Women in the Philippines
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
I was surprised to read a report on gender equality recently that cited the Philippine global ranking on the 2024 SDG Gender Index at 70th among 139 nations. This is essentially a ranking on opportunity for women.
The Philippines scored right smack in the middle. This low position surprised me because the Philippines seems to me to be pretty much unrestrained as to where women can work and go. Schools are open, there have been women legislators and presidents. Maybe they are held back in business, at the top. Wage inequality? I don’t know. Women serve in the military.
What’s this index about?
Here’s the web site: 2024 SDG Gender Index. And you can download the full 2024 report here.
But I’ll cut to the chase. The criteria forming the index are identified starting on page 42 of the report. They are lengthy and broad. So broad that it is impossible for any nation to achieve the ideal. Climate change is one of the criteria. Are women fairly represented on delegations on the climate change? Boy howdy, that seems to me to be a tad petty and off the mark. Storms don’t seek out women and girls. They are gender irrelevant.
Of the 56 measures in the index, I’d say 80% are not measuring CAUSES or direct material evidence of gender inequality. They just measure things, lots of things, diluting the real essence of gender participation and discrimination. I put the whole index in the trash can. But before doing that, I reviewed and extracted a few of the more relevant measures.
Here are the major categories that I think are not gender discriminatory in the Philippines, and the gender score should be 100%. Equal. They might be gender issues in other nations. Education, for example.
- Poverty
- Zero hunger
- Quality education
- Clean water and sanitation
- Affordable and clean energy
- Industry, innovation, and infrastructure
- Sustainable cities and communities
- Climate action
- Partnerships for the goals (huh?)
Here are the major categories that do affect women differently than men, in the Philippines.
- Good health and well-being (maternity care, teen pregnancies, family planning)
- Gender equality (teen marriage, family care, abortion rights, proportion of women in govt)
- Decent work and economic growth (wage equality, family earner, freedom of association, maternal leave, banking accounts)
- Reduced inequalities (wealth inequality, freedoms, human rights, migration)
- Peace, justice, and strong institutions (access to justice, women homicides, feeling safe)
Does the Philippines have a major gender inequality problem? I’d say no. It is a healthy, vibrant place with open opportunities for women from school to the presidency. Women have voice. They are doctors, lawyers, teachers, businesswomen, and everywhere in government. Does the Catholic moral foundation of the Philippines constrain women? Sure. No divorce, no abortions. But is choice of religion not a free right?
Frankly, I’d say gender is one of the least troublesome issues on the table in the Philippines today. (It’s huge in Afghanistan). Rights can always be fine tuned. Is there wage discrimination? Gender discrimination in big corporations? We should know more.
Without question, the big problem in the Philippines today is corruption. And from that, poverty. It hits both men and women hard, and that’s what should be on the front burner.
I’d welcome your views on the matter.
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Cover photograph created by Word Press image generator using the blog article as a prompt.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
I know karl doesn’t wanna hear any more sex industry stuff. but this is the perfect blog to address it. I think Filipinas especially the poor are assed out, Joe. why they end up in Mango Ave. theres lots of dudes who are poor too, but women are easily trapped into poverty. rape, incest, unwanted pregnancy, life down the drain. where as a guy can keep on keeping on. women who are born into poverty hell even middle class, one mistake and they are done. no nets for them. I think most Mango Ave. girls wouldve voted DU30 precisely to keep poor men at bay away from them. and why they’ll go for Inday Sara again and again. maybe thats also the appeal of Tulfo i dunno. but I think women in the Philippines want to be protected from the men in the Philippines more so the poor women and that’s how they vote. a hunch but worth a look.
I actually think that is a fair statement of how poverty does affect women differently than men. Prostitution becomes a means of making a living for women. I wonder as well about the school dropout rate, if girls or boys are withheld more often to help with work. The cure of the gender inequity that one could argue FAVORS women economically, and PUNISHES them morally, is not to be a poor nation.
That’s why I found the survey less than useful. Women are better off in rich nations. Duh!
I just saw this post. so in the Philippines theres no Pell grants, no community colleges (which is free for many right now thanks to Obama), 2 jobs won’t cut it there, no divorce, etc. etc.
College here is cheap and there are a lot of universities. The problem is a mismatch between what kids learn, and the jobs available. So they get their degree in hospitality and then go work as a security guard.
I suspect the lack of divorce here is PUNITIVE to women. Indentured. If they could dump their bum they could go start a life.
appears to me whoever made the ranking dont know much of the women in philippines, how they burst through the glass ceiling and send sharp shards everywhere. take the link below of the one time powerful colonel royina garma, an alledged duterte death squader who was once tree to travel all over the world and now made a lame duck. her visa has been cancelled for her apparent rule in extra judicial killings.
then we have another woman who sent citizens into shivers and ducking into covers by just the mere mention of her name, the incomparable lorraine badoy!
https://www.rappler.com/philippines/us-cancels-visa-royina-garma-ex-police-alleged-dds/
It seems to miss the mark to me.
I think because for every powerful woman in the Philippines is a powerful man. not all but for sure in politics and government. i’m sure in business and academia lots of powerful women without necessarily a powerful man behind propping her up.
The other way around, I think. Men are useful to women, who run the show.
women may have the intelligence but they need muscles and brawn, hence henchmen, to carry the heavy load.
Yes. That’s what y’all,use men for, and I’m good with that. My wife just tosses me pork ribs and I’d run through a brick wall so there’d be a hole she could casually sashay through.
if men can be berdugos, women can too, maybe even worse, coz if the shoes do not fit, women can cut them down to size. and watch those fingernails, sharp as talons.
Bought for someone else. I know am being literal.
if the shoe does not fit you must quit.
No nit that… then no fairy tale ending
married filipino women maybe indentured to their bum of a husband but our laws punishes erring husbands. women do have legal recourse vs husbands that failed to provide for her and their brood.
https://globalnation.inquirer.net/15593/ofw-accused-of-abandoning-family-arrested-at-airport
That is not the norm I think. The norm is living together and calling it a marriage until it stops working then leave, no recourse.
watch her tear a man apart! hell has no fury like a woman scorned. she’ll hang him dry.
This is still prevalent of course. I saw it much more 20+ years ago. Nowadays with mobile phones, women are starting to have the idea that they can find another partner or escape overseas as a OFW.
dont give women any more ideas, joey. already lots of filipino women are choosing career over burping a colicky baby! at the moment, according to stats, there is a decrease in filipinos birthrate of around 1%. if this trend follows, we can expect philippines to have more older people with less younger people to support the aging population.
A career is good. I was raised by a strong willed mother so maybe my perspective is different than most men who want a woman that amounts to being their second mother.
Still, there can be more balance that considers the biological limitations of childbearing years. Even in the US we don’t do this well, though Kamala Harris has a plan to help young families with careers to afford children. Orban (Hungary) and Duda (Poland) tried this from the right-wing perspective and it failed, probably because they wanted women to be “tradwives.”
It’s a difficult subject to discuss, but the value of life is too cheap in the Philippines. I’m not sure if maintaining the birth rate (that depends on teen pregnancies) would even help, since many of those children can’t find jobs when they grow up. I don’t have the numbers but from what I’ve seen it seems programs like SSS and other social welfare programs are funded mostly by the middle class taxes. If more people can enter the middle class, that would greatly increase government funding.
I still think the way to get there is mechanization of agriculture to free up more labor, then have the unemployed labor plus urban unemployed work in factories to gain skills and a good salary. Naturally over time their children or grandchildren will be first time college students and enter a higher economic class. This is the tested and stable path every other developed nation took. Not sure why Filipino politicians think they can take shortcuts, even if they keep failing 😕
agree with agriculture, though I would like to see more women get into it, be agronomist and manage their own farm, hire their own workforce and negotiate a fair price for their produce. there is farmers coop system though and that could be tough to deal.
philippines maybe big on teenage pregnancies but women overall are now trying to limit their brood. in their youth and isolation, burdened by child rearing and with jobs harder to come by, younger mothers maybe pigeonholed but they are trying to wean themselves off poverty. and there is help for those in dire need.
Most Filipino agriculturalists I’ve met are Filipinas. They’re also very intelligent. If farms were mechanized, it would mean women can easily manage the machines vs the current labor-intensive farming practices (in which female contract farmers still participate in).
With teen parents, usually I see the boy still being coddled by his mother even until his 30s or 40s, whenever his mother passes away. While the girl will figure things out and “find a way.” Some “lazier” ones find afams or rich old Filipino men to escape, but there are also many who worked their way up until they built a career in let’s say BPO or VA. They usually find a better man later on and start having children again in their late 20s or early 30s.
I don’t think it is “lazy” to figure out that busting your ass for 500 pesos a day does not make for much of a life.
True on the minimum wage, which is appallingly low. Can’t live on even P1,000 a day for a family of four.
There are a large amount of “bukid” young women nowadays whose only goal is to escape via a rich man. I don’t have a high opinion of them compared to those who figured out how to get into BPO, or even OFW, because once they find such a man, they go back to the old habits such as boasting.
I do wonder if there were let’s say factory work with a decent salary available, if unemployed people would be willing to take up those jobs.
My wife escaped by finding a rich man and has zero regrets. If I die, she’ll look for another. She has friends who have escaped as OFWs, another by marrying a Korean (happily onto their second child), and a few who pine to be in her shoes. She doesn’t brag, that I’m aware of (she doesn’t want loan demands) and dresses plainly. It took her about 10 years to teach her family and friends that I married her, not them. She gracefully dances the fine lines of generosity and care and protects me from those hard choices.
More and better jobs would certainly be a new reality for Filipinas, and greatly change choices. And if there were career prospects, even moreso. But the reality is that women make decisions that you and I, or LCX, do not have to make. We can certainly work to change their reality, but we ought to grant legitimacy to their strivings, today, whatever choices they may think works best.
I would footnote that my wife is the least lazy person I’ve met in my life, since my mother was working full time, milking the cow at 4:30 am, planting, weeding, and canning the farm, helping my dad build the house (my sister arrived early because mom was mixing the cement), and cooking and cleaning to raise four kids. My wife was used as labor as a kid, and has not stopped to rest since.
Joe, it’s not my intention to offend so please accept my apologies. I was referring to young girls and young women who are layabouts because that’s just the way it usually goes in rural families where resources are prioritized to the boys. Not fair in my opinion to leave a child to their own devices just because she’s female.
If your wife was a generation or two younger, due to her industriousness she probably would’ve pursued BPO work or some kind of business after saving up money. There’s generational limitations as well and most Filipinos I interact with range from high school to 40s in age. As you shared before, your wife is a gem. Many other foreigners aren’t so lucky and become ATMs, and their wife continues to be a layabout.
I was a raised by a strong woman who accepted that our dynastic money was gone, took us out of poverty and by the time she passed had amassed a small business and real estate empire. So that’s my personal goalpost and expectation of what women should have opportunity to achieve. Men should be women’s natural allies, because in the modern world where often both partners work, if a woman has equal opportunities the family as a whole is better off.
Fair enough. There are indeed lazy women, in the context of that being a choice over other reasonable options. Give them new options, they might be lazy in higher paying jobs. Being a good mother is also a big job, and being unmarried cat ladies yet another. Those are legitimate individual choices. I believe in hard work, like my parents, and did it for 30 years until I decided there is no point to getting more money whilst missing out on other rewards. Asia beckoned. It took me several years to stop judging Filipinos harshly, and I’m indebted to Karl and a gentleman named Manuel Buencamino, for helping to change my outlook.
Now I’m working with my highly opinionated kid to get him to understand that everyone who is honest has a legitimate reason for their choices. If those choices affect us, then we can engage, but otherwise, we should merely seek to understand them.
Ignorance is not a choice. We all have it, yourself less than most. The Philippines can do much much better in the education department. So can the churches and other institutions. The Philippines can do better at building a future for citizens so they recognize what it is. That’s what contributes to lazy women, I think. Bad education and being beaten down with lack of hope.
In the rural context, the opportunities are limited. Boys are expected to become laborers, possibly seamen if they’re lucky. Girls are expected to do chores and cook, later to be a housewife. If the boys fail to find work then the family is usually out of luck.
In a way, some women trying to find a rich man is in itself a type of self-initiative to try to find better opportunity. Then from there there’s a subset who expect yayas and laundresses, loosely emulating the former rural dynasties before most of those families moved to the city decades ago. I was very enamored with a girl in Leyte years ago. Beautiful and quite funny. I loved visiting their family whenever I was around. But she was adamant she wanted to be a layabout, and have yayas to take care of any produced children, while I expected a woman who would be willing to contribute equally. So no go for me.
However, there are many more rural women nowadays who escape the confines of cultural expectations and limitations by education, working in factories if available, OFW, or BPO. Most of the young Filipinos I mentor are women… I’ve had the worst luck with guiding men. Overall I have an optimistic view of Filipinos.
The penetration of mobile phones is both a blessing and a curse. A curse that feeds into the natural insecurities of Filipinos, while a blessing that provides the world’s information and experience at one’s fingertips, if one should want to seek it out. Society, culture and government places Filipinos into a box that’s hard to escape. But where education and government support is lacking, there is a new generation of Filipinos who realized the four walls of the box they’re confined in as an open top. Using technology is a way to crawl out and learn new things. Every single BPO and VA worker I’ve talked to or mentored shared with me that they taught themselves skills they lacked using the internet. They were mostly women.
Well, I guess you are right. I got a gem for a wife. She does not want a yaya or housekeeper. And she handled construction of our house. Demanding and particular, I’d say. I just watched.
My experience in living in the outer provinces is that it’s a bit of a wild west situation, generally without guns, but sometimes with them. It is both brutal and friendly, depending on the day, who is in town, what mood the landowners are in, and if anybody is looking at anyone cross-eyed or caught cheating at cards or being drunk as a skunk.
Expecting locals to abide by Western values and standards would be like expecting 1800s gunslingers to send e-mails. There simply is no basis for that. When there is enlightenment, there can be advancement, if you call what we do advanced. I found it rewarding to just be a cowboy and worry about my own ass. Enlightenment is not a necessary condition for being fulfilled, I think.
Well, I can attest to the Wild West feeling in the rural provinces. I once had been chased by a Waray father with a binalhag (Waray bolo) who thought I was eloping with his daughter, who I had offered to escort her and her friend home. Her friend went to buy something from a nearby vendor, and an uncle spied myself and the other young lady alone walking along the road. Situation defused, I shared an awkward beer with the father afterward. That young lady is now in her late 30s and is a nurse here in the US.
I do agree that it doesn’t make sense to expect rural folks to update themselves to modern Western values and standards, but the younger the generation, the more open they are to modernizing bit by bit. Some things are universal though, like younger people leaving behind traditional life to find opportunities elsewhere in the city while the older generations don’t want to change. And that’s ok. It’s the younger generations that will take the Philippines forward.
I hope the younger generation are sharp then, because they’ll need to be smarter than their predecessors were to make the changes needed.
I think the younger generation will. It’s no longer possible to keep ideas and possibilities locked away from them like it was in the past. Once they get to the critical age in their 30s with a family, they’ll start demanding and perhaps leading change. The Philippine median age will already be up to 27 years old soon.
Thanks for the mention and giving value to my numerous two cents.
Delivered for almost 2 decades, the amount adds up, haha.
I reflect on flights from the Philippines by well-to-do Filipinos who gave up on the nation when Duterte was elected. Our dear N.H. whom you have not met, was last reported to be in Canada. His absence here is worrisome. He was second oldest, behind sonny, who has also been absent. The planet is rolling fast and there are billions of paths being hacked across it. It’s kind of fun to watch.
Duterte being elected was a huge shock to Filipinos who believed in PNoy’s vision. I was equally shocked when Trump was declared the Electoral College winner that I broke my “don’t drink alone” rule and went straight to the liquor store to buy a bottle of alcohol.
Under Biden, America is healing and Harris will finish the job. BBM for all his faults, isn’t catastrophic like Duterte so it’s sad that educated Filipinos who could really help didn’t return. Perhaps they are jaded and have moved on. Still, I see much promise in the 25-45 year old range. It might take time, but I think they will demand change.
I hope so. I don’t see much going on. But then my echo chamber is probably older.
In the following decade, we might both be pleasantly surprised what JoeJr’s generation can do. I anticipate big (positive) changes to the Philippines in the near future.
You did refer to Filipino Gen Z as difficult. Well, Joe’s son would be Gen Alpha.
Could it be that Gen Z is still overwhelmed by the world they see thru socmed, while Filipino Gen Alpha will be the first to swim in it like a fish in water?
Gen Z tends to soak up what they see on socmed uncritically. They’re unable to form a cohesive worldview due to constantly being bombarded due to gadget addiction. Sometimes it feels like whiplash with how quickly Gen Z changes their views based on what someone they saw online say in a video. People who simply listen to what others say without even a bit of skeptical thought are essentially mind controlled.
Actually, I would say that my observation of Filipino Gen Alpha is they watched the older cohort’s gradual mental unraveling and socmed-induced anxiety, then decided they don’t want that. Gen Alpha is rediscovering books and physical human interaction. At least here in the US, they are visiting public libraries to borrow books and hanging out with their peers offline. They are also driving the market for feature phones again, or are making increasing use of focus modes on smartphones to silence incessant app notifications. Compare that to Gen Zs who are a bit older now, but still have that zombie look while their phone is glued to their hand.
Probably every new medium has an early period where people aren’t used to it where it gets misused and a more mature period. I find social media a bit dangerous as they give you an unreal feeling of almost being there a la Matrix. Guess we all get used to it after a while and stop acting like those who ran away from trains they saw on early movies, or was that an urban legend?
My mother told me a story about how after the Viet Cong had overrun the country in 1975, they had commandeered our family plantation. My grandfather being a modernist had plumbing including Western toilets installed at the hacienda house. The communists had never seen a toilet before, so they thought it was fish tank. The communists then stored the live bulig (snakehead) they bought from the wet market in the toilet bowl, and were upset when the snakehead was missing — the fish had escaped down the plumbing. Similar stories came out of the Ukraine-Russia War where Russian Far East soldiers got killed while heavily laden with stolen toilets and washing machines that they had never seen before.
Social media is both a force for good, but it is also extremely dangerous and I think it ought to be regulated more. A current example is the large number of GenZ kids being manipulated by Iranian and Russian disinformation on TikTok. Young people should go out and have fun in the real world. It’s healthier for their mental health as well. Go out and touch grass, as some might say.
My son sees things much the way we do in terms of the nonsense that infests the Philippines, but he is likely to be a global person with multiple languages and interests. Or corporate, not political. He’s got some schooling left before he pushes off. So who really knows. Gen Alpha. I’ve got to research that.
you are probly correct about philippines middle class funding taxes coz the richest of filipinos are apparently uber reluctant to pay taxes. their lawyers and accountants are allegedly working hard to ensure the wealthiest get away with paying less to no taxes. I really hope finance secretary recto will have the guts to exercise his mandate and go after them, ensure they pay the correct taxes on time. not next decade or the decade after.
https://tribune.net.ph/2024/09/08/las-pi%C3%B1as-hounds-villar-over-p70-m-unpaid-taxes
The Filipino rich are notoriously litigious, with their army of attorneys and accountants. With the slow snail’s crawl pace of Filipino courts, they often end up getting away with their antics when the government settles for a much smaller amount.
If they don’t pay their tax bills, after negotiation fails the solution would be to simultaneously criminally charge multiple “examples” to put a bit of responsibility in the smaller fish. I imagine that would be very popular among the regular folk as well.
WIth AI it became more unpredictable.
Last year it is quite paranoid to say that programmers will lose their jobs, now it is no longer a threat it is real.
AI is good at some things (like procedural generation, most evident in images/video), and bad at most.
The problem is AI can never reach the level it’s hyped to be (i.e. sci-fi AI) because it needs to be programmed by humans. And programmers aren’t known generally to be the most socially aware or introspective people. I supervise them and feel like I need to hit my head against a wall sometimes. So they did the next thing they knew how to which is to train the software on publicly available data. Well the internet can often be a cesspool. In our industry, the business side old hands say “garbage data in, garbage data out.”
“AI” will most likely take over repetitive tasks that can be automated. Those tasks don’t have much variation. That’s good since it frees up people to do more fulfilling jobs. Humans will still rule the creative realm.
With copyright strictness even in Archive.org AI will be really GIGO.
https://urheber.info/diskurs/ai-training-is-copyright-infringement
Even if AI can be trained on high quality data, it is doubtful there could be a generalized model that even gets close to what is promised. The problem is in the engineers and programmers. They’re usually out of touch with how the general population thinks, so they would never be able to program a natural model. Very few in the tech industry I’m in outside of AI outfits really believes in the AI hype, which is a big sign I think.
On the data ingested, these megacorps can afford to pay for quality data. They just want it for free.
there was a time when the military was wary of AI. apparently AI can detect stealth nuclear submarines and can differentiate the difference between a some biologic like whales and a submarine. it was alleged AI can tract the presence of radioactive elements in the water round nuclear submarines and can point their location on the grid, making submarines no longer invisible. apparently also same in the air, AI can detect stealth bombers and and can guide drones to bring down bombers. hence, the asymmetrical war.
The US generals and admirals also use the hype word of the day: “AI.”
But junior officers, enlisted specialists and civilian technicians who actually implement things know that what they’re trying to do is actually “automated procedural analysis,” sometimes called “data fusion.” Procedural analysis is really good at situations where the task is strongly defined beforehand.
Even in the absence of advanced technology, humans can still process data in creative ways that computer programs can’t. Human pattern recognition is one of the greatest human strengths that even small children instinctively can do. For example when the Serbians shot down the 1999 USAF F-117 stealth fighter, they did it using old fashioned methods of “direction finding” by triangulating radar returns. The Serbians did this with the (at the time) positively ancient Soviet 1960s era SA-3 radar and SAM system.
The image-making is hit and miss, but overall, quite incredible. Many end up looking like something out of Dali’s studio, with little interesting insertions that cause one to wonder how the hell that got there, what is it, and what does it mean. It is great at summarizing things in a plain half-baked way, and I use it to better understand diseases and medicines. It fairly screams at me to see a doctor before DOING anything. It has the personality of overwashed socks, in the main. Ragged and droopy but functional.
The extra fingers and strange facial expressions are both hilarious and a bit disturbing.
Tesla has been preaching “self driving” for years, yet tow yards are full of Teslas with front-end damage when the “Full Self Driving” rear ends inanimate objects. I think Apple is taking the correct approach with “AI.” Using it as a tool to assist humans rather than taking over human “thinking.” I haven’t upgraded my iPhone in 4 years, but will buy the new model this year.
Haha, that’s true. Hands are bizarro. But the woman on the featured photo for this article is excellent. I agree on self driving cars.
Usually procedurally generated images do a good job on the face. However if the cover photo is inspected closely, one would notice the length of the fingers is not proportional compared to an average human hand. Especially the thumb. It’s not that apparent since the depicted woman has her arms crossed though.
Some recent studies have found that driving a car is a more complex and random task than realized due to the ever changing variables. Humans can react quickly and make small adjustments while driving, but automated cars can’t since it’s impossible for software to take into account every variable. I still think freeways should have lanes for automated driving though, where extraneous variables are removed. Software can handle that easily.
Yes, and driverless trucking is excellent. Out of the warehouse, onto the freeway, off the freeway and into the warehouse. Terrific.
I’m glad my family sold off our long-haul trucking business, haha.
😂🤣😂, yeah!
True.
Actually, affluent Filipinas have more chances at having kids and careers due to maids than women in rich countries, where day care centers are expensive.
Yes, good point. I don’t think the survey gives extra points, though, for the way poverty helps women succeed by giving them yayas on the cheap, or gives yayas employment. I really think that survey misses the mark. Lacks nuance. Doesn’t help much.
ahem, there is a filipino woman who has walked all over high ranking men and made them wear hula skirts and dance the hula! and she is famous the world over for her collection of very expensive shoes, around a thousand pairs of them shoes, and she’s powerful as her husband and even outlive him. in her heyday, she was friend to world leaders and even addressed the united nations assembly.
Yes, she was getting ready to kill the Beatles before they fled, so that is equality.
our first filipino olympic gold medalist is a woman, not a man: hidilyn diaz. so far as hidilyn is concerned there really is no impediment to success, not even poverty or lack of opportunity.
if there is a will, there’s a way.
ahem, some affluent filipinas like heart evangilista cannot have kids biologically speaking even though she can well afford to hire a battalion of yayas. though she can avail of in vitro or hire a surrogate to carry her baby for her. like what corina sanchez (wife of mar roxas) did
some affluent filipino women waited too long to have kids, preferring to enjoy a well heeled career and being the life of parties despite their biological clocks ticking and their chances of carrying full term babies dwindling. if pop princess sara geronimo (she’s past 30yrs now) wont have kids soon, she will more or less be in the category of heart evangilista, and her chances of being a mother will be slim.
one of philipines top cosmetic surgeon vicki belo also conquered her biolgical clock, and got her much loved baby scarlet snow via surrogacy.
Actually career women would say otherwise Irineo.
They would delay marriage until no longer easy to get pregnant.
these days, career women may well freeze their eggs and delay motherhood. they dont even need a man to get pregnant. all they need is a donor. like the actress jodie foster who got her two adult sons from registered donors.
From what I’ve seen, the more poor the family is, the more resources are allocated towards boys. The students who are forced to drop out first usually start with the eldest daughter and goes down from there to the other daughters. Families will then have one or more daughters who after daily chores are essentially layabouts. “What are you doing?” will usually be replied with “Laying.” Of course, if the boy isn’t very serious about school and decides to become a teenage father, there are no consequences for him. At that point the parents will compel the daughters to look for work… as a laundress, maid, “helper,” and so on.
Yes, that fits with what I see. When they are adults, the casual “marriages” break up easily and both men and women rely on work, wits, and family to get by.
Well, mostly the single moms anyway will find a way. In fact, “finding a way” is a common phrase I’ll hear when Filipinas face problems. Whether that’s by finding an “afam,” getting a local job, or going abroad as an OFW. I find that most of the young fathers will abandon their duties and still be coddled by their mothers even past 40 years old. Poor Filipinas are very resilient and resourceful on the other hand.
I say you overlooked the Domestic Helpers or kasambahays. No way they are lazy and no way they are outliers or exceptions to the rule.
Completely right that kasambahays work very hard, mostly to support their younger siblings from what I’ve seen. A good friend who now graduated to BPO was forced to be a kasambahay at 14 (illegally I think) to support her siblings when the stepfather was molesting her, and her mother ran off with a new partner abandoning the children. Her workday started at 5 am and ended near 11 pm everyday.
I still see many more rural families who keep their daughters at home though after taking the girls out of school. Not the best possible image of the Philippines, but to move forward I think both the good and ugly need to be looked at, so a better future can be achieved. The Philippines has good foundations overall. I still believe the country just needs a gentle push forward.
Don’t worry I am no Polyanna.
That is nice to hear – that the country just needs a gentle push forward.
I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have some hope, even as many have given up.
But Dutertismo has fractured the country and created huge walls of distrust.
And if Marcos Jr. fails, the narrative he too was “an elitist just like the yellows” might come.
So some yellows/pinks may have decided to let the “real Filipinos” take care of things.
I, too, have been somewhat distant since May 2022, as it was worse than 2019 and 2016.
The Philippines has a robust consumer economy, a lot of money flying around, and personality unmatched anywhere. If you round the corner, it’s different. I’m always impressed by the number of fairly new cars on the roads when I’m in Cebu. Each of those is several million pesos, likely on a bank loan, and there will be hell to pay if there’s a steep recession. So the push could be either way, down or up. But I agree with Joey. The step to robust growth and modernization is one good president away.
I do want the Philippines to succeed.
Even in my nastiest mood, then at least they will have no reason to resent us “elitists” anymore. And I hope they buy more BMWs, it helps Munich’s economy.
Well considering that Filipino Gen Z’s are already starting to call Millennials “elitists,” I think the cycle may yet continue.
Here in the US, journalists and political talking heads used to call younger GenX and Millennials brainless hedonists for our coping response to multiple back to back recessions and lack of opportunity. But look at us now. We are taking charge and are going to save the US. I see mostly positive things from Filipino Millennials now that they have “grown up.” Watch that space. We may see many positive developments in the next decade that might finally break the wheel that Filipinos have been torturing themselves on for a century.
Toyota is huge here, and Korean models. No German cars in any quantity that I’ve noticed. My Honda Civic is 16 years old and running great. Rats ate the back seat, dogs and motorcycles have redesigned a few door and fender panels. But the motor is good.
My ex-girlfriend who I briefly shared about before, after she had returned to Cebu when she failed out of university in the US and lost her scholarship, spent a period in purgatory an self-denial. The other day we spoke and she shared that she bought a brand new Toyota Yaris Cross (P1.7M) after upgrading from her Toyota Wigo (P700K). It took her a while for my lessons to sink in (shame it didn’t when she was in the US), but eventually she took my advice more seriously and thrived. She has a thriving online business, just opened a small Japanese restaurant near IT Park she’s having her high school classmate manage, and is making payments on a new-build condo in the new Cordova developments. All from her own efforts, since her current boyfriend is a tambay who is a bit useless. So if she who was so hard headed figured it out, I somehow still have faith in the Philippines!
Terrific success story. I bet you inspired her, as much as helped with the thinking.
She’s done well, so the credit is hers. I only helped to give some ideas. Not bad for a daughter of squatters.
Her family has also had to adjust, as having me as a fall-back stopped years ago, and she only supports her parents. Support of the nieces and nephews is conditional on earning good grades which forces the children’s parents to take more keen interest in their education.
Sometimes I wonder if a carrot approach would work better for improving the Philippines, rather than the stick or tossing out scraps for people to fight over. Not just for students and families, but for municipal and LGU governments as well. People enjoy being rewarded for their good performance and deeds. Well, maybe it’s those local officials who are the ones who truly need guidance.
I believe strongly in the carrot approach. But it’s tossing money into a culture that sees bonuses as gifts, not incentives, so 500 pesos today for last weeks’s hard work will get you a worker who takes the following day off to recover from his drinking binge. It will take some time and patience to build future thinking into reactive Filipino culture, I think.
Right. I’ve always been appalled at the practice of “13th month salary,” which I explained to Filipinos as being wages withheld for an entire year, since if someone moves onto another job or gets fired they lose the “bonus salary.” Of course, most families would quickly spend that “bonus” or any bonus they receive since I’ve heard it being referred to many times as “free money.” No sir/ma’am, that money is from your hard work, withheld, and hung over your head. Such portions of the salary should be spread over the entire year and factored into the daily earning.
Filipino culture is reactive, but also collective and can easily be influenced good or bad. I’d like to hope that if enough people who are more independently-minded become trailblazers and gain success, once critical mass is reached the rest will follow, or at least be indirectly pressured into following.
I hope you are not overlooking unions Joey, they make sure laborers are aware of their rights even to a fault.
The unions do good work there, but they could do better. Since many have influences in socialist thought, or even communist thought, I find that they cannot see further than workers being helpless. In contrast, let’s say American or German unions demand higher wages and protections yes, but also better working conditions and making sure that workers’ productivity is rewarded with a higher share of company earnings. Sometimes I feel that Filipino unions are happy with the scraps they receive. They only argue for a few more scraps, rather than having strong leadership that can see bigger possibilities for workers.
Par excellence observer you are
The late Edgar Lores called anecdotes of Irineo: Anecdotal evidence and now Joey ot is your turn to give anecdotal evidences.
I can only give my four cents.
Well it is possible there is an error in reasoning since I’m neither trained as an historian or a sociologist who may be equipped with hard evidences derived from formal studies. So in the end, it may all be an anecdotal fallacy.
Well, anecdotes can be indicative of patterns, while academics can sometimes be so caught up in their theories that they fail to measure what is obvious to a person with some street smarts. In the Philippines, stats are unreliable, and the academe is more caught up in fighting about which preconceived worldview is correct than in checking assumptions by actual fieldwork. Speaking of history, Laura Lee Junker, who actually took the pains to look at archeological evidence of material culture in Prehispanic Visayan chiefdoms, is, of course, not Filipino.
We can at least put together enough barya from Karl to buy someone a wedding gown later, which is something I have seen some Filipino families do, save small change in a big jar. Enough anecdotes can become educated guesses. Still, let’s not be too optimistic that any Filipino sociologist or even a journalist from Rappler will pick up the hint and really research. BTW, I am grateful for how much Edgar Lores taught me in terms of logic. Even if we might be blind men around an elephant, we might manage to figure things out and even find new ways.
I do recall the spirited discussions in the years following Laura Lee Junker’s publication. Many mocked and tried to diminish her work since she was not a “Filipino,” as if that has anything to do with scholarly study that follows established rigor. At least she took the time to conduct a comprehensive study than all the Filipino historians combined probably did.
But of course as humans we are prone to preconceived beliefs, that are shaped by oral retelling within families and society. Sometimes humans even fight to the death to defend personal myths, so I’m not surprised at all that Filipino academia fights over such things. I have a small circle of friends I met long ago via introductions during tours of UP, AdM and so on, who despite their degrees have felt jaded with Filipino academia and moved onto to other unrelated careers. In a culture that elevates those with advanced degrees to near godhood levels, it’s probably not a good sign if there is an academic culture of close-mindedness.
It’s a shame I never had a chance to interact with Edgar Lores. It seems he was a lover of the humanities, which I have affinity to. The humanities being such a broad subject encompassing history, language, culture among other things is not quite restrictive as law, medicine or even science.
Unless there’s a second coming of Benigno Simeon Aquino III, I hold a cynical view of Filipino leaders providing the way forward.
I still optimistically have hope that good political leadership or not, the people themselves will organically figure things out themselves as more people wean off of toxic Filipino socmed. As I shared before, my observation is that the Millennials are starting to “wake up.” As their eyes open, and focus on how to increase their earnings, they will start to notice the constraints in the system and demand change. That’s what I hope anyway.
There will always be an elite faction of the wealthy, oligarchs and politicos. Just as there will always be a faction of those uncritical thinkers who blindly follow whoever is the current populist golden calf. Growing the middle class into a larger group will solve both problems and minimize the excesses of both the top and the bottom.
Ever since I wrote the review of the book „Soledad’s Sister“, the one about the „KTV singer“ who actually has a great voice with dreams of becoming a star, I have been down the rabbit hole of the Filipino music industry and can tell you: there are few lady singers who are really poor who make it up. Yes, Gigi de Lana is one and even she is more lower middle class actually, even as in a recent interview, it became quite clear how her late (single) mother was the one who kept her on track, inspite of a sometimes rocky relationship especially when she was in her teens. Katrina Velarde is from Tondo, poor parts, but she was one of the few lucky to have a father, and her raw talent is top tier. Yes, both women had nose jobs. Bella Santiago, who now lives in Romania and nearly competed in Eurovision, went through the entertainer career in Malaysia, which could be the reason why the Philippines kinda ignores her. Pearl clutchers, as Joey said. Not all women entertainers abroad are in gray zones. But even many Filipinas working in Hong Kong or Singapore, etc, as maids are seen as damaged goods by „decent“ Philippine society.
The latter BTW explains not just the popularity of Duterte (who IS indeed popular among the prostitutes of Davao, for instance) but even more that of Mocha, who did a lot of popular sex education before she went political influencer, aside from of course her „Mocha girls“.
As for middle class being precarious, you did mention a Gigi without nose job lookalike you went around with in Cebu who even knew parts of the mestizo crowd, so middle class but Mango Avenue. As for middle class origin female stars, Joe did mention that women are often called upon to be breadwinners, and a lot of them sent their siblings to school and supported their parents and even grandparents. Some even set up businesses for their folks, not sari sari stores but the patterns are similar. Pretty clear, though, that for every popular singer, there possibly are five with similar talent in the KTV dead end, three in overseas entertainment with its gray zones, and dozens in department store endo jobs or working as maids abroad. Those who have a nursing degree have a chance somewhere in the world but hardly at home.
Don’t worry too much about any anecdotes as long as they pertain to the topic. Anecdotes may „just be anecdotes,“ but they are more real than haughty lectures on neolib by Micha.
Joey will know more about the urban poor reality, hoping he pitches in at some point.
My best friend the Filipina who works for the multinational tech company’s Asia HQ in HK grew up in a gated subdivision where every essential service and store was within the walls. Her father, being one of those who opposed Marcos Sr. had gone overseas in the early 1980s to avoid Martial Law. The father is a musician who was somewhat popular touring among American bases back in the day. The first time I visited their family in HK, we also visited her father’s work where he manages a club. I pointed out to my friend that this seems to be a hostess karaoke club. My friend was utterly shocked when she realized the Filipina entertainers working there were essentially high-class prostitutes. At that time she was in her early 20s, and she had never put two-and-two together about how her family was able to afford such a nice life.
When I talked to the Filipina entertainers who worked for my friend’s father, they all had similar stories: they came from poor families, mostly squatter families or probinsyaña, and had been put through the pageant circuit since a young age by their parents. Basically they were being trained as entertainers and if need be, future sex workers, by their own parents. Aside from their beauty and charm, they all had musical talents as well as being well versed in entertaining. Many were maids as their “day job” to earn extra money, before entertaining at the club at night.
I also learned of their dreams and aspirations, because clearly a woman can’t work in that industry past their mid-30s. Most shared a strong sense of responsibility to their younger siblings and utang na loob to their family. They wanted to send money back to the Philippines to help their family and secure their siblings’ education. What did they want next? Some wanted to find a foreigner client, but most wanted to open their own businesses based on what the businessmen clients had talked to them about. Quite a few went back to the Philippines and opened cafes, restaurants catering to the new Filipino middle class and foreign visitors. I was really impressed with their determination and grit.
Whenever I go to the Philippines, I do spend a lot of time with the underclass since I feel more comfortable there. So I have seen a lot of the darkest side of the Philippines, but also the most encouraging side that Filipinos who live behind walls don’t see. One of the worst aspects of the political climate of the Philippines in my opinion that it is dominated by those who “have the time” to care, yet those who have the luxury of time often shut their eyes to the problems right in front of them. This includes both the conservatives and the Far Leftists, who seem more interested in pontificating, theoretical diatribes and inflammatory polemics than actually solving anything. Then there’s the Liberals and some Leftists who spend so much time arguing with each other over what amounts to minor quibbles about how to get somewhere, that they become frozen into inaction.
Yet, what if I said that the underclasses are actually quite receptive to new ideas if someone takes the time to treat them with respect and explain in a way they can understand why making certain changes would benefit them and their family? The reason why squatters and the poor who own land yet live almost like squatters like me isn’t because I gave them money (I don’t give a single peso). It’s because they are so shocked someone, especially a foreigner would take interest in their life. There’s a huge powerbase in waiting that could be seized away from the traditional power structure of the fractured chiefdoms that make up Filipino politics. This would not even need to involve traditional populism whether left or right, like with Marcos Sr. or Duterte, respectively. It *IS* popular among most people to have a better life, a better future. Show them that the collective gain of the community and the nation doesn’t need to leave them behind, and they’ll be on board.
The key to political success I think, is through women. Yes, the Philippines might still be a patriarchal-leaning society, but this ignores the immense power most women have at home. Unless a woman has an abusive partner and becomes “losyang,” I find that Filipinas are quite feisty. I joke with my pinoy friends that perhaps the reason why it’s common to have a malditang pilipina is because Filipino men need to be controlled to keep them out of trouble. As we were discussing in past posts, in the ancient times there was an equal power dynamic between the datu and babaylan, that probably extended into lower class households also. The superimposing of Spanish mores onto the various native cultures damaged that power dynamic, though parts of it lives on through such things as the expectation that the wife will hold the money and dictate the family budget (I know of so many pinoys who essentially are given an allowance each day they go to work). Just like in the ancient times where it was the women, not the men who were the providers and ultimate protectors, I still see strong echoes in present Filipino society. Get the message to women, and they will lead their families forward.
This was why I had hoped for someone like Isko Moreno to enter Philippine politics. Someone who has lived in both realities and can bridge the divide, to be able to understand both worlds that exist in the Philippines. Besides Isko’s flameout in the last national election, I’m disappointed that he is apparently now associating with Mocha.
Not having lived on both sides doesn’t preclude someone from making an effort to understand. After all, Leni made a conscious decision to walk among the poor to better understand them, and Duterte despite being a dynasty scion associated himself with the criminal elements of the underclass. As for myself, I came from a dynasty that isn’t relevant in my country, or even in my ancestors’ land. I grew up poor, nearly on the level of Filipino squatters since my family had for better or for worse thrown all our resources into the cause of South Vietnam since they were believers in democratic modernity. I’ve experienced eating rice with patis and oil or seeing my mother give up her share of meat to us kids as a child just like many poor squatters I interacted with did, or even resigning myself to just rice with salt in my university years as I watched my Berkeley peers eat well at the campus cafeteria that I could not afford. To me the opinions of the elites don’t matter that much in the modern age where voters can be mobilized with non-traditional methods. The obstacle is due to lower education levels and a narrow worldview due to constant stress-induced myopia on the struggle ahead. This puts the poor at risk of being misled by populists like Duterte, or coerced by handouts that local dynastic chiefs hand out. I think the obstacles can be overcome though, by figuring out how to speak to the people plainly and hitting the kitchen table issues that matter to them the most: securing their family economically, gaining a little bit of personal pride and recognition, and a sense of some more fairness towards people like them.
“The latter BTW explains not just the popularity of Duterte (who IS indeed popular among the prostitutes of Davao, for instance) but even more that of Mocha, who did a lot of popular sex education” Let me drill down more on this protection from Filipino males idea. so I was just a passer by not really someone who lived with the poor. but when we usually got done at short time hotels the girls would ask for a ride so dropped ’em off if on our way and proceeded to our hotel. these neighborhoods the girls were dropped off at were squatter areas, usually theres a basketball court half court where the taxi would park U turn and out we go. but at 3am or so there would still be dudes just hanging out and they were like zombie vampires and the girls would walk hurriedly to their rooms rented from more poor families. and there’d be stories of their panties getting stolen or when they took baths group of guys would peek and many times salsal. so domestically they would have to deal with these males. and at work also, usually locals would visit these place not spend money and stalking etc. so the psychology of why a prostitute would favor a Duterte or Inday Sara at the very ground level is this. they ‘re dealing with this crap day in and day out. some reprieve. “I joke with my pinoy friends that perhaps the reason why it’s common to have a malditang pilipina is because Filipino men need to be controlled to keep them out of trouble.” I mean sure being maldita can be useful but when you’re dealing with drug addicts and gangs of dudes out to rape or just harass its not gonna cut it. the EJKs i think quieted down things. so any policies has to replicate this quieting down of things, maybe no more EJKs but I’m imagining Mango Ave girls probably enjoyed the quiet though I’m sure they would also have been part of the mess since many prostitutes are also in cahoots with shabu. pranning I remember was the adjective used. maybe kb can describe that more. as for your best friend, Joey, most AB Filipinos don’t know whats going on. and i believe its consciously done. similiar to how karl feels icky ewww when I mention too much of Mango Ave but I really think everything in the Philippines all boil downs to its sex industry. hell all of asia for that matter. if you focus there, and work outwards you’ll fix a lot more stuff imho. I’m tracking videos in youtube of NYC, Seattle and LA increase in street walkers. texas too. and much of it is related to all this immigrant stuff here. like there seems to be an influx of Chinese or asian street walkers. they’re supposed to be inside massage parlors but now they’re in streets? things are out of flux. thus keep an eye on the sex industry. really good gauge on things. its not icky they’re canaries.
“Someone who has lived in both realities and can bridge the divide, to be able to understand both worlds that exist in the Philippines.” I also frequently read USMC reddit, Joey. I worked under a mustang once (enlisted to officer) and the dude rocked. I thought that was the answer to the many ills of the Marine Corps, just get more enlisted to become officers. and it turns out my experience was just a one off. many mustangs actually became bigger assholes when they commissioned. instead of bridging the enlisted and officer divide, i guess the psychology was that they were on the other side that they would burn that bridge. keep those uncouth masses at bay. which I guess I can understand cuz while I was praying hard to get that $800 million Mega (which went to Sugarland TX by the way 😦 ). I would totally just stay in Ritz hotels like forever keep away from the problems of regular folks. my point, just because some one came from some where doesn’t usually translate to them keeping ties to that world. no bridging should be assumed.
There are two matters discussed in this subthread I want to check out.
1) What Joey said about bridging the social divide. It is hard because of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_(sociology) – someone who grew up in the AB world is immediately out of place in the DE world and vice versa. Trust issues are huge nowadays.
Someone from C might be able to bridge worlds. For example, there are some stars who are clearly C, dealt with DE before and with AB when getting famous.
Leni Robredo is able to bridge worlds, especially in the countryside, where they aren’t too far apart, and most especially in her native Bikol – I watched her final Naga rally online. That is harder the bigger and the more diverse the population of a place – Bikol has 5 million people.
2) You mentioned AB kinda being in denial about things. Philippine society teaches people to ignore certain groups. I had two key experiences with former classmates on a visit to PH.
One was me buying a cigarette at an EDSA crossing, pre-flyover days. I was having it lighted by the vendor, normal back then, when my classmate in the driver’s seat started the car due to the lights going green. Vendor chased after us to light my cigarette. My classmate didn’t notice.
Eating goto with some classmates outside, one of us, driving a Pajero (hehe period reveal) drove down the street, then backed up, nearly running over a man pushing a kariton who was able to jump aside on time. Nobody raised his head to look except myself.
The Innocence of Father Brown is an English short story collection about a priest/detective. He asks witnesses if someone passed by a place. This was in 1950s Britain, very much a class society. Everybody says nobody passed by. Based on the time, he realizes it was the postman.
Fear and caution can be reasons to avoid some places, parents will teach their kids to beware. Some AB men might have brought prostitutes to their places like you did during wilder days but don’t want to remember. Better off women might avoid the poor for other reasons. When I was still in Twitter, I read a story by a BPO worker who was harassed in a jeepney and the driver was also it seems OK with it, saved herself by jumping off at a populated major stop. She wrote relatively good English. Being anti-Duterte, she blamed it on a sex maniac President.
“Some AB men might have brought prostitutes to their places like you did during wilder days but don’t want to remember.” Rich dudes in Cebu would literally throw girls off cliffs. I doubt Filipinos ever dropped off their girls. once the dirty deed was done, they became invisible again, Ireneo. but yeah, I totally understand what you’re talking about, about not seeing. saw it myself. like maid master relationship, where the master got a little more service and wife turns other cheek. or at work places, same power dynamics. theres a lot more gap between women and men. in my estimation. but its somehow masked like what you’ve described in the entertainment industry then Joey’s best friend story. its hard to pin it down. where in the Arab or Muslim world its obvious, more nuanced in the Philippines. but if I were to distill it… it all comes down to loser males actually being able to inseminate women with their loser sperms, and the women trying to run away from it all. and that’s the psychology. why theres so much demand for foreigners. maybe JP can chime in.
“When I was still in Twitter, I read a story by a BPO worker who was harassed in a jeepney and the driver was also it seems OK with it, saved herself by jumping off at a populated major stop. She wrote relatively good English. Being anti-Duterte, she blamed it on a sex maniac President.” These things are more prevalent in India it seems. but yeah I can see it happening in the Philippines. especially tambays hanging out and BPOs walking back home from work. am assuming that incident you shared happened late at night. night time Philippines is so different from day time Philippines, like night and day. but yeah, the politics of protection i think is where Pinks (or whoever comes after Pinks) have to focus on. security. can you imagine the head space you’d have to be in to think salsal as a group is okay whilst peeking inside the shower. because am sure that same mind set played in that jeepney , Ireneo. i read awhile back where average of 100 rapes a day were going on in India, am Googling Philippines there doesn’t seem to be statistics available. whatever the number those are just the reported cases, with more not reported due to shame or even death after the act.
Hey, I didn’t imply any direct connection between the legit entertainment industry and the male entertainment industry, but SOME who don’t make the fame lottery of singing contests and casting shows MIGHT end up elsewhere. Joey’s post implied that there are poor parents who are apparently open about whatever their daughters find to make money for them – very sad. That some in the legit entertainment industry end up as mistresses of rich businessmen or politicians is what many say though. These scandals below are older but give an idea:
https://www.pep.ph/lifestyle/19099/looking-back-showbiz-scandals-that-raised-public-outcry
That entertainer visas for instance to Japan, for the „Japayuki“ were often disguised trafficking even as the girls had to pass a dance exam in the Philippines back in the 1980s (I recall a German documentary about that back then) is known, so Joey’s HK example isn’t surprising. That some Filipino female OFWSs may get tempted to „freelance“ after hours is one topic in Soledad’s Sister, that is how Soledad disappears, and I have heard some stories about that too.
https://hongkongbuzz.hk/2016/02/hk-law-forces-some-maids-into-selling-themselves-for-sex-and-must-be-changed-charity-head-says
The above article fills in on those real risks.
Re mass lulô, to use the Visayan word, in the 1980s, that was reported to happen if females passed the bars of the kind of jails where men have been caged for years – and was shocking.
And yes, said woman was going home at night after overtime. She might not have been BPO, just a typical office worker. But yes, something in the present Philippines is off, dunno what. Recalling a 1970s Tagalog movie playing in the slums where a girl working at a sari-sari store is suddenly grabbed from behind by her breasts by a tambay drinking gin in front of the store. She yells for help and her father comes out from behind with a bolo, chases the young man to his house but doesn’t enter, and while restrained by neighbors tells him to drink milk, not gin. Well, even UP Balara in the 1970s was still part traditional village, part slum. That is gone..
“That some Filipino female OFWSs may get tempted to ‘freelance’ after hours is one topic in Soledad’s Sister,” I can tell you in Bahrain, OFW Filipinas definitely freelanced. servicing the Saudi crowd who would cross the bridge as well as the US military crowd. Bahrain was a funny place because it was obviously Shi’a but with Sunni royalty whose got no sovereignty really but propped up by Saudi Arabia (and USA) so their military and police would be filled with Pakistanis. The Filipinas were the bottom wrung, with Ukrainians Russian women flown in as the top wrung. So it was more like that HK situation you linked to , Ireneo, except Filipinas weren’t maids. so I’m thinking they didn’t have to, but the pull was so much eg Saudi and US money that they had no choice but to partake. so theres an element of choice here that has to be respected, but also take into consideration human trafficking and limited choice situations like in HK. as to Ruffa Guitierrez I remember she was talked about in Cebu. cuz although she grew up in the infamous Rampart area of LA when young, her mom’s family is a big deal in Cebu i guess. people always talked about her. this Bruneiyuki stuff i’ve never heard about. thanks. but yeah that level of prostitution is way above my pay grade. i’m just Mango Ave level. but i gotta feeling the anatomy of it all would still be the same, hence my shock that Joey said P10,000 I’m sure Brunei would be in the $10,000 range! i ‘ll get an ulcer if i think about that too much.
For LCx my comments might end up elsewhere.
You have a gut feeling at the anatomy is the same? Even if foreigners are called aliens they are still from planet earth. So luxury call girls (GROS) or not the anatomy would definitely the same no gut feel needed.
There as long you do not talk about your cure for prostate more often than not, I am cool with our fair assessment.
As to this prostitution to get away from the addicts, I say how? It is out of the fire into the frying pan.
This survey that umis SDG target basesd makes me agree more with Gian’s assessment that ESGs are beginning forced fed to us by the OECD or UN or whatnot.
It did but it was near enough.
The firsthand stories I’ve listened to from women basically had their own parents training and pimping them out. Most of these young women had a strong sense of love and responsibility to their parents and siblings. It is quite sad.
While prostitution is the “oldest profession,” I don’t think most women would do it unless they had no other choice.
Here’s an example from the South Korean perspective. I’m in the IT and business industry where it’s male dominated, yet outside of work most of the men were socially awkward and couldn’t find girlfriends unless they threw money around. I didn’t have that problem since growing up poor I developed diskarte. So a lot of my colleagues in the 2000s and 2010s visited Korean run house brothels. Most of the girls were brought over on tourist visas then overstayed when the mamasan took away their papers. All of them were poor country girls who went to the city (Seoul) for college and were tricked into opening credit cards to keep up with their rich friends’ lifestyles. In South Korea family members can be compelled or even jailed to pay the credit card balance, so the girls took foreign “jobs” and weren’t disclosed it was in prostitution. They had to pay board and food, and made a fraction of the fee. The US government conducted a lot of raids of these house brothels and rescued the women in the late 2010s.
Being educated individuals, I think we too often “get into the weeds” about what policies must be changed. We all want the best of course, that’s why we care.
I myself am someone who bridges the divide in some ways. Having tasted poverty, I know how the urban poor feel. But also equipped with a good education and a bit of luck in life, I also feel comfortable among the affluent. Black American professionals call this “code switching,” the ability to switch between cultural context (especially language), which is what someone like Isko Moreno can do. The problem then lies in staying firm with one’s principles, which Isko seems to have let fallen by the wayside after his crash and burn.
So it’s true that it’s very difficult for someone who grew up in AB to connect with DE unless they make a big effort. Their social conditioning likely would prevent it. Then there’s also a risk that AB folks, with all their privilege and comfortable lives would turn to fringe ideologies such as far left theories, where of course they would replace the current elite structure with themselves so they can “help” the people. The Filipino far left is very prone to this.
It may be possible for someone in the middle, in the C class, to be a bridge, but I think it is more likely that the bridge would be someone with origins in DE who through luck and grit rose up the socioeconomic and influence ladder. Even a C class person won’t fully understand DE, since C class is usually striving to gain a foothold into AB. But a DE who rose up would understand all the preceding classes they had lived through.
Anyway, I still think that the most obvious solutions that are overlooked to start “fixing” the Philippines is:
1.) Modernizing agriculture through mechanization to create food security
2.) Attract foreign investment by creating a business-friendly environment to build factories
3.) Invest in public K-12 and public universities to respectively provide a workforce and an incubator of ideas
No where here precludes the rich from sending their kids to private institutions (they already do, and would continue to do so anyway).
DE don’t ask for much. They want to have food security, housing, public safety, and a better future for their children. These are “kitchen table issues,” as us Americans would call it, and are the hard decisions families need to make on how they allocate their resources. Solve the kitchen table issues and suddenly the DE masses will follow.
By modernizing agriculture, there’s more food security and it frees up young farm workers to do other jobs. By attracting manufacturing, all the now available former farm workers and the urban poor have decent jobs they can earn a decent salary with. And by earning a decent salary that brings personal pride and economic security. No one of wants to make a tough decision on how to ration canned goods or instant pancit when it comes to their family.
Then once the economy starts to speed up, there will be more tax revenues to tackle bigger problems facing the Philippines such as:
1.) National infrastructure improvement
2.) Traffic decongestion of roadways
3.) National defense
4.) Branching out into other sectors to diversify such as refining, value-added products, motorcycles and automobiles, high-tech industry to further add to the economy
5.) And so on
Once we get out of the weeds, the problems are immediately apparent. Chopping up goals into steps and government prioritization builds to success rather than half-completed initiatives. Start by lifting up the DE economically by providing jobs and a secure life, then the nation will be rewarded. Filipinos often think that the US is a powerful and rich country, and the US is, but if the economic policy that allowed the US to progress to such position could be distilled down to the basics, it would follow the initial steps I shared. It all starts with the kitchen table issues that are important to people’s everyday lives and is as simple as that.
Well, I am wondering if Isko going the way he went was an accident.
Though one should not succumb to analysis paralysis, using educated methods is useful, but either exaggerated or scorned in the Philippines.
It starts with those on the intellectual left and right who scorn Rizal as a mere talker and pretentiously Westernized elitist and see Bonifacio as the true national hero.
The school of my father kinda scorns Rizal too, though Dr. Xiao Chua does not, BUT they do emphasize that Bonifacio though formally a dropout was extremely well read.
The part of the discourse that trickled down to the masa was, however, that educated is bad.
That is bad because even Goth Kings knew when to utilize Roman knowledge, illiterate medieval Kings tapped literate priests, and Kublai Khan’s clan utilized Chinese mandarins when they became the Chinese Yuan dynasty, yes they even respected and kept the institutions.
Hopefully, hate of institutions has culminated in the Duterte “reign”. Still I am skeptical.
Second, even as PNoy it seems meant well, some of his supporters in AB might have pissed off DE folks. Philippine politics can be as emotional as Filipino fandoms. There are Filipinos who dislike stars because of how some of their fans act, and resentment can linger VERY long.
“1.) Modernizing agriculture through mechanization to create food security” I guess as an addendum to that, what do you guys think of divesting from pigs all together. one thing I noticed in the Philippines was the consumption of pig was way too much. even chicken lechon. was wondering if you could introduce guinea pigs and rabbits (probably not rabbits) and get Filipinos to diversify their meat in take. with so much micro plastics in fish, i’d probably stay away from fish too. but i keep imagining guinea pigs in Philippines like how they have ’em in Peru and Bolivia. just scurrying about living their best life in the kitchen and people just pluck ’em from the ground to make dinner out of ’em. it would require a really smart PR campaign though. also divest from rice, mix it up.
I would march in the streets to protest the removal of pigs from the Philippine culinary scene. It is blasphemous to suggest that. My favorite meal is two huge pork ribs with a generous layer of meat and thick layer of fat fried in oil and sautéed in honey and garlic the way my wife does it. With rice of course and some miscellaneous vegetable for color. Heaven on earth and fuck the heart attack.
You need to review George Carlin’s bit about climate change and plastic, in which he predicts covid as a cure to humankind’s infestation of earth. The planet is doing just fine, thank you. It’s the people who suck, and earth will take care of that in due course.
Roger that, Joe. I’ll focus on vasectomy for all Filipinos & bank accounts for Mango Ave girls, instead then. HAHAHAHahahahahaha…
Sheer genius.
If you meant Isko’s career through modeling to entertainment, then politics to be an accident, then yes I think luck has a role to play as well. As with many things in life for non-elites, the next step is often involves seizing opportunities presented by luck and parlaying it into higher positions. I did that in my career since I have an education in neither technology or business. A rocketing political career also requires some level of personal ego and god-complex as well, which I think Isko does have ample amounts of.
The mistake the intellectual left and right makes is that while they scorned “Western” ideas, they both had already absorbed and internalized those very ideas. It’s most evident in the attempts (still ongoing) of indigenization and Filipino nationalism, which was seen by non-Tagalogs as a form of neo-colonialism that didn’t respect other groups. To be honest, I think that the Philippines wouldn’t even exist in its current form if the US had not brought the Visayas under control and finally quieted Mindanao. So the US probably has some blame in this as well. After the initial clamoring to ape the Europeans and gain colonies, the US quickly backtracked on imperialism.
Here’s an interesting thread to pull on. When the US took over control of the Philippines from Spain, the US was in the late stages of its Gilded Age (ended 1900). Could it be that the proto-oligarchs and early Filipino politicians learned from that “golden age” of unfettered laissez-faire business and just never changed their ways since there wasn’t strong pushback like the reforms of the Progressive Era in the US?
If the Filipino elite could be compared to the old Goth Kings or Kublai Khan, then they did absorb the excesses and superiority of business in a society, such as they learned from the US that existed at the time. But unlike the Goth Kings and Kublai Khan, who still felt some sort of responsibility for the people they lorded above, Filipino industrialists and capitalists only saw resources to be extracted. So again it’s probably an example of the Philippines absorbing outside concepts that worked for the elite, while discarding or only paying lip service to the rest. The US political system always had a strong party duopoly since almost the start, despite the US Founders advising against a party system. The party duopoly allowed for the contest of ideas, while in the Philippines parties seem to largely exist as platforms for the interests of feudalistic dynasties.
I still think that the way to build a coalition needs to start at the bottom, rather than at the top. In terms of “one person, one vote,” CDE still make a vast majority of the eligible voting population. Yes, party leaders and coalition needs may need to be from AB due to necessity as education can give natural advantages to organizing compared to let’s say the Philippines’ disjointed labor unions and labor organizers who lack a coherent vision. By catering to the basic needs of the lower classes, resentment can be transformed into support and admiration. After all, the transient support of the urban and rural poor often rises when they feel like they are being “taken cared of” by their politicians who give handouts and vote bribes. Then quickly the same support turns into anger when the support is not permanent, since it was just a bribe to win votes. If the basic needs are improved alongside a corresponding voter education campaign, I think there is a large base to be harnessed.
Re the Philippines would not exist in its present form if not for the USA, that is true as the Visayan elites only gave token recognition to Aguinaldo:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_State_of_the_Visayas
Even Luzon might have broken down into warlord states, assuming nobody else would have taken interest in the archipelago. Just look at the conflict that killed Heneral Luna, for instance.
While it is true that Spain was started to pacify the Visayas in 1847 when Governor Claveria, the one who decreed Spanish surnames for all to simplify administration, had steam gunships patrol the seas and drive out Mindanao pirates. Spain also used advances in military technology to increase control of Mindanao and even tried to influence the succession in the Sultanate of Sulu, whose royal family is still divided as to who is the legitimate Sultan today.
The United States simply was more efficient. That is loaded, I know. Of course, the Moro Wars were brutal, just like the combined US-Dutch effort to take control of the last Indonesian Sultanate still independent in the early 20th century, Aceh. But then again, what if Germany or even England would have taken the Philippines, for instance? The Herero massacre of Namibia and the Boer War show that all imperial powers were extremely harsh in the early 1900s.
Re Filipino intellectuals already Westernized before indigenization, of course. My father’s Tagalog writing does betray his French education at times.
What you wrote about Filipino elites adopting only the part of Western thought they can use is true very often. I did take issue with the generic use of Inglesero and kanluranin as near cuss words by my father’s school of thought, though.
I told Dr. Xiao Chua long ago, don’t you realize kanluranin from the more radical PP folks sounds like dilawan when used by DDS, and it can be used against those who apply any Western ideas even if it means to help the people? Xiao is an admitted dilawan, BTW.
What I meant about Isko is that certain ideas from Filipino intellectuals trickled down to the people approximately in Erap’s time, maybe even earlier. A certain dislike of government institutions, preference for less structured problem solving, hate for “Makati” mindsets.
Maybe Tulfo can afford to call on government institutions in his show as he is, by definition, a man’s man, a Mindanao Visayan, so he won’t look like a gangsta calling the cops? (Sarcasm)
Because yes, the Filipino Zeitgeist does laugh at structured types like Mar Roxas. When Duterte won, I did ask my father is this what you guys wanted? Of course, no answer came.
Third, agree with the bottom up approach. Things don’t have to be Federalist for that, but what I do like about Federal states is that they look at what people need locally. Countries with a strong tradition of municipal autonomy like Germany add that to the mix.
The Philippines still has a very strong legacy of Spanish centralism, conflicting with LGUs that want to become rajahnates again, thinking they even can declare someone persona non grata.
Those contradictions need to be resolved for the nation to get its act together.
Can’t forget the Republic of Zamboanga as well, which I believe was the only successful (Creole) local revolution against the Spanish where Spain surrendered solely to the native army. Vicente Álvarez was an early Katipunero but had left due to discovery.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Zamboanga
I’ve often argued that “imperialism bad” but that the short-lived “American imperialism was kinder” compared to European imperialism. There are plenty of historical records that attest that while the American imperialists of that age felt superior by nature of their Caucasian “race,” they did take interest in the development of the protectorates they controlled, instituting laws, public education, infrastructure. There was the propaganda trope first uttered by then Governor-General William Taft during that time of Filipinos being “our little brown brothers.” Certainly a paternalistic and demeaning stance, but compared to colonies of European powers that simply extracted resources and labor, one can say American colonies probably fared better.
Still, I doubt that the Katipunan would’ve been able to “liberate” the entire Philippines. The Spanish colonial strategy, even in the Americas, consisted of splitting loyalties and balkanizing portions of colonies to prevent any native revolutionary movement from forming. If I recall, the disparate revolutionary republics refused to submit to the Katipunan. The republics only later acquiesced to becoming American protectorates once their local interests were accounted for.
I still hear “kanluranin” being used as an insult from time to time. The left fringe has always had an outsized voice in PDP-Laban, even though in my opinion they have done the least to advance the nation. Marching and shouting slogans doesn’t actually solve anything, and when less educated people are so emotionally charged they easily fall prey to demagogues. The far leftists feeling like they “won” during People Power only led to their disillusionment and further radicalization when their slogans didn’t translate into the change they wanted. I really consider their disappointment as a precursor to Duterte.
There’s nothing wrong with taking good ideas, even if it’s from “outside” to improve one’s self or the nation. Over time the imported ideas will develop local characteristics as the ideas evolve. Sometimes I feel exasperated with the empty nationalism that demands everything to be “Filipino”… even when the nation doesn’t yet understand itself sometimes.
I think that one of the problems lie in that the intellectuals want to have transformational change, ignoring that it requires control of at minimum the Congress and the Presidency, downplaying the effort needed. In short, that transformational change only has a chance when there’s a rare and big system shock like People Power. The other problem lies in the fact that the lower socioeconomic classes just want their leaders to “do something,” which is why I think they voted for Duterte since he boasted that he was doing something which sadly ended up being nationalizing EJKs. Wouldn’t it just be easier to “do something” as in making small changes to improve the people’s daily lives? Seems simple enough, and much cheaper than transformative plans which can be done later once there is political capital saved up.
I didn’t like Duterte’s federalism plan, since it wasn’t actually a plan at all but vacuous rambling. But the strong federalism of the US works great with respecting sub-national, sub-regional and municipal governments while providing the cohesiveness to tie everything into a nation. Canada’s looser federation works too, and so does Germany’s even looser federal structure.
I think every new colonial power was usually more sophisticated. Rizal criticized the 1884 Penal Code and praised British colonial justice as way more modern. Singapore and Malaysia utilized their British legacies well.
In the Balkan, one can still see some difference between the areas once held by Austria and those held by Turkey before. Turkey tolerated ancient vendetta culture in many places, placing other places under the rule of Pashas, who dispensed justice.
I kinda see Spain and Turkey as old school empires that reformed extremely late in the 19th century, too late to secure their crumbling power. Filipinos gave a final push to an empire that was already mahina, laos na at dehadong manok. Cuba had been fighting longer.
Re transformational change, Karl and myself once got accused of advocating „mediocre incrementalism“ by Micha. The Filipino mindset often wants „en grande agad“ or reverts to Barok methods a la Duterte completely, forgetting that step by step is the way up.
The idea of respecting sub-units aka subsidiarity while utilizing the synergy that a larger whole brings is lacking in the Philippines, which either micro manages or goes totally bahala na like during the pandemic when at times every barangay had its own rules, so it seemed.
It can even be argued that Spain and Turkey still struggle with internal colonialism that started since their ancient founding. Spain has separatist non-Spanish groups, and recently Catalonia even tried to secede until they were mollified. Turkey has the Kurds, Armenians, and other ethnic groups who were subsumed into the old Ottoman Empire and want to break off into their own independent ethnostate. Spain tried the carrot method which worked with the Basques and Catalans, while Turkey is heavy-handed especially with the Kurds which only inspires more resentment.
The rejection of incrementalism is why I discount far leftist ideas. Not everything needs to be couched in the language of revolution, and I highly doubt the modern far leftists who mostly hail from the pampered classes would even successfully lead any revolution. They want *others* to fight, but not them who need to remain self-important “thinkers.” Theirs is an ideology of fantasies.
Real world results show that incremental change becomes permanent change more often than revolutions which often fail. Then if the next step of incrementalism is continually taken, well what do we know, eventually we would have changed the system piece by piece. Regardless of cultural differences, there are already many examples of how nations developed in the modern age and they all follow more or less the same developmental steps. Why reinvent the wheel when others have already done it?
I had another thought about federalism while reading your comment, this time a counterpoint to my original argument. Successful federalism in let’s say the US depends on all sub-national states believing in the core national identity. As can be seen in the last decade, rhetoric by the Republican Party is somewhat breaking the core national identity and Red States have somewhat Balkanized themselves. I don’t think there’s a chance for there to be a break, because Red States depend on the financial largesse of the coastal states and any talk about secession is laughable since those states can’t even financially support themselves, but it’s just an example of how national cohesion can break down. Whereas in the Philippines, 126 years after the revolution, 78 years after independence, 38 years after People Power and the establishment of the Fifth Republic, there still is not true national cohesion and a common idea that all Filipinos can agree that ties the nation together. So I’m not sure federalism would work for the Philippines at this point, but it’s something to keep in mind for the future.
Have some ideas too will put in a blog post.
I’ll be looking forward to your post!
The Web3 people from the PH I have observed also are like a barbell.
mostly upper and lower classes and tech people
In the VA world it seems most come from lower or middle income classes.
Yes, Web3 requires a measure of excess disposable income to play with crypto and blockchain since it’s a speculative area, no different from gambling. Crypto is a deadend, anti-democratic movement that had techno-anarchic roots, which got more rotten when the libertarians adopted it. Blockchain existed before crypto since the 1980s, and will be the future of digital data ledgers with applications in bank records especially relevant.
VA is mostly concentrated in the entrepreneurial spirit of the lower classes. Just like learning and then teaching English online before VA took off, VA has allowed independently minded lower class people to break free from the constraints of the Philippines. Very admirable actually, since being a VA involves all aspects of running an independent business: finding clients, understanding the clients’ needs, self-organization and scheduling, a willingness to learn new skills to expand their VA services. A lot of people who try out VA burn out and flame out though, since the requirement of being open-minded and flexibility definitely clashes with what is ingrained culturally.
I could never understand how crypto creates any value, other than ponzi value. Thank you for articulating this as clear as I’ve ever seen it stated.
Interesting to watch who is pushing crypto. Most are trust fund babies or billionaires like Musk and Thiel. Sam Bankman-Fried, who was the only “crypto bro” thus far to be convicted of financial crimes, tried to play both sides by donating to Democrats and Republicans. They were just trying to spread influence as they don’t hold any traditional ideologies. The crypto bros have decisively shifted over to the authoritarian right, because in their worldview they want a government collapse (and the subsequent collapse of fiat currency) and their support of the right is intended to accelerate that plan. Overall they hold anarcho-libertarian views.
But the question I alway pose is: What value does crypto have, when it needs to be converted to fiat currency (usually US Dollars) to have any value? Since its value is tied to real money, crypto has zero real value aside from being a speculative asset. This is also why cryto pushers want to bring back the Gold Standard (again, to break the monopoly of fiat currency). Fiat currency is backed by promises from real governments, which is why fiat has a value. Crypto proponents pleas of “just trust us” falls flat to me.
I got into crypto early on actually, when Bitcoin was still able to be “mined” on regular computers and graphics cards. I never believed in the libertarian bent. I cashed out over a decade ago when the value hit $60,000 per coin.
Nice work, except for the saps who will take the loss that is your gain. Casinos profit by skimming a little of the cash that flows between winners and saps. There are a lot of saps. I’m one on days the stock market goes down, but patience is the virtue.
My investments are mostly in indexes, with a small amount to “play” on daytrading. I’m a bit old fashioned so assets are mostly in real estate.
But yes, the crypto market largely consists of trust fund babies artificially creating bubbles, getting the common rubes to invest their life savings, then withdrawing the now higher cryptocoin and converting it to cash. Rinse, repeat. All illegal of course if it was done on the traditional stock market.
Crypto has 3 main avenues right now
Stablecoins: issue with money that devalues. also, cross border money transfers.
DEPIN: Decentralized public infrastructure.
Samples:
Bee Maps – The fastest growing mapping company in history crypto version of google maps.
Helium Mobile (hellohelium.com) crypto project to extend network connectivity by running your own tower.
The tokens facilitate value transfer from those providing infrastructure to those utilizing those infrastructure.
Product:
Solana has a phone: Solana Seeker | The Definitive Web3 Mobile Device (solanamobile.com)
Why we need a crypto phone? Because the 30 percent cut of Apple and Google is making some apps not viable. It may succeed or fail but as long as it pushed Apple and Google to improve it would have done its job.
Just a quick note as the resident crypto person here.
What web3 allows for non americans who do not want to move to the US is to be part of the conversation. Web 3 is more international and non US centric.
Those sound like value added, so make some sense. I’m afraid I have slowed down too much to keep pace. Maybe JoeJr will take an interest.
Ethena (don’t know the spelling) is big as I have spied upon people talking about it in the MRT. basically you become the COS or Executive Assistant and Silicon valley founders are now being advice to get one to extend themselves. This exposure is super important. Not a leap to think we get the next Taipans from people like these.
Ah that’s probably Athena Finance, a platform to earn “interest” on deposited stablecoins.
Stablecoins were created due to recognition of the volatility of traditional cryptocoins, and are pegged to real fiat currently. China is trying to lead an initiative to make a stablecoin controlled by BRICS (BRICS Token) pegged to the major commodities traded by BRICS, but in reality controlled by China.
What I think is so dangerous for normies is the crypto market is just an unregulated securities market where traders engage in speculative activity. Since normies aren’t equipped with the proper knowledge, they try to ride the wave to gamble on making a profit. But no matter how smart a normie is, the market is controlled by large crypto funds led by trust fund heirs, and almost everyone besides the crypto funds lose since the funds collude on when to hype and when to crash the value.
The even more dangerous aspect is that crypto is a ploy to undermine and replace fiat currency that is no longer controlled by governments (and by extension the people), but to be controlled by a handful of anti-government billionaires who could care less if governments collapse.
David Troy is a leading researcher and industry journalist, and he explains the reactionary roots of crypto and web3 well here:
I found this
Athena Careers | Achieve more through us
https://jobs.athena.com/
Ah I completely misunderstood, sorry GC!
I’m in a startup as a side gig, so I understand the budget constraints that startups have that might lead them to hire an EA overseas.
It looks like this platform was created by Americans.. a missed opportunity for a Filipino entrepreneur to create a similar platform.
In the tech industry it’s common for there to be independent consultants (programmers, analysts, project managers, etc). The agency takes a big cut (sometimes 1/3) to the pass through resource.
Wow, that’s something new since most mustangs I know are super respected by their enlisted and are exceptional leaders.
By the way, my mother had told me when I was a child that if I pray for something for myself, God would never grant it as we should pray for others. So next time you should pray for ME to win the Mega Millions LCpl lol.
LOL. I’ll try that for Powerball.
Well of course in poor neighborhoods, especially squatter settlements, there are always mamboboso/mamakladay. Maybe it’s the hot and humid weather that makes men there become manyak at even the slightest show of skin when a girl wears shorts. It doesn’t help that most squatters don’t have proper hollowblock CRs. A lot of the CRs are rusted corrugated roofing panels repurposed for CR walls, or even just a tarpaulin stretched across bamboo poles. There would be a lot of gaps to look through.
There are some popular songs in Cebuano about a man who is courting a woman, where he is sharing his positive attributes, mainly that he doesn’t have “bisyo.” Of course, just like the gang-infested neighborhood I grew up in the US, drug usage and violence are symptoms of poverty-driven social disorder. When people have better opportunities, they will have less chance to be tempted into that sort of behavior. My former neighborhood now is totally gang-free. It’s just the same for the Philippines, aside from the Filipino cultural context. Tambay neighborhood boys engaging in sexual violence, drinking, drugs are a result of a failed education system, lack of family encouragement yet at the same time being coddled, and a lack of jobs. Maybe being coddled worked out in the past since there were plenty of labor jobs, but nowadays there is even a lack of traditional labor jobs and simple OFW jobs have excessive requirements imposed by the Filipino agent of the foreign boss.
As for malditang pilipina, I can see why many Filipinas are like that. In order to protect their children’s wellbeing and future, as well as the stability of their family, they need to get their men in line. Most lower class men will prefer to hang out, drink, smoke or have a kabet if they had full control of their salary since they are also influenced by their neighborhood friends who all have the same vices.
For EJKs, I would say that almost every squatter I interacted with, or are friends with supported EJKs since they wanted *others* to be punished, yet didn’t see that there are members of their own family who engaged in the same behavior. They didn’t like EJKs so much once their relatives or children got murdered. They also recognize that a lot of the EJKs were in fact used as an excuse to settle neighborhood or even family disputes. Duterte’s bad policy and encouragement just gave violent people legal cover to murder. EJKs didn’t solve anything. All the problems that EJK purported to solve still exist at the same level if not more.
Yes, AB Filipinos don’t really know what goes on outside of their bubbles. Even the most kind and generous ones like my friend didn’t know. Some of this is due to their family shielding their eyes from seeing the problem, some of this is due to not wanting to be inconvenienced by the troubles of others since their life is fine.
I don’t think prostitution is that prevalent in the Philippines by the way. It’s concentrated in small areas like Fields Avenue or Mango Avenue. Most women who sell sex for favors are actually just allowing their neighbor to have sex with them in exchange for food or maybe money, and don’t engage in the behavior full time. Most women even if they are desperate usually just lay at home chatting online with foreigners to try to get the foreigner to send some money, but even those are a fraction of women. To me, I see poor Filipinas as stronger and more willing to make sacrifices than the men in order to get a job, while for the poor men usually they wait around as tambays until they’re handed a job. There’s poor Filipino men well into their 40s who have never had a consistent job, and still receive allowance from their mothers and lola.
“Most women who sell sex for favors are actually just allowing their neighbor to have sex with them in exchange for food or maybe money, and don’t engage in the behavior full time.” I do agree with that , that at any given time not a lot of Filipinas are actively doing prostitution, Joey. but I agree also that there is a looseness to most Filipinas. which youve encapsulated perfectly. eg, favors hingi hingi etc. thus many have dabbled in prostitution. like many have tried, maybe it didn’t work out they didnt like it or they didnt sell, etc. but that quid pro quo transfers to neighborhood… and I’m not saying its specific to Filipinas, like that scene from Forest Gump, his mama also did it. with the principal. what surprised me was how common and obvious it was in the Philippines.
For example, I met one of the administrators at the VA i go to and we were just talking and she was like when I was 16 in Manila i use to work in a bar and I met a man who was bombai who was very rich so he regaled me with gifts. and then she added as a cashier. she was a cashier at the bar. similar to Ireneo’s basketball interaction. but I guess she caught herself. oh she ended up in Tawi Tawi married to a Muslim, then divorced and ended up in the US where she worked from the bottom to some really high GS position federally. But now I’m really curious what the statistics would be. for me it would be a high number of percentage not low. of Filipinas being exposed to some kind of prostitution.
okay, just Googling I’m getting 500,000 to 1,000,000 prostitutes in the Philippines. with dates from 2010 to 2018 the latest. that 1,000,000 probably counts OFW type prostitution i dunno. will Google more for something substantial. 116,000,000 is the current population of the Philippines.
I don’t think most Filipinas are loose. I think they’re actually usually more conservative sexually than Filipino men. Courting culture is strong of course in the Philippines, and when it’s combined with a popular culture that emphasizes perfect relationships with teen hormones, well it’s easy for some teenage girls to be convinced the boy courting them truly loves them. Minds that are still immature can’t make good decisions, and with the lack of sexual education in the Philippines that leads to teen pregnancy. I’ve yet to meet a Filipina teen mom that actually wanted to have first sex with their boyfriend.
As for hingi hingi, the shamelessness of that behavior cuts across both men and women. Not sure I’d describe trading sexual favors with an older neighbor (becoming kabet) is really prostitution. It’s more like a part time mistress out of necessity, usually to support their children since their partner did a hit and run. It’s probably unfair to place the blame solely on women since it takes men to complete the dance.
With that VA administrator, it’s just a common story of young girls being enamored by someone who is showering them with gifts. Another byproduct of culture that emphasizes courtship. Maybe that’s why I haven’t really dated in the Philippines. I refuse to play the courtship game lol.
It depends on where those prostitution numbers come from. It’s probably only relevant if it counted full time sex workers, of which there are relatively few. Most as I observed before don’t even do it by choice. They become sex workers because of pressure to take over financially supporting the family. One can learn a lot from lower class people if one treats them with respect and equality. They’ll tell all.
“So luxury call girls (GROS) or not the anatomy would definitely the same no gut feel needed.” you bring up a very good point, karl. so then why the difference in pricing? because this one is also related to the pricing: “As to this prostitution to get away from the addicts, I say how? It is out of the fire into the frying pan.” Mango Ave girls have to suffer their panties stolen where they live and salsaleros in groups huddled together peeking thru watching them taking their baths. cuz they don’t know their worth, karl. the hottest girls in Mango ave were earning P20,000 a month on average easy consistent they could’ve opted to all pitch in and get themselves a nice apartment not some shared room in a squatter area. but then that would require them to talk to property managers etc who asked questions. so they end up becoming NPA no permanet address they get sick and tired living in one spot due to security harrassment salsaleros issues they up and move. this is the one constant of Mango Ave girls there were always new faces. so although anatomy is the same, there is a difference. a difference the girls live with and one the guys also lived with namely thru pricing. i forgot to mention that since they are constantly sending money home they won’t have money to rent a nice place , so that too. so there is a difference. same anatomy but different in value. hence the irony.
I read report in a German magazine about stuff that goes down in Dubai, and aside from alleged Brunei like shenanigans with actual influencers, there are the typical clubs and some will have the tall blonde Russians, Ukrainians etc. on one side of the floor and the Thais, etc. on the other, with the blondes clearly priced higher, I mean why does a soft drink in a luxury place sometimes cost 3x what it costs in a normal place and 5x what it costs in a supermarket.
The Gulf, in general sucks when it comes to that kinda stuff. Europeans who work as specialists there might have ten times the wage of a Filipino. Filipinos with European papers who come in from Europe get Euro rates, a Pinoy doctor told me long ago. Oh, I now recall a convo with a Filipina from the Gulf in 1986 at the basketball tournament in Germany I helped organize. I was asking her how good the pay is there, and she said one only gets X something per man. I kinda hid my shock as I was not assuming she did that kind of work. 😞
“at the basketball tournament in Germany I helped organize.” LOL. you gotta stay away from filipino basketball leagues, Ireneo! all sorts of drama occur. these Filipino social connections i’m really curious of. That’s why I was really curious about karl’s friend whos a nephew of mayor Solon. so as backgrounder mayor Solon is some sort of doctor whose passion is nutrition. gets sent to Africa by UN and starts getting them to eat malungay. introduces proper nutrition in Africa. and the UN ‘s happy with him. squeky clean. then Imelda does that whole nutribun bread stuff and Solon is right smack in the middle of that cuz of his UN and US connections. Imelda and him get along so much, sometime in the 70s. Imelda tells him hey go be mayor of Cebu for us. he does that. and he ends up not only doing his nutrition which is his passion, but ends up cleaning house and containing prostitution in Cebu. so theres programs in place that have been done, that have worked , that can be studied and replicated, Ireneo. re Dubai UAE, many girls from LA also fly there for the weekend, make bank and fly back. talk about inflation.
I always caution Filipinos I meet from doing OFW in the Middle East. The possibility of abuse, especially for women is really sad. But I guess in a way Arab culture is somewhat similar. The corruption, lawlessness, class divide, treating lower classes at an almost subhuman level.
Still many Filipinos do the OFW route because they don’t have any skills or accreditation to do higher paying jobs in the Philippines, jobs which are lacking anyway. I met a Boholana the last time I was in Cebu who was an OFW cashier in Bahrain earning ~P25k. When a positioned opened up at Mitsumi Cebu, she gladly took the job even though the pay was ~P18k and the job was manual labor rather than being a cashier. Build more industry in the Philippines, and Filipinos will fill the jobs.
Snake oil salesmanship and market segmentation. And it depends on the pimps. To LCX.
I didn’t really see pimps there, karl. maybe bugaws who work for mamasans get dudes to come in to see the wares. though there were a lot of gay dudes who were mamasans. but nothing like pimps and hoes like over here with black folks. come to think of it that is interesting to consider. thanks. never really thought why there were no pimps there. but in Manila– though I never saw this in Cebu– working girls after working would go to gay bars to barfine male prostitutes, i thought that was weird.
Though casas were usually run by dudes. but they were more like stall owners, just got a cut when you picked a girl. I need to go back and rack my memory here, karl. cuz this would up end what i said above to Joe of men being behind strong women. sex industry there is a very women operated operation.
Operative word from you: Mama san.
I digress.I am sure any sugar baby legislation was copied from US.
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/some-filipinos-turn-sugar-dating-earn-decent-living-wages/
I get you , karl. but pimp has a very specific connotation. the pimp hits his hoes. when you say pimp it usually means theres abuse physical abuse going on. I did not see that sort of set up at all in the Philippines. though there are sex slaves i know that, but i’m just talking about Mango ave. KTV bars casas, etc. and in those establishments its pretty much female run. as to how wide spread it is i’ve seen casas in normal neighborhoods, in subdivision type neighborhoods, and casa type set up like Kamagayan in Cebu where a taxi pulls up into an alley and the girls get called and they all sit on the bench, and you pick ’em from your taxi. and off you go to short time hotel. so essentially that bench is their show room. so where Joey is saying its confined to Fields and Mango ave I’m saying the casa operation is a totally different thing because they are nestled in actual neighborhoods. the ones in subdivisions is the wildest because you can tell the homes to the right and left are probably homes of really powerful Filipinos, yet theres a casa with lotsa girls inside. some actually living there. and their showroom is legit like you get offered drinks as you make your choice. theres also massage parlor operations those i think are more designed like Thailand. where theres a fish bowl and the rooms are directly attached. those are the closest to actual brothels i’ve seen. 95% of the time, you’re barfining, or picking from a showroom or calling if escort and you’re meeting up in a hotel. that Kamagayan set up above is more geared for locals i’ve heard Filipino college kids all pitch in to get one girl and theres negotiations involved of course and the girl has to say okay. and theres even more cheaper set up where in you get the girl from the bench and just take her to a dark place and do it there. discounted quickie. but like i said thats more the local scene. mostly its short time hotels and actual hotels, karl.
“All of them were poor country girls who went to the city (Seoul) for college and were tricked into opening credit cards to keep up with their rich friends’ lifestyles.” that’s a really good point, Joey. I’m really pro loan forgiveness of student loans because of this. I know a bunch of Marines got tricked into using their GI Bill then student loans into for profit universities as well as art schools. in that same vein credit cards cuz at every school they are offering these credit cards, like theres public outcry for vaping being marketed to kids but not credit cards?!! its all outta whack. all of it essentially is predatory lending. so in that basis offer loan forgiveness as policy , then clean house in higher learning and re examine non profit and for profit universities. i’m tracking on PhD twitter how most of them are teaching classes without requiring textbooks cuz thats another scam. which makes sense. but i digress, for the blog, here’s some policy proposals that Pinks (or whomever gets power) can do:
Ah no, the Philippine sex industry does contribute money to the local economy, but the contribution is far outstripped by remittances (including remittances given by foreign men to their Filipino girlfriends, which can be P50k-P250k a month). But even given that, standard family remittances for sure are on order of magnitude larger.
Joey, I’m thinking of the sex industry as a bigger wider phenomenon, like moonlighting abroad or Mango Ave girls who snagged foreigners, whats the percentage of remittances is that. I’m thinking bigger not smaller than expected. like your HK and chempo’s Singapore examples of maids during the day and prostitutes at night. also like lots of teachers (this is prior to internet, I’m sure bigger post internet, but most of my stories are from 80s and 90s ) teachers who got here were via penpal, where they literally used ditto machines at their school to send hundreds of letters, then entertained a bunch who did visit the Philippines, then the K1 marriages that resulted from said enterprise , but when they entertained foreigners thats pretty much prostitution, so even in prostitution i’m going beyond bar ktv casa street stuff. so focused on the behaviour and the industry said behavior created money and opportunities. like those stories of teachers in the 80s and 90s, teachers would swoop right in and have sex with other teachers penpals while the main teacher that got said foreign there was playing the Maria Clara game like you described, another just swooped in and banged the dude and got that K1 visa. kinda like the show the Bachelor parodied in that series unReal. but that behavior is what I’m talking about then all the windfall (also the losers of it). thats my scope here.
I think the Philippines sex industry is a lot smaller than most people (including Westerners) think. I just don’t see any situation where a multitude of women would enter into such work. It’s more likely to see young women be idle at home after doing morning chores, than to see them go into sex work.
Probably not for the best to conflate normal human behavior with prostitution, such as women knowing what they want and getting what they want using the tools they have (their charm and their beauty). Men do the same thing, but with different tools (boasting, prestige hoarding, displays of honor, etc). After all, every human wants sex. So it would be normal to expect sex to be a possible part of courtship. It’s just something Filipino society with its deeply ingrained Christian values doesn’t want to see, but it is everywhere if someone knows how to observe. The biggest example are teen parents. The boy courted the girl according to accepted social and cultural rules, the parents and aunties were all happy with the boy’s sincerity, then the kids got excited and thoughtlessly made a baby. Occam’s Razor says that sometimes things are really that simple haha.
Maybe you’re right , Joey. and I do understand your point about a more confined definition of prostitution. My point and why I want Pinks (or whoevers in power) to focus on sex industry. and you’ve expressed this yourself that its exploding to Manila and Angeles levels now in Cebu. and those pricings you’ve indicated P10,000 to P25,000, all that lead to this exponentially spreading. why I’m interested in how Mayor Solon did it (why I’m urging karl to consider interviewing his nephew see what can be mined, cuz what I heard was Eliot Nest type set up he just appointed squeky clean people with gusto to run his operations). i’m thinking see it as national emergency. not just regular prostitution but said culture i’ve indicated that makes it easier to quid pro quo sex for this and that. so for me, a big number is 1 out of 10. I’m not saying its happening everywhere. but its at a number that shouldn’t be seen as sustainable. have you heard Kendrick Lamar’s latest drop? Watch the Party Die. so I kinda want to ensure the party dies, Joey. thats where am coming from, we’re in the same team here.
What Joey said about some countries not relying on remittances alone but using them to build businesses back home could be the solution.
Lots of migrants from Eastern European countries have built businesses in their home countries and returned. Don’t have ANY stats on jobs (construction and meatpacking come to mind for men, housecleaning for women, and often also the stuff you mentioned) but the impression I have is that boats have successively risen in those countries. Re marrying a foreigner, I recall that marriages of Germans to Filipinas peaked in the early 1990s after Eastern Europe opened. A mix of fear of racism and new women available was the reason.
Forms of prostitution, including screwing a GI (hmm, do I know any horny US soldiers? 😀) for some PX goods or even nylon stockings also happened in poor postwar Munich and Berlin. An old man in Munich told me how his teacher stopped the class to go out a US jeep drove by.
He was of course mischievous and looked out of the window. He saw the jeep kinda bouncing. Teacher came back smiling with US goods. Is that anecdote true or not? Coulda been bullshit. What is documented is that prostitution was rampant in still struggling postwar Munich. It took the Olympics in 1972 for city ordinances to ban it from the town center. Seoul, too, was full of prostitutes in the 1970s. The confluence of US Army and war refugees was conducive to it. Not even the 1988 Olympics halted it. Only the World Cup 2002 coincided with a ban. Itaewon, which is directly beside a US army base in Seoul, used to be like Angeles, based on my readings.
So it boils down to making proper opportunities available. Possibly, Seoul in 1988 was not yet as (newly) affluent as Munich in 1972 and therefore had to wait for 2002.
“He saw the jeep kinda bouncing. Teacher came back smiling with US goods. Is that anecdote true or not?” Ireneo this scene from “Fury” is really meaningful for me. and I’m sure this has been going on since the beginning of human existence.
As to solutions I totally agree. But something totally doable now. easy solution. low hanging fruit that Pinks (et al) can do now. and Joe wants policy proposals. get as many people into banking. these Mango ave girls are intimidated so why not banks campaign to win their trust. bank mamasans won’t do this themselves cuz these are the same women who go to church regularly and treat their maids like shit. she has a natural disdain for Mango ave girls. so it has to be top down, from Pinks to corporate heads. then trickle down said policy. extend banking services to sex industry workers. by extension to all DE Filipinos.
which also is connected to those business solutions, Ireneo. banking & business. Are negosyo centers fruiting any businesses, what’s the stat on that if theres any? I ‘m seeing that they re spreading but are they actually producing businesses?
The sex industry in the Philippines is probably too small compared to other more pressing concerns to be addressed. Many societal problems at the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder can be solved by providing more economic opportunities (better jobs).
I’ll use an example from my personal life. In the 1980s gangland activities, street corner drug dealers, violence and prostitution was rife where I lived. It was normal to be hassled by Vice police and Gang Unit police wherever we went in the ‘hood. Of course, immediate measures like increased enforcement makes the affluent pearl clutchers feel better, but it didn’t solve the problem. What did solve the problem was Bill Clinton’s booming economy giving more avenues out of the ‘hood. And most people took those opportunities to get out of the cycle they were stuck in.
The price on “services” can be seen another way. The reason why the mainland Chinese and Koreans are paying so much is because:
1.) it’s still much cheaper than finding a woman to have sex with in their home country
2.) those men are used to paying double or triple the price in their home country for prostitution or to wine and dine a date (in which they might not get any sex), so they’ll gladly pay half
3.) compared to American/Canadian/Australian/European sexpats who are cheap and want to pay the “old price.” The locals want to pay an even cheaper price, libre na even.
Almost all women and gay prostitutes enter the business by choice, even if it was influenced by family pressure to earn. There seems to be little organized sex trafficking in the Philippines. Not that I’ve heard of anyway when I listen to stories among the poor.
Since your reference point for Mango Avenue is the 1980s, I can say that over the last 20 years prostitution probably dropped in Cebu. The higher prices demanded are also a reflection of supply. Lower numbers of prostitutes has a correlation to higher prices.
I just think that anti-vice is a cheap and in the short-term, politically effective measure to take on, but ultimately doesn’t treat the symptoms of the societal rot. Politicians and police should be more like healers and treat the root cause rather than trying to cut out the symptoms, which will always regrow. If opportunities are provided, most sex workers probably will move on and stop their activities.
“What did solve the problem was Bill Clinton’s booming economy giving more avenues out of the ‘hood. And most people took those opportunities to get out of the cycle they were stuck in.” I agree with that. float everyones boat. like I’m tracking many Hispanics from California are now talking about Alabama as the place to move. so no more Texas, the buzz right now is Alabama. so usually the pattern is those Alabamans will be displaced, maybe they’ll go to Mississippi now. just as those Hispanics were themselves displaced from California. tho quality of life wise boats float up, theres also an element of musical chairs here. like I’m pretty sure the hood didn’t just become affluent, I gotta feeling they moved to Riverside or San Bernardino counties. right? or maybe moved to Texas. i dunno.
Riverside and San Bernardino counties are the trailer park capital of the planet, I bet. It’s like when you make a city, it’s like pouring a glass of beer and if you pour it too fast, it foams over the top of the glass and runs across the bar. Rirverside and San Bernardino are urban foam, as Los Angeles metro poured itself too fast. I lived in San Bernardino for a time, up in the mountains near Arrowhead. It was the part of the foam that dripped down the stacked bartendress’ cleavage, ala AOC. Not a wholly bad place to be.
Beautiful place with a nice view. Not so great with the continued influence of the Southern California KKK that moved out there after Anaheim, Garden Grove, and Santa Ana kicked them out. There are still undercurrents of KKK in Huntington Beach trailer parks.
No, the other side of the street was mostly White families who settled post-WWII. Their GenX children are the ones who moved out to San Bernardino and Riverside (White flight after selling their parents’ house), spending half, and buying a cheaper house in the commuter communities inland. They still commute to work in Los Angeles and Orange County. Some moved to Red States. Some continue to complain about California’s Democratic shift but they can’t afford to move since they’re not stupid enough to move to a state where they would earn less money despite what their politics might be. Anyway, they have Pete Wilson’s California Republican Party (which I was a member of previously until my mid-20s) to blame. CA GOP’s vehement anti-Hispanic rhetoric caused most Hispanics to move into the Democratic Party in the 1990s despite their community’s more conservative social stances.
Gang activity and urban violence lessened because economic opportunities. Some kids ended up in prison, others aged out of gangs, elders generally led the rest to a better future.
“Since your reference point for Mango Avenue is the 1980s, I can say that over the last 20 years prostitution probably dropped in Cebu. The higher prices demanded are also a reflection of supply. Lower numbers of prostitutes has a correlation to higher prices.” not 1980s, Joey . mid 2000s. when I was there an escort girl call girl would be P2,000 to P5,000 (then depending on hotness, the price would reflect the current price you’re quoting up to P25,000 or $500 bucks then). local price was P100 to P1,000. foreign pricing was P1,000 to P3,000 this is for bars (minus the barfine), massage, casa, streets, etc. so if you’re saying theres less prostitutes now, then what you said about Cebu becoming Angeles to Manila numbers was wrong then? cuz the Philippines having less prostitutes now would be good, but doesn’t seem to reflect what I’m reading. so your initial assessment made more sense, Joey, just the pricing was off. cuz although rich people can pay more, most dudes want a discount this is the human nature element of this trade, dudes feel offended when they’d paid full price. and what I know about supply demand, no matter if its East Asians or Americans, they’ll keep that price low. if its P25,000 for a lay, people will just go to Thailand. so please clarify here. thanks. ps. inflation and exchange rates will vary of course since mid2000s, but P25,000 is around $500 plus bucks, might as well go to Vegas for that. and get a blonde.
Ah I got your Solon comments mixed up lol.
Johns can’t get offended when they pay full price if they don’t know what the local price is. The full price is still cheaper than in their country, they get the fake full girlfriend experience they crave, so everything is fine in the end for both parties.
Besides East Asians willing to pay higher, the price going way up is also a sign that supply is less compared to the 1980s or even 2000s. Not many young Filipinas are getting into prostitution nowadays compared to before. Their life is better than in their parents’ time. They would rather work in BPO or just stay home with their parents.
“Johns can’t get offended when they pay full price if they don’t know what the local price is. ” Sure the one time guys yeah. ignorance is bliss. but you gotta understand that johns talk amongst each other. so the pricing is never secret, Joey. its a social industry, girls talk, dudes talk. locals talk to foreigners. everyone knows the price. the ones that overpaid eventually learn. quick too. the market stabilitize, that’s why that P10,000 to P25,000 was shocking to me. but as a one time pay, maybe cuz he was drunk no local guide etc, i can see that happening. but soon whoever paid that much, will realize the actual going prize.
Most of the mainland Chinese or Koreans visit for weekend trips. Cebu is convenient since the airport is just there in Mactan across from Cebu City.
They don’t really care about paying that price, since the price of the “service” is 2-3x the price in China or Korea, often even more. It’s only the Western sexpats and local “connoisseurs” that complain that they are being priced out.
Ah I got you , that’s a new development weekenders. The Mactan scene wasn’t as developed as in Cebu in mid 2000s, there were small KTV runned by and for Koreans. nothing really interesting, like they had those plastic Asian chairs for seating. but if $200 to $500 bucks is cheap then we’re talking about $500 bucks and up in Korea and China then. I’m curious now what the pricing is in Thailand. but do you still think the situation in Cebu Mactan is blowing up towards Manila and Angeles levels?
No, it’s actually smaller than the old Angeles and Clark scenes. The sexpat YouTubers are lying. As time goes on and better opportunities arise, there will be less and less prostitution.
“They don’t really care about paying that price, since the price of the “service” is 2-3x the price in China or Korea, often even more.” As to not caring. theres just this whole psychology involved in this industry wherein men associate the pricing with their charisma or prowess. remember that movie Indecent Proposal with demi moore and redford, sure there will men who will not care about the price. but I assure you men who pay for women don’t think in those terms, they will get butt hurt if they learn that Americans and locals are paying less. sure artificially upping the price can push out other customers like what you’re saying priced out. sex industry gentrification. but I doubt the way you’re describing this situation, Joey, Americans/locals are now without Mango ave. cuz with those pricing, Mango ave is effectively shut down and all girls go to Mactan. cuz this also means mine and Ireneo’s plans to introduce the Devil’s Wheel will be all for naught. why i’m now stressing out, Joey.
Most of the Cebu sex industry is on Mango Ave. not in Mactan. Though the women are usually living in squatter settlements around the Mactan Airport or along the rivers between Cebu and Talisay.
Oh, we could consider Dumaguete Ground Zero, even as we might face stiff sexpat vlogger competition.
We’ll go high end though with a slick filipinovices (sic) blog. 😉
@Ireneo, from what Joey’s saying it seems like everythings still status quo as I’ve left it. there were times you walked in and the bar had like 10 to 20 Japanese or Koreans but either as corporate or military junket, etc. so they would charter the whole place and barfine all the hot women. but those type of group barfines were few and far between maybe like once a month you’d see something like that. and usually they’d barfine really early too so by like midnight the girls that went with them would slowly trickle back in be re barfined. if anything what i’m seeing on youtube is that clubs where it used to be just AB and C 20somethings that would attend it, theres now working girls too CDE crowd, who you can easily ID compared to how ABC girls just wanting to dance there. so the club scene has expanded i’m sure to be more democratic. but I gotta feeling the girls arent plying their trade here. prositution kinda prefers clarity. so Mango ave is still in play. also I don’t want to go to Dumaguete cuz its right next to Sequijor and I’m staying clear off of that scene, Ireneo. especially with the Devils Wheel. lets play it safe and stay clear from bad juju. right under the INC church is still the best venue.
I used to rent out my spare rooms to student boarders, and there was a Dumagueteña nursing student who always “accidentally dropped” her very inappropriately small towel in front of me when she passed by after a bath. Well, naked women in front of me has zero effect since I do like the chase a bit. More exciting and exclusive. If it’s bought or thrown at me then it’s not interesting. I guess that’s why I don’t enjoy the same hobbies as you, LCpl lol.
LOL. oh man, just imagining that scenario Joey, I would’ve been as wary too. folks from Dumaguete make visits to Sequijor all the time. I’ve also heard farther inland of Negros more magic stuff going on there. if she was from NCR or Davao though, I would’ve totally picked up that towel and say excuse ma’am I think you dropped something. but Dumaguete, I would’ve just did an about face. and ensure i’d not drink anything steeped in worn panties. love potions I’m not a fan of, fallen towels I can handle. but now you’ve given me another business to consider a lodging house for Mango ave girls. towels optional. unionize them, get them all bank accounts, and we’ll do our own negosyo center. I’ll have to talk to my business partner in Munich.
Need to learn more self control LCpl lmao.
Interestingly I’ve never had a problem in Negros besides a girl I really liked in my youth.
It was in Mindanao where on more than one occasion I had problems with women or families trying to awog me or “gifting” me what turned out to be lumay. On one occasion I woke up in a place I didn’t recall sleeping at, and had nothing to drink besides what a family had offered me. I left fairly quick when the father and grandmother started calling me their son-in-law. Someone later told me the grandmother was a barangan who practiced native magic. I’m getting up there in years now, so I probably won’t have those problems anymore 😂
Cultural bit for Irineo: I had dated a Cham girl as a teen, and a similar thing happened. Woke up in the girl’s bed without remembering what happened, thought I was done for but then the father welcomed me as his son-in-law. Thank goodness I was a track runner back in those days because I got out of that house so fast. Might be some old Austro-Malay magical practices since Cham are an Austronesian people.
Hmm, no wonder the sexpats in Dumaguete always have weird stuff going on. Place is called Dramaguete by some.
Psst, let’s take this offline, as our friends at City Hall don’t like this getting too known yet. 😉
Probably is confined to the beach areas I guess. I like more quiet small places, like Ayungon a bit north of Dumaguete. Just beautiful there with the sea in the front and the mountains in the back.
“On one occasion I woke up in a place I didn’t recall sleeping at, and had nothing to drink besides what a family had offered me.” Though I’d like to think that a fallen towel will not phase me, Joey. but I already know that that nursing student is likely toast. karl will most likely be a gentleman as well. as for lumay I’m deathly scared of it. and why I am not opening shop in Dumaguete. nowhere close. stay away from all that.
Karl and I are gentlemen of course hehe.
I dunno how you thought Negros has a lot of traditional sorcery. I hardly saw any evidence, but there are a lot of folks in Negros that still go to their local panambal.
The panambal I met in Cebu and Negros don’t do the other stuff like lumay, barang, paktol, haplit, laga, anyaw etc. In the more remote bukid of Mindanao, they do still do all that however. So you should be more afraid of those places in Mindanao.
“I dunno how you thought Negros has a lot of traditional sorcery. I hardly saw any evidence, “ It was probably just the Cebu girls trying to talk shit about the Negros girl (mostly from San Carlos area).
Ah yeah. Cebuanos usually look down on Negrosanons, because they speak a less “proper” dialect of Cebuano (for Negros Oriental) or Ilonggo (for Negros Occidental). Also because the Bisayang Negrosanons tend to be a bit darker than Cebuanos, and you know how there’s a hierarchy of skin color in the Philippines. Historically Negros was fairly isolated so didn’t have much outside blood mixing in, even though Cebu had Indian, Arab, Bruneian, Javan, Chinese, Spanish influences. Negros didn’t really become more connected until the US took over.
How do I know more about this stuff when I’m not a Bisaya 😅
“Cebuanos usually look down on Negrosanons, because they speak a less “proper” dialect of Cebuano (for Negros Oriental) or Ilonggo (for Negros Occidental). “ they actually seemed to speak the same , which is Cebuano. so I’m thinking the girls in Negros were from the western part of Cebu like Toledo and just moved across. for sure they were no Ilonggos. Cebu girls had a special disdain for them though, I never came across one myself though, but they looked up or were in awe of the Tagalog girls though. there were a handful of them. weirdly they accused the Ilongos of being show ofs, but Tagalog girls as being stand offish. so i was like , isn’t that the same thing?
By dialect I meant it in a language sense of a different accent or using slightly different words, not in the sense of “dialect” in the Philippines where completely different languages are called dialects for revolutionary nationalistic purposes. Negrosanons speak a slower and more country folk version of Cebuano, similar to how Boholanos also speak a little differently.
Oh yeah, Boholanas were made fun of a lot. but in a very loving way by other girls. which there were plenty,Joey. more than Negros. Cebu girls would pronounce the letter J in every world and they would all laugh. it was cute. adjo adjo adja adja , they would say. and just laugh their asses off. along with the Bohol girls. Waray girls , other girls were in fear of them. not alot of them, but the ones in Cebu would usually be coming from Manila so they were veterans already.
“If opportunities are provided, most sex workers probably will move on and stop their activities.” this i agree actually. that’s why I’m interested in how Mayor Solon did it. cuz his doctor background would suggest this healer aspect.
AFAIK Mayor Solon took a traditional anti-vice approach which targeted the prostitutes and drug users, but not the johns or drug pushers. Anti-vice was more popular back in the day. Anti-vice crackdowns are not effective, because from what I’ve heard prostitution and drugs actually increased following the tumult of the revolution and the Asian Financial Crisis. That was before I started exploring the Visayas and Mindanao in earnest, so I only have anecdotal retelling from others vs seeing it myself.
“The even more dangerous aspect is that crypto is a ploy to undermine and replace fiat currency that is no longer controlled by governments (and by extension the people), but to be controlled by a handful of anti-government billionaires who could care less if governments collapse.” Joey, this was my main beef with Micha here. which really developed from her. cuz I use to not know anything about economics and finance (i learnt it from TSOH, like 2015 all the comments on it from there). but it was chempo and RHiro and Micha bringing in all the MMT arguments then some from Joe cuz of his banking background. so I read up on MMT which i really still don’t get. then in chempo’s and Micha’s epic arguments of regular banking practices vs. MMT I noticed they both agreed when it came to Bitcoin, exactly cuz of what you’ve said right there. then gian’s favor of it well mostly blockchain not really Bitcoin. so ended up watching youtube videos Saylor being the most prominent. then China’s CBDC. and I’m thinking Bitcoin as is and gov’t CBDC will be it. but with gov’t CBDC it’ll be gov’t and you, no more banks. which means more control. like no more Mango Ave. trips cuz they’ll know you spend your money. so money equals surveillance (i’m cash based by the way, a bit of a prepper but mostly a luddite, so when it comes to tech i’m behind). anyways I’m thining fiat going away is a done deal. cuz we’ll have CBDC. which will leave only Bitcoin (or whatever) to ensure money doesn’t equal surveillance. now the tech behind ensuring that, I don’t know. the only thing I know is that CBDC will ensure surveillance, so the only play here is the opposite which is Bitcoin. as to billionaires I’m seeing the speculation of it all as different from the actually technology of blockchain. proof of stake vs. proof of work I don’t get at all. just that it isn’t CBDC is my only concern. I’m trying to read up on El Salvador but that looks more like a propped up experiment mostly funded by the current Presidents Mid East connections and other Bitcoin enthusiasts. so I’m trying to figure out where CBDC is and where Bitcoin is vis a vis surveillance. and that’s basically my pro stance on Bitcoin. gian’s commentary on this has added greatly to this parsing. so I’m way past those chempo vs. Micha debates, but that’s where I’ve come from. 100% from here.
Yes, MMT probably only works for the US and maybe a smaller way for the EU or UK. MMT requires the country’s currency to be a dominant currency in global trade, with other nations buying securities denominated in that currency. Even China and Russia buy US Bonds to keep their sovereign funds in a safe place, which is an indicator of how strong China and BRICS really is (it’s weak). But every monetary policy will have limits, so it’s easy for supporters of MMT-everywhere to say it’s the best way since it’s never really been tested. But I imagine that for every other country that’s not the US that prints unlimited money would suffer from hyperinflation pretty quickly. The reason why near unlimited national debt (which is the core theory of MMT) works for the US is because the US Dollar is the most stable and secure global reserve currency.
Bitcoin and crypto is a playground for the rich who have way too much money they are bored of buying another yacht or another real estate building. And all those rich people could care less if the US collapses because they think they can hide out in let’s say a bunker in New Zealand. It’s a stupid and fantastical worldview because the reason the world is relatively safe is because the US led alliances protect the safety. The very rich got to their positions maybe by hard work, but definitely a lot of luck and government subsidies, however they have lied to themselves that they are some form of higher human.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/billionaires-are-building-luxury-bunkers-to-escape-doomsday/
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/17/nx-s1-5077696/montana-has-become-the-new-home-for-the-ultra-rich-how-will-they-vote
The other people who do crypto are normie rubes who heard about a get-rich-quick scheme and drank the kool-aid. But I mean, it’s just like the stock market. If normies heard about an investment, it means the early investors or inside investors already made the bulk of the money. The normies who fall for the scheme are just free money to be milked by those who control crypto. It’s been a pump and dump scheme since the first big bubble in 2011, which is when I got out. Bitcoin peaked at $60,000 that year, and it’s still $60,000 now. The dips are all artificially controlled with ways that would be illegal in a regulated market such as the stock market.
let me try this again (not posting under your comment)… “But I mean, it’s just like the stock market. “ I agree with you on MMT, it does force other countries to not depend on the US and the US dollar. and that was Micha’s selling point, eg. she believed the Philippines can do it, divest from US and US dollar. as for the speculation of Bitcoin i get that. but what’s your stance on Bitcoin outside of this speculation. just as technology itself which ever proof of stake or proof of work. then where do you see fiat system going from here vis a vis CBDC. cuz I m reading this Apple Savings stuff plus ubiquitousness of Apple Pay, and it does seem banking is going away or easily coopted now. so no more fiat, but more CBDC, Joey. only China is fully behind it, but only the tech industry seems to be finger fucking banking here instead of gov’t intervention like in China. but this IOUs from Treasury and Federal Reserve (banks) back and forth system fiat seem on shaky ground now and will soon tumble. house of cards. enter those two CBDC and Bitcoin. therein lies the choice. but if you’re thinking fiat will continue i’d be interested in hearing your why’s too.
In regard to Micha’s viewpoint: I find it an interesting contradiction that the biggest proponents of cryptocurrencies seem to neither understand the ramifications or the role that money plays in society.
Money serves a few purposes:
1.) portability — it would be inconvenient to carry large amounts of commodities to conduct barter trade
2.) trusted standards — one can trust that the money is worth what it purports to be worth
3.) a stable, regulated exchange rate — if one wishes to convert money to commodities and vice versa
Fiat money being controlled and taxed by governments is just a byproduct of the above, since it’s a source of revenue.
I could print out Joey Bucks today and call it a new monetary standard, but no one would trust it, therefore it has no value. Fiat money, which is regulated by governments serve as a baseline trusted type of money. The trust itself is backed up by how trustworthy the government itself is, which is why the US Dollar reigns supreme and the Chinese Yuan does not. Even the Chinese government buys US Bonds to protect its sovereign fund’s value, while the US doesn’t trade in foreign bonds in any appreciable amount. That’s a big indicator of which money is trusted.
People who want to divest from the US Dollar are either of two minds: Far Leftists (especially communists), or anarchists (including anarcho-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists). But the fallacy of their argument that the US Dollar is an instrument of imperialism (whether against “people,” or against “business”) is fundamentally flawed because if the US Dollar somehow was dethroned, by tomorrow the next strongest global currency standard would take over as the new imperial currency lording over the international system. Before the US Dollar’s pre-imminence, the British Pound Sterling was supreme, and before that the Spanish Imperial Real, and so on going back through history. After all, it would be impractical for two people to barter at scale, so it would be even more impractical for corporations and nations to barter in commodities.
Digital banking still trades in fiat money. In fact, the US banking system was digitized internally decades ago. Inter/Intra-bank transfers are done with a push of a button. The lag time we see as “pending” in our account is just a legacy of physical checks needing to be funds verified. Instead, banks use that time to earn interest on our deposits for free, and to make additional verifications that the funds transfer was valid.
The fears over CBDC is largely overhyped by conspiracists. Money is already tracked. Every dollar has a unique serial code that’s scanned and tracked every time it passes through a bank. I think these “cash only” anti-digital banking people are really misinformed because if they really wanted to not be tracked, they would only trade with commodities. My brother in law is one of them, and he also fears 5G, yet has an iPhone because he is addicted to Trump news. He bought a useless plastic device that “blocks” the 5G for $500, even though if the signal was blocked then he wouldn’t be able to use his phone. I should make a business grifting off of conspiracists if I didn’t have morals lol.
I also don’t buy the argument from some that fiat money is an IOU. Sometimes belief this is conflated with the ending of the gold standard, and the final ending of gold-dollar exchange. Any type of money, including gold, has a value based on what we believe it to be. And I believe our US Dollar since it’s backed up with the might of the US Military haha. Kidding aside, though the military aspect has some credence, the reason why the US Dollar is trusted is because the US is the biggest economy and is stable compared to other countries.
With Bitcoin, it also has a “value” since true believers believe it does, not to mention the illogical basis that crypto needs to be converted into real money (fiat) to have any usable value. But those true believers make up a small fraction of Bitcoin and crypto traders. Most who trade in Bitcoin and crypto are billionaire grifters who are milking the rubes who try to ride the wave. Well, what happens to a wave when it reaches its highest crest? It crashes down and drowns those who thought they could ride the wave.
Best money 101 ever.
“People who want to divest from the US Dollar are either of two minds: Far Leftists (especially communists), or anarchists (including anarcho-libertarians and anarcho-capitalists).” So I’m closer to anarchist than far left. I think Micha was far left. and chempo was talking more as a banker, so his lost of faith with the US dollar was more on how its been mismanaged than anything, eg. bank collapse that was never fixed hence same event is shaping up but US govt and Feds trying to play whack a mole to keep it contained. like Wizards of Oz. which I tend to agree with chempo. he’s more a fiscal conservative Christian, but from Singapore. I never agreed with Micha’s anti imperialism precisely because of what you said Devil We Know vs. Devil We Don’t Know situation. which brings us to this “And I believe our US Dollar since it’s backed up with the might of the US Military haha.” this is the main sticking point for me, Joey. having come of age in GWOT and looking back. I am totally convinced now that all past wars since WWII has been to prop up the US dollar one way or another. essentially fiat goes by this simple principle For Something to Have VALUE, Another thing Has to have LESS Value. thus the US military, Joey.
“The fears over CBDC is largely overhyped by conspiracists. Money is already tracked. Every dollar has a unique serial code that’s scanned and tracked every time it passes through a bank.” Sure I get that whatever you withdraw from the bank will have your name associated with it, but once you start spending. karl’s barya applies. your association to said cash becomes less. sure theres CCTV but theres still swap meet etc. etc. so between cash and CBDC, cash not only affords portability but anonymity. though I still don’t understand really how Bitcoin extends that same anonymity (or better). this is where Micha’s constant hounding that Bitcoin was only for criminals and gamblers (speculation). and so I’m tracking how many criminals are found and arrested via Bitcoin, and there really aren’t. sure their accounts associated to trading websites those can be found. but i’ve never heard anything about Bitcoin outing criminals. why that is , I’m still not sure, if you know i’d love to hear it. BUT that’s my interest in the technology side of Bitcoin. since it does seem to be delivering on the said anonymity promise. though that part I’m still confused about, like how does something digital be anonymous at the same time. as to value…
“the reason why the US Dollar is trusted is because the US is the biggest economy and is stable compared to other countries.” this to me is the weakest argument for the value of the US dollar, Joey. sure compared to other countries we’re the most stable. but if you look around, things are in flux. so this stability is an illusion. maybe it will last. chempo has written plenty of articles here on how it’ll come tumbling down, cuz of mismanagement and his concern was that theres no back up. to the US dollar. well we know China thru CBDC is setting up that back up. but same with US, China’s also not very stable. my point stability is an illusion same as democracy. sure you gotta fight for both, but the very nature of democracy is that its not suppose to be stable. sure banks and gov’t want it to be stable and they sell this illusion to the public ensuring theres no bank runs. but we know thru history people will be people and destroy things.
So we know that something else will replace the US dollar sooner or later. What that will be I dunno. CBDC is not fiat. its closer related to Bitcoin. so aside from US dollar what we can say is that as replacements we have CBDC and Bitcoin (or any other crypto).
Stones are likely not to work. I suggest using the digit “1”. Do you realize how many are stored in all the computers and storage devices and electrical gear in the world. The only number that beats it is “0”. So all governments can issue paper for the digit “1”. They’ll all be equal in value, worth “1”. And the whole planet can MMT itself. Tadaaaaaaa!
We can totally go back to stones, Joe.
Can and will, those few left.
My brother in law is a hardcore prepper since he’s conspiratorial-minded and thinks the apocalypse will happen any day now. He once asked me why I only kept a 2 week supply of food and water (earthquake kit). I told him that once the government collapse comes, I have guns and I will take food from people like him lol.
and I just realized its like 2am there, Joe. what are you doing still up talking about MMT?!!
I had to do some business in the US, checked the blog, and got fascinated with your sideways look at things.
The only purpose of sleep is to let your heart, brain, and muscles rest. I don’t use mine overmuch, so sleep is not as relevant as it used to be.
LOL. just don’t go downstairs and raid the fridge for lechon kawaili, Joe. we still need this blog for 2028!!! lol.
“My brother in law is a hardcore prepper since he’s conspiratorial-minded and thinks the apocalypse will happen any day now.” I myself reject the whole Walking Dead premise for prepping but i do have 3 week supply of water MREs etc. but for earthquake natural disaster. if society collapses it’ll be slow and people will help each other out form smaller communities etc. so this whole bunker prepper mind set misunderstands human behavior. imho.
I plan on going full Mad Max. Gotta put those Scouting skills to use eventually lmao
Fiat doesn’t need to be physical. In fact, most of the money going in and out of US domestic and international trade is just a number on the computer. The fiat is created by the Federal Reserve itself. Here’s how money (largely digital) is created from Investopedia:
“The Federal Reserve, as America’s central bank, is responsible for controlling the supply of U.S. dollars. The Fed creates money by purchasing securities on the open market and adding the corresponding funds to the bank reserves of commercial banks.”
Central banks of other countries that have their own sovereign currency have a similar process, while in the European Union they have the supranational European Central Bank.
Stability is an illusion, I agree. US economic and political cycles prove the point. What actually impresses me is what I’d call institutional inertia, which democracies are very good at because the institution is not one person, and it is not alone. A dictator can collapse the place on an executive order. A democracy is institutionalized rubber mush that has to grind against itself to move. Look at the Philippines. Corrupt and incompetent, but it holds itself up. Even Duterte couldn’t wreck it. So while stability is an illusion, there is enough of the stuff in the US democracy that people have confidence in it. And it is that confidence that matters, given other choices.
This I agree, Joe. and if you remember when chempo wrote those anti US dollar articles, I would always retort with American exceptionalism. cuz I didn’t know anything about banking, finance or economics. so Yeah I still think that the US will prevail still. I’m just saying its not as permanent as we think. thus a back up plan is needed. this I agreed with chempo, which is China’s stance also.
I’m patiently waiting for China to replace the US as economic and cultural hegemon. Not gonna happen, since China’s economic progress is actually not fueled by exports (that peaked a long time ago), but by domestic real estate. In China today, there are “ghost cities” that were built to give people jobs (and thus keep people happy/not revolting against the CCP). No one lives in those ghost cities, and 20 years later they are starting to crumble. I’ve seen it with my own eyes when I did some work in China.
I wouldn’t bet against the US. In WWII the Japanese and Germans thought the US was weak militarily (and the US was due to isolationism), and America flattened both countries. Even if our own native born population declines, we’ll just replace it with immigration like the US has always done since the Founding Fathers created the US. The only thing that can destroy the US, is ourselves, and I just don’t think enough Americans will accept that fate. China can’t compete with that since it’s an ethnostate with some native minorities. The Philippines is also an ethnostate. Once the 1980s/1990s population Philippines population boom ages out of working age, things suddenly become harder. That’s why there is such urgency to reform and develop the Philippines now while the country has time and excess workers.
Physical money isn’t as anonymous as people think.
Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have zero anonymity, as the blockchain itself can be tracked and correlated. The FBI and similar agencies in other countries regularly bust criminals who use crypto. The French just busted Pavel Durov. The FBI has an entire department dedicated to digital crimes using crypto: National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) and they are really, really good at bringing criminals to justice. Bitcoin can’t by itself out criminals since no one controls the blockchain, but the blockchain is an open book. The old adage stands: If one is not a criminal, don’t act like a criminal. Each individual lawman might not be that smart, but there’s thousands of them and the law has the luxury of time.
Blockchain, however, existed over 2 decades before Bitcoin’s debut going back to the 1980s. People often conflate crypto with blockchain, but it’s more correct to say that cryptocurrency uses blockchain network principles. Cryptocurrency won’t exist without blockchain theories, not the other way around. Blockchain has no promise of anonymity, in fact, all records on the blockchain ledger are public (which is why it’s called a block-“chain”). The feeling of anonymity was pushed by tech evangelists who are at best clueless and at worse overhyping. Then criminals picked up on it.
“Bitcoin can’t by itself out criminals since no one controls the blockchain, but the blockchain is an open book. “ I’ll have to read up on this Pavel Durov case, but already it seems he wasn’t outed via the tech side of things , rather almost like an Elon Musk case if the US gov’t wanted to arrest him for Twitter. will have to check this out more. so thanks.
From random things you shared, I figured that your views are actually syncretic.
Bank collapses and market crashes are actually examples of reduced or lack of government regulation. If faith should be lost, it should be in banks who combined their commercial and retail banking together and gambled with depositors’ money, and in the increased prevalence of large hedge funds speculating in the securities market. Coincidentally, all these ills started following these two pivotal moments:
1.) 1982: SEC under Reagan changing regulatory rules to allow stock buybacks, which are a form of market manipulation that was previously illegal.
2.) 1999: Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (Financial Services Modernization Act) gutting the banking protection provisions of Glass–Steagall Acts (1933 Banking Acts) that separated retail (commercial) and investment (securities) banking.
Previous to this, banking was highly regulated due to the 1929 stock market crash, and the regulation prevented major bank failures since banks were forced to be more conservative in their investments and how the banks treated depositor funds.
The other difference is due to fear of prolonged recessions, the US Government now basically bails out failing banks rather than letting capitalism take its natural course (depositors are already protected by the FDIC). When banks and investment funds realized that the government would bail out their gambling losses, they took more risks, with predictable results. We should go back to heavily regulating banks and investments, especially as it pertains to ordinary people’s deposits.
I also came of age in the GWOT. I’ll never forget the morning of 9/11 and the shock that a major terrorist attack had occurred. It’s kind of incorrect to conclude that all past wars since WWII was to prop up the US Dollar. This belief originated from Soviet propaganda during the Cold War as it became clear the US would come out on top in the ideological struggle. The “petro dollar” theory also originated from communist propaganda. Every country has sovereign interests, and the reason why the US intervenes militarily for better or for worse around the world is to protect the US national interest, which is to maintain open trade. The GWOT was largely funded using national debt by the way, and was misguided since although America tried to help Iraq and Afghanistan build their countries, they didn’t want our help. After it was apparent that the US won’t experience hyper-inflation from increasing national debt, MMT theory was further developed and fleshed out. But MMT would only work out for the country whose currency is the de facto currency of world trade. At the moment that’s the US.
“We should go back to heavily regulating banks and investments, especially as it pertains to ordinary people’s deposits.” This was actually chempo’s solution too, only that he knew it couldn’t be done. the whole regulators in sheeps clothing routine. too far gone.
“Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies have zero anonymity, as the blockchain itself can be tracked and correlated. The FBI and similar agencies in other countries regularly bust criminals who use crypto. The French just busted Pavel Durov. “ Okay, done my youtube watching, Joey. I don’t think Durov is a Bitcoin case. so theres traceability and anonymity. traceability being essential to blockchain, I agree with you here. but anonymity can still happen inspite of this. like people getting away with fleecing Binance, apparently you can get anonymous wallets and from there just like karl’s barya analogy just keep breaking it off to smaller manageable pieces. essentially laundering it to usable units. similar to the Bangladeshi SWIFT bank heist, which chempo went into great detail here, a clean get away. and that was all fiat. then theres similarities to using famous paintings art to serve as means of transfering value. and like that poor dude who lost his USB thumb drive with his original Bitcoin now still in some landfill. so like those paintings criminals can simply give each other USB thumb drives, and due to Bitcoin blockchain the value is guaranteed cuz traceability, but since no one’s personal info has to be connected to any transaction. its anonymous. so I think Bitcoin’s anonymity in that regard still holds, unless they find those folks that stole from Binance etc. then it still stands imho, Joey. As to China, theres a good chance they are funding these heists as R&D for their CBDC expansion. feeling it out looking for weak links. i dunno. But CBDC and Bitcoin looks still viable replacements to fiat, Joey. as to fiat’s physicalness I totally get that credit cards and the whole credit industry floats the fiat system, not just cash. only that compared to credit cards, cash affords anonymity in your day to day. but if you’re paying some guy $20K in cash I’m sure they’ll be able to track that. which I’m thinking civil forfeiture by law enforcement these days is couched by a bigger agenda of banks wanting public to stop using cash. so if you’re driving around with $20K or flying or riding the bus or train, cops are gonna seize your money. so there is a push to encourage the public not to use cash. which serves fiat’s purpose more i’m thinking. I stayed at Circus Circus this past winter, and I got hungry it was already late there was a Burgers King downstairs and they didnt accept cash all kiosk, gotta use your card. I’m like fuck that. so i waited til morning. lol.
“The only thing that can destroy the US, is ourselves, and I just don’t think enough Americans will accept that fate. China can’t compete… “ I do agree with you, Joey, that this is probably the most likely scenario. and why Americans are really ga-ga for Bitcoin right now. Though why Chinese CBDC is not matched with US CBDC is still mysterious to me, why we dragging our feet here cuz CBDC and MMT were a match made in heaven. the transition would be seem less just push out the banks. no more middle man. let the blockchain do its magic.
I disagree with Joe and think mid-of-the-range is probably even a bit high.
Yes, there have been female presidents, the hospital is full of female workers from (almost) top to the bottom, there are many women working in the government.
But, like always, if you look under the engine hood, things are often different that first appearance.
(1)
Let’s start a while ago, close to home. In my wife’s family, the father was ‚uneducated‘ but saw that good education was very important, so he got himself a job allowing his kids to study and hammered his philosophy into his kids the Filipino way, gently and patiently…. The result: All 5 girls became „professional“ in various sectors. The boys, however, made a mess of their studies/opportunities. They were spoiled and thought that life would come easy. It was also expected that the girls would support the boys. When I noticed this, I started to look around and saw that this is actually very common: the girls are expected to work harder, have better results and not complain and „play around“ little. The boys, however, take it easy and generally do worse than the girls.
(2)
Just like the feudal social structure, there is also the masculine social structure: The man is the boss. I was shocked after I met my wife, I was supposed to take charge in her family „because I was the man in the house“. Things might have changed a bit, but I still see this everywhere more or less.
Women are often better educated, but the men are in charge. And the women are not used to fighting this.
(3)
Because of my (volunteer) job in the municipality, I have been involved in meetings of the provincial business associations (the Chinese business club seems to be separate but had the same issues): Not a woman in sight. Strange because if I look to the smaller businesses (under 30 million turnaround), then I often see a woman managing it very well. But the bigger businesses which are involved in those business clubs (construction, hospitals, malls etc) were all represented by men, either as owner or as representative.
(4)
As I have only daughters, I tend to look for telltale signs. My youngest girl was in Europe in construction as site engineer. Having a woman there was very beneficial, more attention was put on details and the level of aggression dropped when one or more women were on site. When she dropped out because she got kids, the managers even went to her house to beg her to come back because female engineers are still scarce and they noticed the difference of the work and atmosphere quality. Here, in The Philippines, I had a real difficulty persuading a very motivated and clever girl to chase up her dream of becoming a captain. She was convinced this was a job only for men and the whole education system had hammered that in her head. It took many You-tube video’s of female pilots and female captains to convince her that it actually IS possible for a woman to chase her dream job. I hope you have seen Jokoy’s show where he makes fun of Filipina’s all becoming nurse.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siSRQ057_pE
Agreed, it is everywhere. Kamala had to work much harder, be better than everybody and initially, she still had to be invisible. Hillary was seen as agressive and never made it. So, it is everywhere, but I think in The Philippines, it is quite pronounced.
(5)
Men get the top jobs, even if women are much more competent. I see this in the university where my SILs work. A man has a few years PhD in Germany and becomes dean. A woman has 2 PhD’s, earned her stripes in USA, Canada, Australia, has got a few surprising papers, came back to The Philippines as a Balik-scientist and got her own research institute. But never made it to dean. I see mostly male mayors and the onlyfemale competitor is there because her (ex-mayor) dad has no boys, all other mayors (I met) in my province were male. Why is that? See next point.
(6)
It is totally accepted that males can be aggressive. Duterte and Bato were a prime example. Women, however, need to be low-key and serving. Nurses and doctors preferably. Or lawyers and office managers in the office. Work and shut up while the males there often got leading positions. Ofcourse not everywhere, but it certainly is the trend. And you need a certain elephant skin to get higher up. Some women manage this by being exceedingly competent. Many drown in the effort.
(7)
Oh yes, environmental change is certainly a major issue (at least here in this coastal community).
* A lidar survey was done. It must have cost a shitload of money. The data managers were all (relatively young) women, very very competent. but they had a male boss, rather incompetent, who never wanted to get the results analyzed and implemented. Result: a few years later, we had a big storm and guess what: The river overflowed and NHS houses got washed out. Something which could have been predicted with the lidar model. And the worst affected: women and children ofcourse. A women as head of the project could have made all the difference because women care more about kids and disasters. Ofcourse, the competent data engineers left Philippines for much better rewards in Europe.
* Disaster Risk Management: Managed by men only because it is a „macho job“. Competent women are kept on a sideline because of the macho approach. Result: warnings of future danger (sea level rise in combination with storms and landslides) are ignored because „we save people“. Many arguments on the argument that a disaster avoided is worth a lot more than rescuing people clearly displayed 2 camps: The male and the female. The macho and the caring.
(8)
WHEN women are in charge, often they do see the issues but are not permitted to engage. Women are „nice and gentle“ and not forceful. So, poaching is rampant here, the local authority headed by a nice woman uses the available boats for anything apart from night patrols because poachers have guns. In next door municipality, the (male) authority DOES use his boats and the difference is blatant: If you take the ferry at night, our municipality’s seas look like a capital with so many illegal fishing lights while across the municipal border, it is dark. I see several examples like that.
(9)
Yes, we had some women on the top. Maybe, maybe that was more a result of the feudal way of thinking in this country.
(10)
I know, I know…. It used to be like that in Europe as well. 40 years ago, there were only 2 women in my technical university. And both wanted to become an architect.
But luckily we had the nursing and midwife school next door, so we had great parties because there were no men in those schools…
In my work in the oilfield, women started to appear in leading field jobs only 20 years ago (and what a difference that made, I am sure that that both the Texas City Refinery explosion and the Gulf of Mexico blowout would not have happened if a female engineer would have been in charge). Of a recent 20 billion US$ project only one out of 9 sections worked well because the leading female engineer understood the intricate social challenges and became the „mother“ of the project. The macho rest got stuck in quicksand until rescue appeared.
But, the classification of The Philippines in the middle of the field is a current picture and as such, I think it probably is correct and there is a long way to go still.
Finally: The women here generally work harder and have better skills . A good starting point for change.. I have given up on the men and am mentoring now 2 women, with success so far.
“..the girls are expected to work harder, have better results and not complain..”
Yes, that has been noted by many co-commenters here, I also have observed it.
“I hope you have seen Jokoy’s show where he makes fun of Filipina’s all becoming nurse.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siSRQ057_pE “ I saw the special where he brought a bunch of other FilAm comedians up and coming to Manila. and one of those dudes told a similar joke, thinking there would be lots of nurses in the audience. and it was crickets. i’m like dude Filipina nurses in the Philippines won’t be able to attend the show there. but the FilAm comedian was really surprised his joke didn’t land. you’re in the Philippines , buddy.
women will complain eventually, by then, it is probly too late to save what must be saved. women will complain once they reach the end of their tether. else they march to the office and demand better deal, but nicely done of course.
for timid women that want to quit toxic workplaces and part with uncaring and abusive bosses without actually having to face the boss and risked being humiliated and shown the door, there are private agencies (not unions) that can march on their behalves and demand better deal, or terminate their employment on request and get all their benefits due them. these agencies are legally well equip and knew all about labor and work laws. their clients can be assured of no further hassles and bustles from their former bosses, it’s in the contract signed by all parties.
For young Filipinos that I mentor, I also prefer young women nowadays. I’ve just found that young men are more likely not to take things seriously. The large majority of young women I mentored went on to gain confidence they needed to succeed.
In my own industry, I also agree that having women coworkers brings new perspectives and catches corner cases us men had not considered. It also reduced the amount of after-work men’s activities that I used to be invited to but prefer not to partake in.
“The Philippines ranked 70th out of 139 countries in the 2024 SDG Gender Index by Equal Measures 2030. The Philippines scored 67.52 out of 100, one of the lowest in the region. Despite this, the country scored slightly above the Asia and the Pacific average score of 66.48 and the world average score of 66.13.Sep 4, 2024″
We are above average.
Enjoyed the Olympics? Number one was the winner, number 2 got silver but did not win, number 3 got a medal but needs to try again in 4 years time. The rest lost. They tried hard, but lost.
Philippines is not on the podium in the equality podium, meaning they waste enormous human resources, lots of lost opportunities. And I do not think that Philippines is so rich it can afford such a huge waste.
I agree with your blunt but fair statements.
When we talk about women issue gender equality is always on top of the list. Then we have the prostitution, gender-based violence issue; the lack of education, healthcare and other important matters that are women-related. Those are what we call the bread and butter of the issue, all good, all important.
But one thing I see as equally important if not the most, in relation to the health of the Philippines as a country, is her overpopulation. Now, before anyone think that I’m blaming women here allow me to explain.
Every time I see blogs and video documentaries about the Philippines what is very prominent is the consistent presence of kids around the places where the camera roams. I mean, there’s always children in the streets, in the malls, in the markets, in the neighborhoods, in the mountains, in the mountains of garbage, around garbage bins, etc. Everywhere you go there’s children.
Let me invite you to watch documentaries on Youtube, especially those with the ‘walking’ content and you’ll see the staples of it: children and dogs in the streets.
My question now is, how can we empower women to have the right to control their own body by making them decide not or when to have babies?
I know we have the government population control program the details of which I have no idea, hence, I’m ambivalent as to its effectivity. I said that because, inspire of having such program, it appears our population is always on the ‘over’ side never under.
I know it’s not going to be easy but at least we have to start somewhere. Even if it’s just in a blog like this where ideas abound because we care to share our thinking.
Right now, I have a lot of ideas, very vague, very strange and very fuzzy ideas that I’m not comfortable to share with yet because, you know, they’re vague, strange and fuzzy. I’m interested more on what you people can say about it and see if we agree, disagree or just ignore it.
Over here we have Planned Parenthood, they’re usually known for abortions. but they actually cover the whole gamut of women’s health. from period products to condoms to IUD to birthcontrol pills. the only issue I think is they are kinda doing eugenics. So they go out to high schools and offer their services usually without parental knowledge. only problem is they are mostly located in black and brown population. which begs the question why aren’t whites hounded to get abortions. cuz they usually don’t have a lot of babies. which kinda makes sense you target the population thats having lots of babies. but its kinda racist. so thru Planned Parenthood you get gov’t welfare programs too, they connect their patients with all that. abortion’s probably not gonna be popular in the Philippines anytime soon, Juan, so you have the easiest which are condoms. which girls from Mango ave. always had. city health provided it in cebu. birthcontrol pills maybe a solution but probably too expensive I didn’t come across birthcontrol pills in the Philippines. but the short of it is its a lot harder to get the women, ethics and logistics, etc. so why not just target the men. this again will require smart PR campaign but you have a tradition there of tuli, why not just as vasectomy in the same go. I’m no doctor but a 2 for 1 seems doable. Gone are the days of butcher blocks and chewing guava leaves to wrap your newly circumcised pee pee, most circumcisions done in hospital. get them for vasectomy too. no sperm no babies.
“I have a lot of ideas, very vague, very strange and very fuzzy ideas that I’m not comfortable to share with yet because, you know, they’re vague, strange and fuzzy.” Juan, we have a new phrase for that now. You, sir, have concepts of a plan. For me its always been Origen and biblical Onan. any women’s issue. go back to Origen and Onan. therein lies the problem. the original sin if you will.
ps. the PR campaign can work cuz when there was a lot of hoopla over abortion over here, dudes were voluntarily going to get vasectomies. how thats related to Roe v Wade i dunno, well maybe if they were planning to rape a woman. or maybe its just symbolic like solidarity with women. but dudes can be easily convinced to get vasectomies apparently. so why not try it. make the Philippines the tuli capital of the world as well as vasectomy. I remember my first Mango Ave girl when she saw that i wasn’t tuli she was literally grossed out, but with erection i showed her it just pops out. looks the same , see? and she was totally not having it, which created like a moral dilemma situation. but it was resolved linguistically 😉 my point is that girls there are grossed out by uncircumcised penis, why not make ’em also get gross out over nonvasectomied males. make it into a whole societal preference, like ewwwwww… you’re not tuli not vasectomied. yuck.
pps. hesterictomy I wouldn’t make this into public health policy cuz its a much more complex operation and knowing the Philippines you’ll just end with more sepsis cases. vasectomy is simple. focus on that.
I would not recommend hysterectomy as contraception. doctors wont remove a healthy womb (uterus) unless mandated by law. to do so would be criminal.
vasectomy is reversible, hysterectomy is not. vasectomy does not lessen male libido, there will still be ejaculation minus the sperms. where will the sperms go? they’d still be in the glans, shrivel, and will met its own natural death, then the body will produce sperms again, and the cycle goes on. the body is self cleansing after all.
in total hysterectomy a womb is removed and that ought to stop women from conceiving, ever. if it is for the purpose of contraception, then tubal ligation it is, rather than hysterectomy. tubes are tied in tubal ligation and only done on women who have already completed having a family, already have three kids and dont want anymore. tubal ligation is permanent and wont make women fat unless they become celebratory, happy to be free of child bearing that they started to drink and consume more food.
I think, total hysterectomy (removal of womb) is brutal. once rid of their womb, women not only lose those beneficial female hormones but also tend to manifest manly characteristics like growing facial hair, being muscly and their voice may chance.
in abortion, the inside of the womb, the lining, is scraped and any adhesions like fetus is abraded. the process is painful and may require anesthesia.
“where will the sperms go? they’d still be in the glans, shrivel, and will met its own natural death, then the body will produce sperms again, and the cycle goes on. the body is self cleansing after all.” So long as there’s no ICC case, I’m down with that, kb. thanks! great medical breakdown.
Some 20 20 hindsighters were comparing Thailand and PH. They credited PH less population to Thailand during the time of Marcos to of course Marcos Sr.
Then thanks or no thanks to our population growth we got overtaken in everything including traffic .
Oh well we tried but Health Secretary Flavier’s Just DOH it condom campaign backfired because many just did it without the contraception. The rest is hindsight.
You’re right , karl. the fact that all Mango ave girls always had condoms ready. the ease at which they agreed to no condoms was kinda scary.
Well, your ideas are all good, but they are derived in a Catholic country. Aquino almost got excommunicated for wanting to distribute rubbers. So the first pragmatic thing to do is convert the nation to atheism and you’ll get control of the population mighty fine quick.
Alternatively, get a rational government that provides jobs and a future for women workers and they’ll one at a time take matters into their own hands.
Overpopulation will be cured by famine, storms, war, and disease, so no need to worry too much about that. The Philippines will get through it. Lots of islands we can hide on.
There are a number of nations that have trouble because they don’t have enough people to keep the economy booming. Canada is a fascinating case. They recruit lots of Filipinos to fill the jobs that keep the economy humming. But all the people need homes and they can’t build them fast enough to keep prices down. So they are cutting visas for foreign students as one measure to suppress the demand for housing. Same in Australia. Japan has an age imbalance and China’s one child policy has messed up their demographics. And there’s famine in Africa and a killer storm in Viet Nam. I think there is not an over population problem. There is a lack of intelligence and the application thereof.
The Philippines really mismanaged its population boom compared to other SEA nations. For example, in 1990 the median age was 18 years old, while in the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis the median age hovered around 19 years old. Since then the median age has been rocketing up and is projected to be 27 years old soon. The population has doubled since 1990. Useful working years wasted for nearly 60 million Filipinos that could’ve been applied towards better paying jobs like factory work and developing more national skills through university education yet were regulated to low paying jobs, underemployment, or unemployment.
Agree, but we can’t correct that. I used to think it was shameful that Filipinos had to go overseas and split with their families. Now I see it as the situation they were dealt by incompetent leaders, and the solutions rest at changing the top. I understand your view that change has to come through the people broadly, but I see them as captured by barangay captains and mindless cell phone activities and I see not a spark of ambition to gather together to force change. But I do see a pathway to success if top party leaders grasp the futility of acting just like dynasties themselves, and band together. Unfortunately, I see not an inkling of that happening, either.
I see things a bit differently from my beloved Cebu. There’s a vibrant and innovative younger generation that’s figuring out how to navigate alternative paths that simply bypasses incompetent leaders in terms of earning money.
But for the larger population of available workers, let’s say a party has the clarity to think for example “Japan’s workforce is aging, ours is young and available. The Japanese still want to make money but lack workers.” With that thinking Japanese factories can be attracted to the Philippines so both sides can make money. It is really frustrating that leaders can’t see that.
I think, our leaders did see that. germany and austria both signed contract with philippines, that both germany and austria will fund the training of filipino nurses. once nurses graduated, they’d be germany and austria bound. they just have to brush up on their language skills and local culture which can easily be addressed via immersion and bridging courses.
young people who have done their studies or about to, need to talk to dole and find out that is in the offing. there are courses specially designed for overseas deployment that are often part funded by overseas employers, government or private. applicants just have to pass physical checks, aptitude tests, etc.
I think that while it’s good that those who want to go overseas can do it, an economy that depends on remittance isn’t a good economy, especially if the remittances are mostly spent on subsistence living rather than investing in the overall domestic economy. There are other countries where their diaspora’s remittances went into increasing the home country’s domestic businesses (Mexico, South Korea, India, Vietnam are some examples), while in the Philippines remittances drive daily needs, with the excess going to imported goods controlled by the big businesses. Which is why the rich and powerful of the Philippines is fine with that I think. Those going overseas and learning new things aren’t in the Philippines to challenge the established order, and those still in the Philippines are barely surviving even with the help of their family abroad.
Still, the number of Filipinos who go overseas is relatively small compared to the available workforce. I just hope people in Philippine government figure it out that while giving more opportunities to people in the country through factories built with foreign investment might be scary since it may threaten their comfortable power structure, if everyone becomes more well off then those at the top can also be even more well off. A new power structure can be built where the existing elites still are prominent. They just have to give up a fraction of their current power.
there is help now available for the poor, the govt’s 4ps see to it, there is help for the old, the young, single mothers, etc. poor families received financial help from the govt on the condition that their children go to school and most kids do finish high school. they dont stay forever on handouts, once adult children find jobs, 4ps will be on sliding scale.
Yes definitely 4PS has helped quite a lot as is the (minimal) level of help for seniors who didn’t save. But perhaps the government can gain even better results if they created more opportunity and guidance for those who need it the most. Most people I reckon will take up opportunities if given a chance to have a better life and job. They want to help give their family a better life.
By the way, something that isn’t talked about often is that the Philippine education system has a problem with grade inflation and passing students who don’t qualify for the next grade or graduation. This problem has even reached the most elite universities, so I’ve been told. The pandemic only made the situation worse. So in a way, every student on 4PS would almost be guaranteed to graduate school and be marked as a “success” by PSA. Filipino politicians love to tout successes!
there isnt a big difference between private and public high school education curricula, between rich parents who can buy influence and favor, and poor parents who can only sigh in disbelief. it all boils down to how their kids perform at school.
4ps students work hard to finish their studies, they dont need to be topnotcher to go to college, they just need to pass entry exam. and there is always the final arbiter: the gatekeeper. not all tertiary graduates pass board exam.
Don’t forget that OFW’s support the education of many, many Filipino’s. This resulted often in milking the school system which became expensive and often inaccessible for kids who are not supported, but many kids now get an education which would not have been possible without the OFW support. I would consider this the most effective use of the OFW support. Stating that it is used to buy imported goods is skewered. But, yes, the returning OFW are certainly reluctant to invest in anything but sari-sari stores because they know that their investment will most likely evaporate.
But 10% of the Filipinos working abroad is not a (relatively) small number if you consider that it contains the top intelligentsia. To lead a business, a country, an organisation, you need to depend on the top 5%. The most clever, most driven, most critical people. If they go abroad, then only a few dogs will be left to guide the remaining 95% sheep. 10% is not just a few, it contains the most essential intellect.
Those students who have the family support or have a scholarship to go to private schools are lucky, and you’re right Paul that it is probably the most effective use of OFW support. Through this help, students are able to go to better schools and universities if they choose to be serious with their studies. However, I think it’s the responsibility of the government to provide as equal a playing field in education as possible given the available funds. The state of many Philippines DeptEd funded schools is atrocious, and to me seems more like having students practices hand waving until they get pushed out after G12.
An engineer friend of mine had stopped sending remittances aside from her own parents and has taken to letting each cousin, niece or nephew make a choice whether they want to make a contract with her: in exchange for paying tuition, she expects good grades and no boyfriend/girlfriend until graduation. Once the student messes up, the tuition payment is cut off and they’re on their own. A good system, I think.
Yes the large portion of population that would’ve been OFW or abroads is sobering. I would add to your assessment of the loss of the Filipino intelligentsia, with the larger loss of the hardest working Filipinos. I don’t know exact amount that remittances contribute to the domestic economy, but I’d imagine it’s huge. Sometimes I try to gingerly have this conversation, but it seems that many prefer to live in denial. As a non-Filipino I can only give my encouragement and point out my observations. I’m not quite sure what I can do beyond that.
Japan has a nursing caregiving recruitment binge before, did we blow the chance or it was not worth it?
What happened? We flunked Nihongo?
My turn to talk US. Japan tried to take over US steel at election time and it became a violent issue all because it is elections. Requesting permission to inquire about the issue Joe.
US Steel is a storied American steel producer, so Nihon Steel trying to buy them was a political third rail.
But that just goes back to my earlier topic I opened, which it’s in regards to Japan having an aging population that lacks workers, but they still want to make money. That’s why Japan wanted Nihon Steel to buy US Steel. If we put this fact in the Philippines context, the Philippines has a huge population of working age people who are underemployed, unemployed, or are being paid low salaries by domestic companies. If the Philippines can attract Japanese investment on a scale like the Japanese trying to buy US Steel, it would be an economic coup for Filipinos where both Japan and the Philippines win. The Japanese so far have only invested in factories making small things in the Philippines — an indicator of lack of confidence. So the government must give assurances and support for the confidence to go up up up.
A huge Japanese shipbuilder wanted in and they already had an agreement with National and Local government but they failed to impress the environmentalists who sounded the aarm bell on disappearing mangroves
The problem is no latter where you place it an environmental issue will surely show up. Political will and Governance is terribly needed and a good intention that won’t be destined to hell.
The car companies and Semicons are here but we are relegated the bottom of the value chain.We just assemble and will lose that job to Sky Net if we do not watch it.
Easy to say just vertically integrate and do everything here.
Speaking of the so called AI hype.
https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/openai-o1-might-be-the-final-nail-in-codings-coffin
I still have my doubts about AI. In our tech industry, it seems the only people very excited about AI are the programmers, even though they will be the first to be replaced if AI works the way the claims purport.
In any case, I can’t be replaced because my role is more in planning, analysis, and strategy so I’ll continue to be secured for quite some time. Perhaps in the future I’ll be managing AI instead of people, hehe.
So dumb, really. You can plant mangroves but not jobs.
Certainly, but mangroves also provide habitat for the seafood heavy diet of most Filipinos and natural barriers against typhoons/tsunamis. Over 200k people died in the 2004 tsunami, all in mangrove stripped areas of Indonesia mostly IIRC. The good thing is planting mangroves is cheap, then need to wait 10-20 years until the mangrove matures. That would placate the environmentalists (who actually have a good point here), create better storm barriers and habitats for seafood, secure better food supply, and the designated industrial port gets to be built. Such simple solutions that makes everyone happy usually evade Philippine policy makers.
A factory, like the San Miguel airport, are hugely valuable. San Mig mastered the problem by replanting mangroves so you get win win. That should be the critic’s position on the factory deal. Not that moving any tree is banned. But that we want the environment to be better than when the factory went in.
I had a beach property in Mindanao for a time. It was basically on an island in a swampy forest within a large tidal pool. You could stand on the bridge over the inlet and watch thousands of fingerlings making their way into the ocean. I’d have to chase away people who would park their boats at the mouth of the inlet to harvest the fingerlings for sale to fish pond owners. It was a protected area but the watch tower was never occupied. And the waters were overfished to desert.
It does not take a large area to hatch a zillion fish.
The guy who took over the property filled in the pond. But he left and floods came in, moved the fill dirt out, and returned it to a hatchery.
It is possible to build factories and hatch fish. I am 100% confident of that. Nature is patient and agreeable. Humans are not.
Haha, in rereading your note I see I said the same thing you did. Speed reading is occasionally not good. Sorry.
No worries, I do the same thing. Had to if I was going to devour a dozen books a week in the younger days. I imagine you did the same. We were probably both the favorite young visitors of our city librarian.
Pretty close.
Yes, that’s my point even if it may have been muddled from replying in the app vs having time to compose replies on the computer.
It’s very cheap to just plant mangrove seedlings even on a massive scale. I’ve done it before in Thailand. It could even be a public works program for the youth instead of the brain dead ROTC program. The youth could be paid a fair salary for their time, they’d get a great experience bonding with peers, learning social and environmental responsibility, nature wins, food security wins, and we can have our port or factory. The industrial area needed for a port or factory is small compared to the vast swathes of mangroves destroyed over the years. Plant 2 acres of mangroves for every acre of factory land and everyone is happy in the end.
Speaking of pristine land, my old plan to build a home in Cordova, Cebu fell apart years ago. But at the time the land was vast sand flats. Quite beautiful since one can enjoy the sun rising from the West over the Cebu mountain range. I had dreams of retiring there and taking my fishing rod out in the morning to catch my breakfast. The place was planned to be lightly developed, since fisherfolk still landed their boats on the shores. Fast forward over a decade and the entire place is filled with new developments. Nature is gone.
Yes, well, nature will be here when people are gone, as George Carlin points out. So it’s sad, but the path goes on.
About that shipbuilder cum ship recycler.
https://splash247.com/tsuneishis-philippine-ship-recycling-ambitions-thwarted/
That’s sad… it’s also a difficult question regarding mangroves and reefs. When I first started visiting Cebu, there were still some mangroves left on the Western side, North and South. 20 years later, it’s basically all gone. Mangroves do provide a great amount of natural protection against typhoon winds/waves, and both mangroves and reefs are habitats for the types of fish most Filipinos eat daily. Negros island still has a lot of mangroves. I’ve dived around there many times, enjoying the reefs and spearfishing for my dinner.
Usually shipyards would be established in a place where the environment has already been destroyed, of which there are many in the Philippines. I wonder why the shipyards can’t be built there?
The could’ve would’ve and should’ve beens of Philippine Vertical Integration.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/59319/vertical-integration-do-it-all
Well, it only took over 10 years after Peter Wallace’s opinion article that JG Summit completed the plant in Batangas. I was in Manila at the time and people were talking about it. Recently I believe the plant was expanded.
Just like in the school days, Filipino bureaucracy loves to write detailed and expansive reports with ample research, only for the leaders to skim through or discard the stacks of paper, after stamping it with an A+ of course. Then onward to the next report project!
I used to read Peter Wallace for years, though I don’t agree with some of his positions like his rosy view is Marcos Sr. and going to work for Duterte. I wonder where he went after he was no longer writing for The Inquirer.
Certainly. Sounds fascinating.
Yes. A lack of conceptual grasp of the obvious. Or fat and lazy.
When it comes to leaders, why not all three?
on his 67th birthday, president bong marcos had a party to die for. duran duran a pop rock band from overseas was flown in (apparently on tax payers expense) to privately entertain marcos et al.
so while filipino singers and musicians go overseas to sing for their supper, overseas band got flown in to sing for the president’s birthday super.
I saw that yesterday as well. I guess Marcos family habits never die. Lady Imelda collected shoes. It seems her son collects bands and musicians. Apparently, also paid for by the people.
Not just shoes. Look up what happened to The Beatles when they visited Manila.
They were invited to play before the Queen of the Philippines, declined, and barely escaped Manila alive.
I’ve heard that story in the past. That’s just another reason why I thought it was insanity for Filipinos to give that family power again.
South Korea had this Yolo problem amongst its youth. Our love for anything Korea were the youth copied this YOLO lifestyle with or without money maybe good for our population….or not.
when my youngest daughter visited me last year, she ofcourse visited all her old playmates and told me that she was very surprised to see that those girls realized that more kids prevent progress so they told her that somehow, they limit themselves to one or two kids. Funny enough, they do not tell their parents what or how they do because they know their parents will then protest, but they realize their parents know and agree silently but will never talk about it. Religion and all that.
The younger generation.has already learned, it seems and I am sure we soon will see a significant drop in the reproductive rate.
A lot of stuff in the Philippines is face saving, a bit like the saying that in England you can do almost anything, just don’t ever wake up the horses – re not telling parents, but they still know, and they tacitly agree but never will openly do so.
“Juan, we have a new phrase for that now. You, sir, have concepts of a plan.” – LCPL_X
Yup, Like Trump I have an idea that even to me is not clear which is tantamount to no idea at all. 🤭
Which brings me to this statement/question that I made with regard to the issue you mentioned.
“My question now is, how can we empower women to have the right to control their own body by making them decide not or when to have babies?”
I was wrong in asking that question because I realized that the reason why we have population growth problem is the fact that women are actually deciding to have children!
Women in the Philippines have control of their bodies; they do the decision when to have a baby or when not to. They all also, unfortunately, decide not to care if they’re going to have baby whenever or to whomever.
I may sound as if I’m blaming women for the problem. Far from it. I’m just trying to spread the blame starting from them because they’re the ones delivering out those children on this earth.
Another party responsible is the Pinoy manhood in our culture where virility is celebrated with a sense of achievement. A man fathering children with different mothers is seen as macho. And then there’s the Catholic Church, aptly mentioned by JoeAm, that continues to call the shots on the Christian family values of Filipinos.
The government can only do so much. That is why things are reduced to mere propaganda. There’s always a program for population growth but there is really nothing happening as to reduce it to a desired level. We tried family planning that includes vasectomy, hysterectomy, etc. to no avail.
The one thing I see that might make a difference is the financial incentive aspect wherein couples who opt have children not exceeding 2 or 3, for example, will have some financial windfall from the government. It may be in the form of educational scholarship for the kids, childcare or employment opportunities for the parents. Or even housing provision that could really help in building a small size family.
And I know in doing that we’re creating another problem: where to get the money.
“Women in the Philippines have control of their bodies; they do the decision when to have a baby or when not to.” It is instinct after all, Juan. and who are we to say no to nature. if provincial DE mother pops out 10 kids. one ends up in Mango Ave and snags herself a Swedish tourist, gets brought to Sweden as wife. for that DE mother, it was all worth it. so as social security it does makes sense. and Joe’s right 1st world is deciding not to have babies. so maybe Filipinos and Mexicans will rule the world. one day. Opossums have up to 12 babies a litter, and they’ve been around since the dinosaurs. So maybe at our level, bank accounts for sex industry workers, thus include all women in the Philippines too all DE girls, is a doable policy proposal. which means those mamasans that run banks, need to be open to Mango Ave girls and other DE type girls earning money. and not be gatekeepers with raised nose haughty. when bank mamasan comes across these girls be humble they are legit customers. Pinks (or other) can talk to banks, tell ’em be more open, be inviting, help DE girls navigate thru banking. thats a start.
methink, banks dont really care where the money comes from, be it from your mango ave girls, from drug lords, money launderers, scammers, smugglers, bent politicians, etc. just bring those wads of money to the bank and they’ll accept it. they even change torn paper bills too.
dont be so taken about haughty banks just because bank tellers look intimidating and dressed like powerful bigwigs, the vicinity is well guarded and there are cctvs. it’s just a look. if bank staff sound haughty, it’s just a language to project professionalism. most tellers are schooled in economics and once they knew who they are talking to across the counter, they’ll drop their guard and be human.
these days, banks are in competition with other banks and cannot afford to be choosy, they will accept money in all types of denominations and from people in all walks of life. depositors just need to bring ID coz banks need to know if depositors are human, animals or aliens.
it would help too if depositors come to the bank dressed in clean clothes, and not skimpily clad and wearing full makeup like they’re in complete disguise! also helpful if depositors are not smelling strongly of alcohol, their speech is clear, and not slurred or gibberish.
“most tellers are schooled in economics and once they knew who they are talking to across the counter, they’ll drop their guard and be human.” I think most are accounting majors, kb. then theres a mamasan thats older or maybe a dude that wears nicely pressed buttoned down shirt that Mango ave girls recognize as having visited their bar before, etc. etc. but you’re right of course. banks do want to open more accounts not less, kb. but there is a huge people issue in which gatekeeping is perceived or actually done. and thats what i want changed so have them go out and talk to Mango ave girls at their level and win their trust and explain all the above that you’re saying that money talks and bs walks. and I agree, on skimpy clothes. its just their fashion , kb. so if bank mamasan can let that go and just open that account it would greatly help. but you’re right about skimpy clothes. I just think Pinks (whomever) can expand on this.
More on Finance, Business and Economics than accounting, LCX.
So the bank tellers are Finance Business and Economics. cuz i noticed another weird trend where most of the sales ladies all said they were accounting majors. and the girls that cashiered for Mango ave bars (that ones I would joke to barfine in which mamasan would vehemently refuse, lol) were also accounting majors. which brings me to this , karl, is there a hierarchal difference between finance and business and economics? cuz over here (and joey can correct me if am wrong) economics falls under social science, then finance business would be under business schools. but I noticed a lot of signs in the Philippines that showed off there were atty or accountants or engineer in said house hold, but never a title for Economics nor Finance and Business. assuming now that the latter are more prestigious than accounting? it would also be weird as title i guess like Economist or Financier or Businessman. but Accountant seems easily understood. thanks.
The population growth rate of the Philippines was 4% in 1950 and will be 1.51% this year. The UN projects it will be below zero (declining) by 2100. So roundly figure that the Philippine population will peak at 200 million. If you accelerate family planning, you can reduce that peak point. You can accelerate it by giving women a future, job wise, without laws that force the issue. Let women manage their bodies, not government.
The most pressing issues for Filipinas seem to be financial security, pay inequality and local employment scarcity.
The data below was gleaned from Center for Women’s Resources (CWR), a PH pioneering institution founded in 1982 (during Marcos dictatorship) to empower women.
*As of 2023, 21M+ Filipino women are “economically insecure”. 996K are unemployed, 1.9M+ are underemployed, and 8M+ are outside the employment force. Only around 49% of working age women are gainfully employed.
*Unemployment in women doubled during the pandemic (852K in 2019 to 1.69M in 2020). Many women lost their jobs and livelihoods during lockdowns. By December 2022, an estimated 2.2 million individuals were unemployed, with 1.06 million being women.
*Gender wage inequality is an issue, with women consistently earning less than men. The gender pay gap across occupations ranges from 4% to 44%, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA). CWR case study in Northern Luzon provinces showed women farm workers receive 28.57% lower wages than men, earning $5.45 compared to men’s $7.25. In other rural communities, women earn just $2.72 for a day’s work. On an average, women are paid 71.6 cents for every dollar paid to men.
*Due to the lack of viable jobs in the country, many Filipino women are forced to go abroad as migrant workers in low-skilled, low-wage, insecure and at times, dangerous jobs. In 2019, there were 1.2M overseas Filipino women workers, 24% more than men. As of 2023, 55.6% of all OFWs are women (1.2M).
OOT: The US in #40 in that report. American women have more rights now than they had a few decades ago but some of these hard fought rights are being dialed back by Trump with the help of the Supreme Court and Republican legislators. Trump says he killed Roe v Wade. He certainly did. He said during the debate that he just did what majority of Americans want. 60% of Americans want RvW reinstated and it might just be reason why he’ll lose on Election Day.
Thanks for the data-driven comment, JP. Refreshing. My response, by paragraph.
1. Only pay inequality is a gender issue. Financial insecurity and local employment scarcity are poverty and economy issues.
2. Thank you for the introduction. A very important initiative.
3. Economic issues in the main. They could be gender issues if scarce hiring favors men.
4. Health issues affect men and women. Not a gender issue.
5. Huge gender issue. Women should be in the streets demanding equality. 71.6 pesos for every 100 paid to men, for the same work.
6. Men are also forced to seek work overseas. Not a gender issue.
7. Harris will win and start the rebuild to equality. This will stand as an example for Filipinos.
Pay inequality is the biggest gender issue in the Philippines. Women and men all suffer due to poor government, poverty, storms, disease, and the like. Overall, I’d say women of the Philippines are tough, intelligent, engaged, and close to equal in every respect.
from Forbes.
Some anecdotes I learned from women I talked to during my travels:
1.) They became OFWs/BPO workers due to being the eldest (or one of the eldest), and were pressured by their family to support their younger siblings
2.) OFW women chose that route due to their brothers being prioritized for education, so the women lacked skills
3.) BPO women workers tended to be self-taught in English and high achievers during their time in public school, yet ran out of opportunities when their parents couldn’t afford college or their brothers’ education was prioritized
I also see an increased amount of households (both legally married and informal) being led by women OFW/BPO workers, where the woman is both the head of household and the breadwinner. Typically in this situation the male partner only provides companionship.
Despite my personal opinion that Filipinas are typically very resilient and strongwilled, traditional power structures that favor males block women from higher positions at work and public life. In lower socio-economic classes, it’s usually up to the woman to “find a away,” while the men sit around as tambays until a job is provided.
Often salaries and pay scales in the Philippines is very opaque. It would help if there is a legal requirement for businesses to be compelled to make pay schedules regular and open. The argument against this is that this does not respect “merits,” however I would argue that it does indeed respect meritocratic accomplishments because if someone qualified for a position, they would be promoted to the higher level with the accompanying salary increase.
aside from companionship, a lot of men are helping around the house now, looking after kids, doing the housework, the cooking, laundry, etc. while their wives go to work. they dont always hire helpers, as well, kids help with the housework, run errands, look after their siblings, etc. it’s not all work though, they find time to associate and socialise with friends and neighbors.
I think that is changing for mostly urban Filipino Millennials, who are exposed to more ideas of equality. That’s a good thing of course.
Effort should not be measured only in terms of monetary contribution to the family. Each partner should put in equal effort to help out.
About population control.
Just take care of the economy. Once Philippines becomes a developed economy, population growth rate will drop. Guaranteed. Historically and statsically proven.
But then you will have a new problem. The demographics will shift and the Muslim population will grow in significance. You can’t stop Muslim growth rates because it is a religion of sex.
Paragraph 1, yes, spot on.
Paragraph 2, oh my, I hadn’t thought of that. I’d speculate, though, that as working non-Muslim Filipinas thrive, Muslim women will also take action to thrive.
So, in the context of the blog, Muslim practices that discriminate against women in our Western secular sense, could be a future issue.
lots of divorce rate here of Tausug, Maranaw (not sure about Maguindanaw) Muslim women. usually women are beautiful too, married to really ugly Muslim dudes but were somehow datu related (or adjacent). weirdly most women were stewardesses in their younger days, then switched to nursing cuz i guess that was the deal when ME carriers let you go by the time you hit mid20s, temporary gig. came to US via nursing, got the family over, but the Muslim dudes never really adjust, can’t get jobs etc. some try Uber driving, but usually when youngest kid goes to college. they divorce. women leave islam or stop going to masjid, men hold on but start drinking or gambling. the kids though stay Muslim. theres cultural transmission. no salafi stuff. preference even towards Sufi thought. otherwise same Fil-Am experience just go to masjid every Friday usually with dad. in that regarding they’re interacting with other Muslim nationalities here unlike other Fil-Ams. the instances of mix marriage is what I m trying to figure out. there are marriages of friends they meet in masjid who says I have a relative or friends daughter in Morocco or Egypt that ‘s looking to marry a good Muslim etc etc. not sure how prevalent that is though. more prevalent is with Fil-Am non Muslim marriage it seems, mostly with Visayans. Knew a Fil-Am Navy dude corpsman (Tagalog) who married a Tausug girl, she converted to Christianity for him. that seems more prevalent. i think.
If there’s a will, there are relatives.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣👏👏 +10
This is so sad, but so true.
I’ve never heard that before! LOL. makes so much sense for the Philippines.
I am not that original, LCX.
It’s just a great aphorism, karl. so true. I expect to use it regularly now irl. so thanks.
on the other hand, lots of Filipino families have burned bridges with certain family members usually those there vs over here. but what I notice is when they lets say say one couple decides to cut one person off cuz not paying his debts or lying about embezzling or using shabu they tend not to advertise this change of policy to other family members with money so con-man relative moves on to the next family member and then another one. so I think , and this is inline with balikbayan and remittances boycott, family members need to put said embezzling family member on blast and tell all family members to include 2nd 3rd 4th degree cousins. cuz I feel this the reason said aphorism is true, karl. should be nipped in the bud. this hingi hingi culture. because families abroad keep sending money.
My pleasure, LCX.
Hingii is ask for something.
Kuha is getting something or take.
Bigay is Give.
Bilmoko nyan street slang for buy me this. Or bili mo ako ng ganyan.
So hingi hingii culture must be bilmoko culture.
I got that hingi hingi culture from , Joey. but that bilmoko nyan sounds more appropriate. wonder if theres a Visayan phrase. but yeah essentially the thinking that those abroad owe them, and can easily embezzle cuz US dollar or Euros grow on trees abroad.
In Cebuano, they usually say “libre na!” with a bit joking smile to goad their family or friend into paying or giving something. Then when they don’t receive, they will become upset or talk behind another’s back.
To be honest, the way to stop bad behavior is to give selectively, or to help in other ways such as what Pablo and I discussed (paying for the kids’ tuition, and paying the tuition directly to the school). It will always be true that there will be those who are full of love and have a giving attitude, and those who will take advantage.
“Through this help, students are able to go to better schools and universities if they choose to be serious with their studies. “ This makes a lot of sense, Joey. More control, less likely for embezzlement. Is there something similar with catholic schools, like since catholic schools are mostly attended by Filipinos (and Mexicans) here, that some of that funds can go to the Philippines. maybe even an exchange program?
When I was in Catholic school, we did have exchange programs with Catholic youth from other countries. I find Catholic schools to be better run on a lower budget if the school district in the area isn’t very well governed. I basically placed as a 3rd year when I entered college aged 17.
Catholic schools in the Philippines have similar successes. The problem is even if the tuition for Catholic school is lower than most Filipino private schools, poor families can’t afford it. Poor families can barely afford their children’s supplies, fare, baon, uniforms at DepEd schools. Solution is to provide school transportation (buses), uniforms, books and supplies. But eh, officials in the Philippines don’t see simple and obvious solutions. They have to try to make things as complicated and useless as possible.
It is no longer the katas ng Saudi passenger jeepneys and vices some invest on property
and real estate? Some get scammed due to lack of due diligence. They say weren’t trust enough but we do trust too much especially relatives.
In the US, we usually say never to go into business with relatives and friends. When money is the cause of arguments, it breaks even the strongest bonds. I lost a high school friend that way. We were the “three amigos,” but since he mismanaged our joint business then placed the blame on others, friendship went bye bye.
On the other side of culture, Vietnamese are quite similar to Cantonese and other people originating in what’s now coastal China (including those who became Chinoy). In our family, we pooled money, helped each other buy our first houses and start business, then repeated the process until all the siblings and cousins got their start. Only after was the family financial fund disbanded.
True. I was about to say something good about remittances but stepped on the breaks.
Those who send remittances both deeply love their family and feel a strong sense of responsibility, regardless of the outcome.
Took the words out of my finger tips
🤣😂🤣😂 4 cents on that one