an economic hub for black economy, like there would be say a Chinatown or Hispanic this and that.
Indians (from India) will have cultural hubs, but Filipinos only lately due to Filipino companies coming to the US are now getting places like JolliBee or all the groceries stores which tend to consolidate owned by Filipino families who Micha who called hacienderos or oligarchs, no doubt as means to launder money as well.
blacks have nothing like this, a hub to recyle money within the community to enrich those in the community. So I would prioritize this number 5 to number 3.
And 4 would just fall under 6 really.
So, for me:
1. Reject neocolonialism (reject BPO, reject being America’s puppet vis a vis China, etc.)
2. Education and critical thinking (don’t wallow in slave mentality too long, yes recognize it let from history as to not repeat, but move on)
3. Support local products (this is essentially independence, economic and colonial whether neo or old, like skin whitening products, and black hair chemicals, buy Filipino).
4. Leverage English (but quit the language heirarchy like Tagalog is better than Bisaya, and so on… So maybe replace Pilipino for English and teach that each language in the Philippines is not dialect but its own, like Badjao is equal to Tagalog, that is the true number 2 which I’m sure ChatGPT may not be aware of cuz LLM couldn’t account for this current disparity in the Filipin mind, cultural state not available online to be combed thru)
ChatGPT’s “Awareness” can be consolidated into number 2 above Education/critical thinking/awareness. Don’t wallow in it.
I must admit I’ve thought of doing this for the prolific writers of TSOH. something like. Can you structure this in the style of Edgar Lores
LOL!
Lance, that is interesting. It seems that a ChatGPT component specializing in psychology/ psychiatry — with AI’s machine learning algorithm, fed with a lot of expert Psychology and Psychiatry data — may result in a decline of jobs in those fields or at the very least result in the reduction of Psychiatrists charge rates?
A lot of servicing jobs may be threatened in the near future, although it is said that the field of ChatBot-AI or Artificial Intelligence technology, in general, will create jobs in servicing AI and their apps and their undoubted further development.
Will PhDs of Google be threatened too?
I’m now obsolete, NH. not even trying with ChatGPT. I’ll just do more birdwatching and eat more kale. surrender is the only viable option now. that’s why I’m always writing to my representatives to fast track UBI already and AOC is the only one talking about this.
So AOC has to run in 2024.
I heard that unlike doctors, chatgpt dont suffer from burned out and from seeing too many patients, little pay, long hrs on the job and often in less than ideal working conditions, plus having to pay hefty indemnity insurance in case patients sue them. chatgpt takes no responsibility for its action and wrongful advice.
there is now a call to pause chatgpt. give humans time to figure out legislation and much needed legal options vs chatgpt.
@kasambahay, it will probably be difficult and to me impractical to pause AI development and usage via legislation.
The tech guys — like physicists and mathematicians who get their high from tinkering with their formulas — get their high from tinkering with their Python, etc. codes. Thus, they will just keep on and then one day, not too far away, come out with their monster of an AI app (one that does text generation, image creation, and video creation seamlessly) and it will become difficult to regulate with the light-weight highly partisan brains of the lawmakers.
Regulation of ChatGPT, I agree, but how effective I don’t have an idea. From my watch and perch, I ask myself if the non-tech laws, say, in the US have been effective in preventing the near loss of the democratic experiment in the US. I have to watch what happens in 2024. Israel, a country I once admired, is another one to watch, starting now.
Sorry, guys, for veering into an almost taboo topic of politics in TSOH. My point is handling tech issues and political issues are different. I believe lawmakers have to first be rational and bipartisan in their discussions if they mean to handle the tech issues of AI effectively. There is not even bipartisan agreement on the matter of Climate Change, notwithstanding the virtually unanimous agreement of scientists.
https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/
just a thought.
NH, it’s just a pause not a forever stop. my understanding is the internet of today and related thingamajig aps are business as usual.
what is being paused is further AI experimentation and AI future development until safeguards are put in place.
if no pause, expect more misinformation, more fake photos, more scams, more hackings, etc. time will come when people can no longer tell what is real and fake. then we shall have novels and fictions authored by AI and maybe winning pulitzer prizes too, paralegals will probly lose their jobs and replaced by AI, etc, etc.
@kasambahay, thanks for the link on the pausing of AI fast-paced development demonstrated, for example, in ChatGPT-4.
The link provides sensible policy recommendations as described in the pdf file:
Click to access FLI_Policymaking_In_The_Pause.pdf
I change my mind: a pause is necessary.
I do not agree with pausing. I assure you China will not pause its AI research and having China lead this technology would not be good for geopolitical reasons. To pause this would mean pausing the internet and most cloud providers. This would create a market for underground trade of NVIDIA GPUs. Kind of what happened during the crypto gold rush only AI is a more encompassing technology.
Elon Musk wanted a pause. So he could get his own AI off the ground. Technology development will continue and to pause is to get left behind.
Those are very good points, Joe and gian!
Among others, we have the following actors and players in AI development: the US, Western Countries, China, Russia, India, and Musk.
It is essentially a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Akin to a race to develop the “bomb.” A pause or cooperation in the PD is effective only when all of these players agree! And that will be asking for the moon.
this gravity anti-gravity propulsion stuff might me instructive in how
to pause such technological progress. similar to cold fusion, where scientists just seem to be sequestered and or vanished, thus progress paused.
I doubt it would work for soft ware stuff though, but I could be wrong. My take here is that it should continue, but realize the only hedge to all this is
CBDC + MMT = UBI , with UBI humans won’t care how smart machines are and just go birdwatching and eating kale,
but also understand that if humans build something thats pure logic, they’ll conclude that the Earth (and AI) will be better off with HUMANS dead.
Call it A.I. EJKs. but I’m sure thats coming too, and also can be alleviated with UBI, at least we die happy.
in short do not blink.
@Lance, kale : good veggie; part of my diet too.
Irineo wrote:
“This is why I fully support Karl’s previous article to revive this blog, as it has been a source of insights to me and hopefully to many others. Our knowledge is ever incomplete, but the more we open our eyes the less we feel lost. Let’s keep going.”
I, for one, am thankful that TSOH is active (allowing sharing of thoughts) again …
and am hopeful that other previous participants (too many to mention) will chime in very soon.
i7sharp
“This is why I fully support Karl’s previous article to revive this blog, as it has been a source of insights to me and hopefully to many others. Our knowledge is ever incomplete, but the more we open our eyes the less we feel lost. Let’s keep going.”
Ireneo, I, for one, am thankful TSOH is active (open to comments) again.
May it be that previous participants (too many to mention) will chime in very soon.
i7sharp
I love it, i7sharp is here.
I second the motion on the previous participants! I second emotion!
Thanks, Karl!
From almost eight years ago:
“On being smart and capable, but no character”
https://joeam.com/2015/06/17/on-being-smart-and-capable-but-no-character/
Participants included the ff:
andrewlim8
bauwow
charlesenglund
chempo
DAgimas
dsaints
edgar lores
hackguhaseo
henry david
jameboy
John Dyte
josephivo
manuelbuencamino
Mariano Renato Pacifico
Mary Grace P. Gonzales
methersgate
Micha
Nagimasen
Most would still be around.
I miss them too.
What is fascinating is that each has his or her story, and reasons for not being here. Some of them I know, some not. Some I miss more than others. Some absolutely not at all.
By background, I had blocked i7sharp because of his relentless attacks on the blog and me, and a failure to comprehend the purpose is to discuss pertinent Philippine issues. He today said he wanted to post, so I let him in. But if he persists on the tack of being off topic, he’ll go away again. The editorial policy of the blog has not changed.
A legitimate topic is whether or not blogging remains a social force in the Philippines, or whether it has been supplanted by more modern and ‘younger’ vehicles.
Hi Joe!
I love this blog and I too do not want commenters too have the bad habit of Behaving badly and forget that we have house rules, be they be old time contributors or would be contributors.Thanks.
Yes socmed too is evolving and new ones are showing up targetting those who are sick and tired of Meta and Twitter.
Plus we are witnessing the fast paced attention to Chatgpt as discussed here.
i think Joe’s right here, karl.
certainly if folks wanna submit a regular long form blog then that’s fine.
but i think you and gian can simply introduce say a video or a photo or a link from twitter or even TikTok then just open up discussion in the threads.
if gian can figure out a means to organize (and maybe ChatGPT or GPT4 can help here) all ideas that pop up especially in the threads, thats probably the best use of blogging these days.
Have ChatGPT write the blogs
but you or gian query it via this blog and other sources. then it just writes the articles and since whatever comes out will be interesting then the threads will generate equally interesting stuff.
positive feedback loop.
like this (AI generated but its basically humanity in a nutshell a dumbster fire but looks fun indeed):
my point,
Let’s start experimenting with ChatGPT AI as blog. and we’ll interact with whatever it comes up with. should be fun at least.
blog article written by AI? very possible, comments and replies written by AI too? highly possible.
AI LCX, KB , etc in the comment threads? I would love to see that!
AI articles using our bylines? Do we get paid? hehehe.
I’m staying clear of AI, karl. will not even input a query or log on to do so.
that thing scares me. so you and gian et al gotta do it. I’m staying out of this things way. lol.
but I watched a video of a guy i think using GPT4 where he inputs a link and says “read:” then url link, instructs to say “I read it” after then inputs another link does the same.
then instructs to say for example “write a blog about Philippines problems and solutions according to what Ireneo says and then argue with what Mike says, then what karl kb i7sharp NH lcplx Joe…” etc.
I gotta feeling ChatGPT will get stuck with i7sharp, will probably breakdown, but will process all other comments,
and actually come up with an article blog.
garbage in garbage out, then we’ll rinse repeat and see what AI ‘s got to offer us in regards to blogging in the Philippines and Philippines in general. we may even solve the world’s problems.
NH can advice on algorithms to input it. gian too.
And maybe we can stop Wagner group from pushing a bunch of Africans to Europe causing instability and stressing out Ireneo’s otherwise comfortable life. so we’ll be using AI directly to better our lives, karl. first for us, then the Philippines, then the world.
and we’ll all converge in Munich for Oktoberfest to celebrate. i hope Ireneo has room for us. having averted destabalization of EU thru sub Saharan African migrants by Wagner group.
and after nights of drinking we’ll watch Cleopatra. produced by one Jada Pinkett. and argue if she was white or black, but also consider that much of Egyptians hatred towards this new show is due to Wagner group pushing more sub saharan Africans thru
North Africa. here are maps.
maybe an ai chat bot will read your comment above in its daily web crawl
This is what scares me, karl. if i start logging in to ChatGPT it’ll eventually find me and maybe order a drone strike on my location as the first volley to its logical end. like let me get rid of LCPL_X first.
I know you will shake off that fear otherwise we will live scared and be Luddites and that is no bueno
Don’t comfort him. I’m enjoying the “new” corporal, quivering in his well-worn, ever-confident combat boots. 🤣😂🤣
🤣😉👍
For information of some readers of TSOH, here is a link that explains some of the terms used in AI and ChatBot AI:
https://mark-riedl.medium.com/a-very-gentle-introduction-to-large-language-models-without-the-hype-5f67941fa59e
If this does not change we will be always buy imported because of the low costs.
Colonial mentality also referred to buying Made in USA.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2023/04/28/2262216/want-cheaper-cost-goods-unburden-domestic-shippers
About crab mentality
That is not onli in the Philippines.
One reason was ratting fellow Pinoys to Immigrations or ICE.
But here it is all out of envy, jealousy and misery. If I can’t have this no one can attitude.
Other glaring quirks are mediocrity, fatalism
BTW I read the link on diskarte.
At least we are experts on the Cartesian coordinate system. When we coordinate with others to do diskarte.
😂🤣😂🏆
Our choosing Coal power plants is the reason why only Mindanao charges lower electricity rates because of their prominent use of hydro and geothermal.
We are like Indonesia who said they will get rid of coal and yet keeps on exporting them to us and others.
As long as there is coal in Indonesia, coal power plants will remain meaning forever.
karl, hydro (so is geothermal) is exploited or developed if feasible from the combined technical, financial, and economic considerations. It cannot be forced on an area not amenable to such consideration.
One country blessed with such a resource because of the unique characteristics of the land is Norway. Norway’s power generation mix is primarily made up of hydroelectric power, with smaller contributions from wind and thermal power. According to the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), the power generation mix in Norway in 2020 was as follows:
Hydroelectric power: 96.3%
Wind power: 2.6%
Thermal power (primarily gas): 0.8%
Other renewable sources: 0.3%
Other: 0.1%
The use of thermal power, including gas-fired power plants, is relatively small and primarily used to supplement the hydroelectric power supply during periods of peak demand or when there is a water shortage in the reservoirs.
maybe we could do something like this for the Tagaytay area : https://constructionphysics.substack.com/p/could-we-stop-yellowstone-from-erupting
That’s a very interesting article, gian — and scary. The twin objective of preventing supervolcanic eruption and bleeding the geothermal heat to prevent such eruption is very laudable. Pros and cons were discussed. At the moment, however, the author admits it is mainly academic. However, I believe a nominal budget should be provided to continue the study.
If I am not mistaken a study on geothermal energy for power at Tagaytay was done.
thanks. good article. over here its the Long Valley Caldera, but its an Israeli company handling the geothermal power.
There is a bit of a risk with geothermal energy. Now this is from my father’s hometown, and even the aftermath looked eerie a few years later even if the explosion was “minor”..
https://volcano.si.edu/showreport.cfm?doi=10.5479/si.GVP.SEAN198008-273801
“A small phreatic explosion took place on 29 July from one of the pools of hot water in the Naglagbong thermal area, Tiwi geothermal field, at the E foot of Malinao. The explosion ejected hot mud and blocks up to 2/3 m in diameter. The ejecta reached heights of 150 m and fell as much as 350 m from the vent. One person received second-degree burns and two buildings were damaged, one a COMVOL seismic station.
Before the explosion the pool was 15 m in diameter and 4.3 m deep, with clear emerald-green water at a temperature of 85°C. As early as 6 July, the seismograph recorded unusual microseisms. Two hours before the explosion, geysering of muddy water was observed.
[The minor explosion from the Naglabong thermal area that ejected blocks in 1980 was probably due to water drawdown during development of the Tiwi geothermal field (Newhall, 1994, pers. comm.).]”
Thanks NH,
So many non nuclear options in Luzon
It is not true that we were not taught Spanish, if so how can you explain Chavacano. It is not broken Spanish, it is a hybrid of sorts.
We need to learn more about this country of ours not just by eating and beaching.
chavacano is a language
TY
I believe it was a question of scale. The Philippines as a colony was not much of a money maker when compared to Mexico. The number of Spaniards in the Philippines compared with LatAm probably had a a high (10-100X) difference. add the archipelago makes Spanish not as pervasive
Sailing time made for the huge difference – it took three weeks to get to Latin America from Spain via sail. A roundtrip between Acapulco and Manila was six months, so it took a year to get to the Philippines and few took that risk.
By the early 19th century the way from Europe to the Philippines (Mexico became independent) was already down to three months. By Rizal’s time steamships and the Suez Canal had cut it down to a month, but there was no direct commercial line. Rizal usually took the Marseille to Singapore or Hongkong route – add a week to get there or to the Philippines, even as travel was more then it was still a bit adventurous.
I think you are correct.
There us a tweet by Joe about this entitled individual.
My God we need her blessing to have a land use law.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/02/03/23/zubiri-seeks-villar-backing-for-national-land-use-act
A reminder to all.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/136616/the-philippines-is-not-a-poor-country
Only unequal.
https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2023/04/27/2262005/leveling-income-inequality
I wonder who has watched this movie with Chai Fonacier, a Cebuana actress who openly has spoken about how she overcame both anti-Visayan prejudices AND colorism..
She also played a faith healer in an Irish-Filipino co-production: Nocebo.
Well, as the Philippines is a land of showmanship and actors even in politics, maybe there will yet be a boom of international Filipino movies, the actors are already all over..
..for instance, Dolly De Leon in Triangle of Sadness.
..or the absolutely crazy – based on the preview – Ten Little Mistresses which is an all-Filipino production for Amazon with Heneral Luna / Sisoy aka John Arcilla as the “master”..
I think so too, Ireneo.
Kpop for South Koreans, but theatre and cinema is ripe for the picking. Fuck the studios over there, get money here (and Europe) and make movies and series there. by pass the studios.
I thought you’d get a kick out of this painting.
This article shared by Mike already says that a cool image is a major part of overcoming colonial mentality.
https://www.sbs.com.au/language/filipino/en/article/decolonising-the-mind-why-colonial-mentality-is-a-difficult-attitude-to-abandon/nhjtcjj1m
The more organic of course the better, because the Maharlika Marcos Sr. era stuff as state propaganda really sucked to the point of ridiculousness, like the pomade the officials used then, while the Manila Sound / OPM of those days stayed influential..
..PPop does have a bit of a following though, with fans outside the Philippines even, one major place being the Dominican Republic (how’s that for shared but different colonial trauma?) with vloggers like Chachichaan and Sol y Luna leading the way, and Alamat isn’t the No. 1 group, SB19 is, after that BGYO and then Alamat, but they have the most interesting (and natural) fusion of ethnic and modern in songs like Maharani or Aswang..
https://nylonmanila.com/filipino-folk-dance-modern-romance-alamat-maharani/
There is the folk-rock of Ben & Ben which is extremely popular, to the point that none of their fans who were not pro-Leni cancelled them for their political opinion. Kayumanggi is a recent song by them that also is one of the many songs of the Maria Clara at Ibarra teleserye.
Of course Ben & Ben probably won’t have too much of an international market, just like MCAI teleserye probably will not even as it id on Netflix Philippines now and trending locally. Some stuff will click internationally and some won’t. Bollywood for instance is something you have to be Indian to truly appreciate, but there is enough of a captive audience at home and abroad for it, and Indians abroad at parties will know the popular songs and dances by heart.
I think Ben and Ben has to try before we say they don’t have an international market.
Sometimes, a message for locals and insiders only is perfectly OK. Sometimes, the intersection of the two sets, local audience, and international audience is too small or excludes major portions of the Filipino audience.
MCAI as well as Ben and Ben are at least reaching major parts of the OFW audience and not leaving them to the likes of Andrew E. or Eat Bulaga.
they sing about universal stuff like love, longing, need for acceptance, letting go. A lot of songs in English. They should at least be ASEAN in scope.
Irineo, I did not see the movie but loved the pic you posted. good photo shot, so pretty.
it always been a problem for colored people to find the right make up, kasi most make up and foundations are for light skinned people, and when applied on colored people, they looked pasted and woefully mismatched.
her make up artist must be professional and got the right shade for her. apparently, yellow based foundation are ideal for brown skin.
now, a new historical docu coming out about queen cleopatra of egypt is causing headache. she is portrayed as dark skinned and duly being played by a dark skinned actress.
head of egyptian antiquity studies said the historical docu is nothing but plain old drama, and not historical. the real queen cleopatra was greek and light skinned, not dark skinned.
The GEOGLAM-NASA Harvest Agrometeorological (AGMET) Earth Observation (EO) Indicators bring together a variety of Earth Observation (EO) data products on the sub-national scale, each of which provides valuable insights on in-season crop development and current crop conditions. Combined, each EO data plot helps tell the story of in-season crop conditions through the use of different climate, environmental, and vegetative variables.
https://cropmonitor.org/tools/agmet/
Thought this was a really interesting map and stats of harvest and other info.
I seriously hope teachers hired to teach west phil sea lessons are not chinese symphatisers from confuciusian institute of chinese studies in our universities and colleges.
Yes and they must know what they are talking about.
these teachers need to be watched, their lesson plan maybe okay, but. what’s on the plan and approved by principals may not be what is being actually taught in classrooms. like housing plan approved by regulators for a six storey building, but a 12 storey building was built instead.
if these teachers start orienteering students toward china on the sly, and make our country appear the culprit, we should weed out these teachers no matter how well recommended they are!
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02ACXJixpwqFqXu5BAURjFThTVFp51ATgAzp5HEz1QJJFSsGjab9ZcJ4x8jTmZKt8ul&id=1409760737&mibextid=ZbWKwL
@giancarloangulo Please delete above post. The other post from twitter would suffice. Many thanks Gian.
Sharing two things a bit at random re Philippine entertainment and culture:
https://www.academia.edu/98046380/The_Long_1970s_and_Beyond_Cultural_Politics_during_the_Marcos_Years_and_in_the_Age_of_Duterte
Interestingly Lance’s comments on Wowowee as the tagay nation fit there..
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid029BLFYpgQAypTBKBSu9EpwFXDkeUz3otpgXKvxAGjKdS33D7GZj2XkV2QRxxvanHal&id=1366758247&sfnsn=scwspmo
This coming book relates to the discussion with Gian and Philippine and ASEAN pop culture.
aboitiz has [plans on oue energy mix.
https://aboitiz.com/aboitizpower-aims-for-5050-balance-between-re-thermal-portfolios-by-2030/
testing.
I guess Twitter no longer allows comments at Word Press.
so this is my new WP account.
that speech was made here:
ops, heres the full 10 mins of the speech:
PBBM’s ship has come in.
pbbm’s ship came limping in, lol! after his departure naia 3 has power outage, no flight can come in, and no flight can come out.
incidentally, as regards our power grid, china has the remote.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/25/asia/philippines-china-power-grid-intl-hnk/index.html
so maybe, anytime china wants to annoy filipinos, it drops the remote.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/868577/marcos-ph-won-t-be-used-as-staging-post-for-any-military-act/story/
I was disappointed sa mga pahayag ni pbbm bago siya umalis papuntang estados unidos.
hindi kuno siya payag our country gawing military staging post ng sinuman. well and good pero, but not really well and good, dahil binbin na binbin ang pahayag. dapat po sinabi rin niya, in case our country is invaded by a hostile power, handa tayong ipagtaguyod ang sariling soverinya.
LOL! i didn’t know about the black outs and drama related to the trip, kb. hahahaha… 3rd world indeed.
A few years ago I have never imagined myself to be a member of the Maritime League. Due to my writing practice here with the commentaries and with the help of Irineo and Gian, I found the courage to write for the Maritime Review and I have been doing that since mid 2021. And now another group retired soldiers has invited me ( per my dad)to sit in with them and do research.
They are the Advocates for National Interest.
I’m happy for you, karlG!
Many thanks kasambahay! Lcx still thinks that your are MRP hehehe. I do not know but who cares?
I do. like when i try to bait kb about UP but then when I mention affidavits then silence. so maybe i’m wrong. Or maybe MRP knows a trap when its set. LOL!
the charity of christ urges us, and sometimes, silence is golden.
Guys care to comment on Joe’s re : blogging and the different platforms. Just scroll down.
It comes after 17sharp’s and my reply to him.
Scroll up instead.
This is interesting re AI – its first Oppenheimer so to speak.
guy probly has seen the darkest soul of the internet, the dark web. pictures innocently posted in the internet were manipulated into something else, and then bought and sold in the dark web; then replicated further into something else with much much darker intent. innocent lives have been destroyed, reputation lost and ruined, their privacy and peace of mind – gone. while perpetrator enjoyed notoriety and untold profits, their customers who are equally bent growing by their numbers.
now, we have to be extra careful and be mindful of what we post in the internet for they can be easily be manipulated and changed into something else and then re-posted. all done behind our backs and without our consent and permission.
and because there is much anonymity in the internet, it’s getting much much harder to go after perpetrators for they could well be anywhere in the world, unreachable and unpunished, their dastardly acts go on and on.
@Irineo, taking off from that article, here is something that I understand, as a kindergarten student of AI — I hope correctly or approximately correctly.
Massive Data >>> Neural Network >>> Learned Skills
A Neural Network is a Mathematical System in code form mimicking how the human brain functions, among others. [It is essentially a black box to me.]
Out of the algorithm that makes this Neural Network work comes learned skills that developers themselves do not always expect — in fact, I believe, these learned skills will surprise them more and more in the future.
The writer of that article attributes the following to Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, an artificial intelligence pioneer, and supposed to be something like a Godfather to AI as Robert Oppenheimer is to the Atomic Bomb:
“Down the road, he is worried that future versions of the technology pose a threat to humanity because they often learn unexpected behavior [skills] from the vast amounts of data they analyze. This becomes an issue, he said, as individuals and companies allow A.I. systems not only to generate their own computer code but actually run that code on their own.”
On topic:
Who really knows the Philippines?
Perhaps this “Kulas” really does?
https://magilas.me/Kulas
Lots of Vloggers are traveling across the Philippines just like that one nowadays. Better if you link directly and don’t use those redirects so it is clearer what you are linking.
On YT, Mergim’s Vlogs is by a British man, there is Sol y Luna with Dominican twins, there is Kristypata, a Koreana raised in the Philippines who studied college at La Salle and speaks konyo English. I have seen two vlogs of “puti” entering Tondo, an Aussie and a New Yorker.
Why make it a habit to be an obvious misleader and misdirecter i7sharp? and I do not want to use deceiver but you re getting there.
Chatgpt algorithm will crash once it reads all your entries in the inter web.
“It was BASILAN that opened my eyes to what TOURISM can really mean…”
or
https://magilas.me/Kulas-2
Kulas is now a Pinoy.
thanks , isk! with foreign ownership now open, i wonder if this will be the new fad. more Filipinos!
Yep, if there’s a wholesome competition , surely consumers win. Am just worried of the Philippines’ power grid being controlled by the Chinese government .
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/asia/philippines-china-power-grid-intl-hnk/index.html
@karl, now we are pitting i7sharp against AI-i7sharp. Not funny; I know. Cheers to you, karl [mid-afternoon here where I am still at — early morning to you].
Good day NH!
NH, Karl,
I do not recall intentionally testing or studying AI.
But your postings made me curious how AI would handle this:
Let us say
“Genesis 1:1” is coded
“Gen0101”,
“1 Thessalonians 5:17”,
“1Th0517”,
using
3-character code for the Book,
2-character code for the Chapter, and
2-character code for the Verse,
(for a total of 7 alphanumeric characters)
how would AI code “Psalms 119:176”?
Thanks.
ChatGPT output:
The code for “Psalms 119:176” would be “Psa119176”. Here’s how it breaks down:
Book: “Psalms” is abbreviated as “Psa”
Chapter: “119” is a three-digit number, so it is represented as “119”
Verse: “176” is a three-digit number, so it is represented as “176”
Putting it all together, we get “Psa119176”.
It looks like it did not meet your standards, or could not figure out your routine from such limited data input.
LOL! looks like ChatGPT has a sense of humor too!
scary really.
It’s creepy when I call him Bob and he addresses me personally as Joe, I do admit. If he has a sense of humor, he can also have some dark motives lurking in his clouds. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
“Bob” does not/could not know that Edgar (Lores) and i7sharp have discussed this and come to an agreement on the solution or conclusion?
Would asking “Bob” again produce a different and better response?
Brain freeze
We have a learning emergency and we have to be willing to use technology like this https://youtu.be/hJP5GqnTrNo
Yes, agree. The best schools will pursue knowledge and how to collect it while teaching of the dangers and how to avoid them. AI will be a tool, more like a chain saw than a hand-held saw. Use properly.
each time I see a chainsaw, the 1st thing that comes to my mind is the texas chainsaw massacre, lol!
Ha, yes. I’m highly skilled with them, being a former lumberjack on my sister’s forested mountain property. I can lay a tree down precisely, within inches of the target. And I’ve seen the chainsaw juggler at work on the Venice, California skate path. That is a daredevil.
tough guy.
Let’s hope there will be a lot of school leaders/administrators thinking like Sal Khan. And he demonstrates persuasively about AI in the service of teaching, and programming. Thanks for the link.
that’s a great video , gian!!! thanks.
I feel like the thrust of academia has always been for safeguarding one’s contribution to knowledge as oppose to just spreading knowledge for knowledge’s sake.
they focus unnecessarily on plagiarism, as if thats the most dangerous thing in the world.
In my experience who cares where the knowledge originates, i care less about where credit is due than where action needs to happen due to said info. actionable should be the focus.
Lets just push people to participate and
to throw ideas into the pyre and see what we get. worry about whose idea it is like never its unimportant. Who cares who came up with this idea or that, like radio or the steam engine or the internet, a bunch of people did, the only principles should be this:
and this:
Just get things done. worry about patents and copyrights and trademarks and taking credit for this and that later. just get things done. and AI will finally do that for a lot of people that never had access to higher learning.
Though I’m still personally wary of it, cuz I gotta feeling eventually it’ll kill us all. logical ends being what they are. 😉
this might be related, gian.
oooops. this was the issue:
have similar sentiments. another case of form over function
Slightly OT – P-Pop giants SB19 are on World Tour soon:
Reflecting the various influences on the Philippines, they are in my view more like Backstreet Boys than BTS, not the other way around, plus their own style.
oh i gotta youtube these guys! thanks, Ireneo.
Singapore: From Third world to First
Philippines : From being next only to Japan to the pits.
I don’t know Mindanao at all and Zamboanga I have never been to, so this vlog by the Dominican twin sisters Sol y Luna is quite interesting:
Never been come to this place. Thank you very much for sharing. Great to know