Creating Opportunities in the Philippines
Joe wrote an article almost a decade ago describing opportunity as an energy untapped in the Philippines. Ambition is indeed a bad word for many Filipinos, somehow equating opportunity with opportunism. Some see OFWs who go abroad as modern “bayani,” somehow similar to warriors of precolonial Philippines who raided and traded, bringing home the bacon. Those who seek greener pastures abroad are sometimes seen as having abandoned the country to “just get rich.”
Business is viewed as inherently exploitative by many, possibly a legacy of colonial times where for instance the right to trade inside the country was initially like a “franchise” prerogative given to Spanish officials and their local partners in the principalia, and cargo slots on the Manila galleon, “boletas“, were limited access yet black marketed.
In a what if scenario of Magellan being delayed, drowning in a typhoon in June 1521 instead of arriving on March 16, 1521, who knows? The archipelago might have become a maritime trading power. Or there might have been competing kingdoms of Manila, Cebu, and Sulu. But at least business wouldn’t have the air of “not our thing”. Back to now..
Today, the advent of BPO created opportunities for some people who weren’t in Big 4 universities. Virtual assistants working from the Philippines for overseas clients are increasing. The Filipino music industry has fledgling potential. Tourism is doing well. On the other hand, what is mined there could be used for manufacturing, adding value. A true software industry like that of India isn’t there yet either.
Between rent-seeking corporations overly protected from competition to sari-sari stores barely able to pay the moneylenders, business in the Philippines has to change a lot. Getting that done isn’t easy, of course. Commenter Joey Nguyen has mentioned incremental changes and quick wins that especially D and E classes can see as a possible way. What that exactly entails is a good question that I leave to discussion.
Irineo B. R. Salazar, Munich
(Image created using Bing AI)
Comments
158 Responses to “Creating Opportunities in the Philippines”Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying...-
[…] Will something from the Philippines, be it Jolibee or Filipino pop, become significant globally? Will the Philippines still mostly supply resources natural and human, or will it level up its trade? […]
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Back to our hanging who are you.
Correct saying anything in the vernacular in any country can sounds ans reads different
it may mean you don’t know the phone number and you text: HU YU.
I always appreciate your historical factoids no one else can do it your way
I will tackle incremental change incrementally.
Haha, and no one can do humor quite like you, Karl. Increment away.
Thanks and will do.
“Business in the Philippines has to change a lot.” Simple and powerful. The Philippines does retail well, and services. It is improving in tourism and agribusiness. What it does not do well at all is primary manufacturing (versus piece goods shipped elsewhere).
This is plain tragic, given the huge “low labor cost” employment base (otherwise known as capable poor people). Manufacturing generates layer upon layer of jobs but the Philippine deep state is too self-absorbed to care.
I read the following article this morning. Business World does top flight journalism but I can guarantee no one in the Senate or maybe even Marcos cabinet will read this article and understand it. Maybe the NEDA guy will (Baluscan?). A lot rests on him.
In fact, he is probably the point person for your article, and business in the Philippines.
https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/10/02/625127/can-philippine-manufacturing-ever-recover/
Sigh, just another case of Filipinos trying to take shortcuts by jumping up the ladder to get to the top without taking it step by step (even at a faster pace). Then when they inevitably fall down, they just say “ouch” and try jumping again. The Philippines was at the first phase of industrial revolution which was then squandered back to square one, then now there’s talk of Industrial Revolution 4.0. The penchant for taking another short cut when the previous short cuts have failed is really frustrating. Just do things right the first time and one would’ve saved time and energy.
I think Prof. Bernardo M. Villegas has it right in his piece. As I noted before (and I’m no expert), judging from the population curve based on PSA reported data, the Philippines has 20, 30, at best 40 years to take advantage of the population boom before the current peak ages out of the workforce. At least a decade or two has already been wasted. The previous baby booms were also wasted.
The service economy in the Philippines (aside from BPO) doesn’t really generate additional revenue. I’ve always felt that it’s crazy that a large portion of the economy is run on OFW remittances and BPO income, much more than the official 20%-ish as incoming money has downstream affects supporting local economies. This is where industrialization and factory work would build a thriving local economy of support industries and services that is much more reliable as a whole than OFW or BPO that may be cut off if the service needs of foreign employers changes.
I still believe there is a good chance that if there is enough political courage to tell the far leftists and the nationalists to come up with an alternative plan, or to take a seat and get out of the way, the Philippines is still positioned well to take advantage of massive FDI to industrialize as the democratic powers of the world turn towards Asia to face the threat from China. Red tape must be removed and corruption reduced in order to gain meaningful FDI. Better late to the party than never as some may say.
By the way, that AI photo is terrific. The lake is the Philippines! Or islands in the Bay. Whatever it is. Chinese reclamation projects perhaps. 🤣😂🤣
Yes, I took that photo because it stunned me. Re manufacturing, the profit margins are, of course, not as high as “easy money” businesses, you have to have a longer horizon of investing first and making good steady money after some years. Possibly, the Philippines does not have a robust big banking system to serve as guarantors for investments like the Japanese and German big banks, given the fact that oligarchs go it alone. But as we know too easy money can be a trap, like being a prostitute only is viable until a certain age for most and allegedly few are smart enough to start own businesses. Mining and gambling destroyed Nauru, which I briefly mentioned in an older article below. The Philippines should try to avoid ending up wrecked and scarred if tourism is still to be a viable business, though it seems Palawan does it right with its eco-tourism. Just heard, though, that the level of service of Filipino tourism still needs improvement, though I also heard of Fil-Am businesses bringing in US service standards.
Yes, many export-related manufacturing activities at the lower end of the technological ladder have small profit margins, but it is a vital step in “leveling up” to manufacturing that has a higher value.
The movement of manufacturing in the US mostly in the Midwest to Appalachia towards China and other lower income countries hollowed out the entire local economy of a vast region multiples in size of the Philippines, creating the “Rust Belt” from the former “Steel Belt.” Biden has put key investments into recapitalizing idle workforce in these areas with government investment in new manufacturing, which with the confidence provided by the US government’s investment attracted even more investment from private and foreign capital.
One must also consider the local economy that is supported as well by manufacturing activity. Small businesses like dentists, doctors offices, barbers, salons, family-owned restaurants, accountants, bakers, construction workers, child care services, laundry shops, etc. Medium enterprises like parts manufacturers supplying the factory. The recent estimate of the effects of the manufacturing-heavy Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS Act place a nearly 2.8x multiplier to the economy based on every dollar spent by the US government.
“As an engine of economic growth, American manufacturers contribute more than $2.35 trillion to the U.S. economy — every dollar spent in manufacturing results in an additional $2.79 added to the economy, making it the highest multiplier effect of any sector,” said Bill LaPlante ( Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment).
https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3189049/us-manufacturing-ecosystem-key-to-economic-growth-innovation-competitiveness/
Well, the attitude of many Filipino businessmen is to make quick money. I recall a Bikolano admiring the Chinese attitude that he called “kahit konti kita marami naman” (even if little profit lots of it), meaning to be content with a small margin as long as a lot was sold. That is why Filipino restaurants abroad often lost to Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai competitors as they wanted quick big profits and were simply too expensive for what they offered.
Most Filipino oligarchs were never potential chaebol bosses or zaibatsu. Just rent-seekers.
chinese have unfair business practices like maybe sacrificing profits and selling at a loss just so competing businesses may be put out of circulation and go bust, then for chinese businesses to be jacking prices up again and gaining what was lost. they do anything to dominate the market and to get the competition into trouble and out of their way. plus they most likely have enough reserve fund to fall back on, enough to last them the long haul, reserves that many filipino businesses dont have as most are marginal operators.
consumers want what is cheap and affordable, and those that cannot offer discounts and sale of the centuries where products are sold at 50-60 per cent off the recommended retail prices, or buy one and get one free, may well lose patrons and end up broke. and even if they chase the trend setter and also offer discounts and sale of the centuries, they can barely sustain it. and go bust.
Well maybe those are the rich Chinoys who can operate at the national level. Most Chinoys in the Philippines just have small businesses, like a convenience store/water shop/printer shop, or a karenderya, maybe dry goods seller. Usually those small businesses are at the first floor of their family house.
I’ve tried to teach my Visayan friends that for example, it’s better to buy a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of shampoo rather than the mini toothpaste and sachet of shampoo. I used simple math to calculate it out how much they’d save each month that they can buy other things with. But it all went WHOOSH over their heads every single time. For my smoker friends, they just buy 1-2 sticks at a time rather than the entire pack. Their rationale is that if they buy a whole pack, then they need to give out free sticks to their friends hayst.
sometimes you have to live by your own rules, the rest can lump it!
giving or lending things to friends have consequences, and in return, they may have to pay back by donating their own kidney, haha. give and you shall receive. many things are received by giving. politicians know that quite well. filipinos no matter how f—kep up, often keep their side of the bargain and can sometimes be quite dependable. that’s their commodity.
Haha KB 😂 Well they can also do what a tambay cousin of my friend does, which is to utang from every sari sari in the area then take off and run to another municipality where he will start another family, restarting the process. Then when in doubt his elderly mother will give him spending money! 😅
And I agree, Filipinos especially Bisaya are very dependable. They’ve been great friends to me and we have had many laughs over the years. I just avoid lending them money haha.
sign seen in some sari sari stores: credit is good but we need cash.
uhm, I’m not comfy with tambay cousin’s risk behavior: having multiple partners as in starting families over again makes him good candidate for HIV-AIDS testing. he could well be spreading the disease on unsuspecting communities. if his mother is supporting him coz he has as spectrum and can barely commit and needed help, the mother is really helping.
Maybe those sari sari are tired of being taken advantage of in their kindness. The ones who run away from their utang usually are friendly and seem trustworthy, but I guess that’s how they trick others. That’s a good idea actually to have that sign, though I haven’t seen one recently in Mindanao.
The thing is they do not run away, they still get to do deficit spending and making lista
I have seen sari sari owners who are too kind, or maybe they feel pressured by the community since being inside the neighborhood the sari sari owner can be bullied by neighbors. It depends on where it is too. The bad behavior of a few seems worse out in the bukid. Small time sellers operate on trust and community so how to solve this problem that causes a lot of sari sari to go out of business, I don’t know yet.
The biggest Filipino supermarket in US/Canada is Seafood City (nearly 40 stores), founded by Carlos Go. I still remember Mr. Carlos Go doing inspection walks down the aisles of the first location in National City, California in the early 1990s. National City and the greater San Diego area has a heavy Tagalog and Ilokano population; mostly USN veterans and their families and émigrés of the Martial Law period who self-exiled then never went back after Marcos was ousted. As can be guessed by Go’s surname he is Chinoy. Nowadays his son Steve Go runs the company, but see in the link how the founder family remains “behind the scenes” and place non-Chinoy managers at the forefront; anti-Chinoy sentiment still runs deep, even outside of the Philippines.
https://www.seafoodcity.com/our-story/our-people/
I would say that historically Chinese and Vietnamese people have conducted extensive trade (and thus developed the “business mind” as some say), but the Thai people never really were a trading society as their society was more insular being a dependency for most of their history. Thai cuisine’s Western popularity actually started here in Los Angeles:
https://thaiginger.com/the-history-of-thai-food-in-america/
It seems Thai immigrants learned business and making money from new, non-Thai people they met once they immigrated. I’ve heard from Thais in Thailand also during my travel there that the development of the Thai economy had a linchpin on the Thai diaspora returning starting in the late 1980s.
As an appreciator of Filipino cuisine, I think the biggest factors holding back Filipino food taking off is the “brownness” of many dishes since many Filipinos don’t like their veggies and that family-owned Filipino restaurants see their family labor as “free” labor rather than factoring labor into the cost of doing business. When my mother had her businesses, she kept very detailed bookkeeping down to the cent… I used to help out as a child digitizing the records into Lotus 123 and later Excel. I spent some time during teenage years with some Fil-Am friends’ parents’ restaurants, and they had zero bookkeeping and just paid out workers in cash at the end of the day and the leftover was their “daily profit.” Often when something was needed such as supplies or any other reason why money needs to be paid out, the owner would just take some cash from the cash drawer (not even a cash register) and pay out. Just like things were done in the Philippines back then, and even now.
I was unofficially the designated questioner in the almost concluded BEACON expo. I got to talk to Justice Carpio about West Philippine sea and some expats on Sustainable development like the PEMSEA, Bureau Veritas of Singapore an some Undersecretaries and Academics.
That was my contribution to the country and allow me the moment to be proud o my self even for a bit.
Business World is my favorite read. Here is an uplifting bit about the Philippines intending to develop a strong blockchain center in Bataan. Cool. Modern. Doing what Irineo wants. Of course the hardened cynic I’ve become mutters under my breath, “yeah, money laundering hub.”
https://www.bworldonline.com/economy/2024/10/03/625568/freeport-area-of-bataan-gears-up-to-lead-asias-blockchain-industry
Heh, the Philippines struggles to uplift her vast poor, can’t provide reliable electricity or rice supply, yet has time and money to create a worldclass cryptocurrency center in Bataan… Certainly a playground for the rich with their excess money, and perhaps money laundering on the side as well. Priorities, priorities…
ahem, the poor has always been told to dream big and dream high, to get out of their friggin’ rat’s nest. and join the march to riches! some have answered the call and succeeded, and become nouveau rich. manny villar used to be poor and look at him now! yeah, hard act to follow, those days are gone. maybe.
the playground of the rich, but they would still need workers to clean their toilets, haha. workers to wash their windows, to cook their food, they cannot all be eating frozen food all the time and drinking champagne! and they would need pampering too, health care workers to look after their health needs, presumed or others. and they would need lawyers and accountants, and consultants, and clerks and pr machines, workers on the peripheries are needed, and to wind down at the end of the day, they would need entertainment, cinemas and theaters, concert halls and gigs. and that mean another batch of workers. hopefully paid a decent wage.
pity about our electricity, china reportedly owns the grid, though filipinos still think it is owned by filipinos, though china has the remote. filipinos the proxies.
But Irineo is correct that ambisyoso at ambisyosa means social climber or power tripping.
Pangarap is considered a good word, while ambisyon has a bad connotation.
Heneral Luna said negosyo o kalayaan. Meanwhile, there are scores of videos on financial literacy in Tagalog obviously aimed at the new middle class.
In Spanish ambicioso is considered bad as it implies someone who is controlled by their ambition. The Latin root ambitiosus also has bad undertones, implying an attitude of twisting, not straight that would run counter to Roman expectations of honorable behavior.
like they said, who dares, win.
Just don’t miss the target! 😂
Everyone being able to become a millionaire is a lie, but at least better jobs can be made so those who want to have a decent work and pay can have one.
It’s kind of hard to make factories too in the Philippines I suppose due to the prevalence of brownouts.
Yes. Aside from all the red tapes one has to hurdle to establish a business there, the cost of electric energy is prohibitive especially to factories that run massive machineries to make production possible. Duterte signed the Ease of Doing Business Act in 2018 but it looks like it just made it easy for Du30’s foreign and domestic network to use it to their advantage and has not been fruitful.
Here’s an opinion piece that captures the on the ground for the Ease of Doing Business Act. Just more red tape for honest entrepreneurs but don’t create road blocks for those gaming the system since they have attorneys and accountants.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/174007/how-not-to-grow-our-economy
No wonder most Filipino small entrepreneurs prefer to sell online where they just do direct GCash transfer and avoid paying any taxes at all. If the process was more streamlined more people might be willing to pay taxes to keep within the letter of the law…
Irineo brought up the fact that a lot of power plants were built with USAID money in the 1970s. Outside of Manila they are still using old generation plants, even in a big metro like Cebu. I feel like the only way for FDI factories to get around this is to install solar on the factory roofs and backup batteries. If the government makes doing business easier, it would attract more investment. But as always the Philippine government wants someone else to foot the bill and do all the work.
This is the worst opportunity blocker.
Tony Yang the brother of Michael imports aub standard steel. That is purely economic sabotage.
Plus of course the dundicates that fakes the documents of tge undocumented Chinese.
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/in-depth/who-is-michael-yang-brother-tony-shady-chinese-network-philippines/
filipinos are so pliantly complicit, the likes of tony yang and michael yang could not have gone farthest had they not have filipino super enablers, among them, a president, police chiefs, health chief, ombudsman, senators, congressmen and women; except the poor: they bear the brunt and got killed.
PH systemic rot makes the proliferation of disreputable and illegal businesses easy. Countries with corrupt government officials attract these businesses because it is the kind of environment that will support their viability and growth.
Yep, and many Filipinos might still believe all business is monkey business.
That opportunity is opportunistic, and abilidad is not competence, but gaming the system competently. And clean people are considered naive and weak.
This was stopped from happening thanks to red tape.
But must never be allowed to happen.
https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/19309-groups-told-aquino-don-t-lease-philippine-lands-to-china
Good if the new owners don’t sell their land to developers. Tarlac is a prime location now.
https://newsinfo-inquirer-net.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/newsinfo.inquirer.net/1988808/marcos-distributes-219-hectares-of-hacienda-luisita-land-to-farmers/amp?amp_js_v=0.1&_gsa=1#webview=1
Over here in Munich and environs, the more enterprising farmers were able to develop the land they had into apartment blocks themselves, but here there is an entire infrastructure that is in their favor – local and rural banks, stable rule of law including proper land titling, Chambers of Commerce that give advice even to the lowliest of freelancers (I realize I could have utilized that offering a bit more in my days doing business, they really were accessible) – and of course enough tradesmen and builders from similar simple origins that they could tap to convert their fields into housing when Munich started growing. It does make a difference if ordinary folks are able to have a share of the profits when a place booms, not for them to go “boom panis,” as the Visayans say. Sure, there are big developers here as well, as not all who are lucky to inherit land have the drive to do stuff by themselves, but by and large Bavaria is a land of small and medium-sized farms, I was told by a Fil-Am visiting here that the people here have something “Midwestern” about them, the looks of course and a certain independent spirit I guess. That will, of course, not necessarily be the mindset of former sharecroppers in Tarlac. BTW, some refugees from former East Germany that came to Bavaria in the 1950s were gentleman farmers driven out by collectivization. They picked up and rebuilt their existence here.
Not consequentially, many Midwesterners have their roots in German or “Dutch” (Rhenish Palatinate) ancestors, with many Germans immigrating from the Palatinate, Saxony, Rhineland, Baden-Württemberg, Alsace. Since the 1800s, Germans started moving from the Atlantic coast (Pennsylvania) inland to the Midwest since the land and climate of the Midwest is similar to what they remembered in Germany. Being in the first couple of generations of frontiersmen and homesteaders, they developed an independent mindset. US VP candidate Tim Walz’s paternal ancestors are from Kuppenheim in Baden-Württemberg.
Thanks for all info and insights.
The cooperative here must do something to leave dome productive land.
Definitely we can not have rice vertical farming but thse are sugar lands can you vertically farm sugar canes?
Ps glad that Luisita issues are almost over.
rice vertical farming, so weird that one, and yet agri dept have numerous study grants and agri research projects costing hundreds of millions year in and year out. and we are still probly at square one, no matter how much agri researches are undertaken.
farmlands are getting smaller, yeilds and produce not enough, climate change the number one enemy, and still we have academic research one after another, food security their aim. and we are getting uber good at importing rice, importing sugar, and other produce.
I guess the ppp law which on paper makes things easier for everyone will make sponsoring implementation more of a possibility.
All we have to do are lay down all what the private sector can get in return.
Well sorry but that is how the cookie crumbles, I venture
Rice and sugar cane vertical farming could be possible if we ask Sen Villar for R&D grant to study how they could be turned into vines. If we can produce multi-branch vining rice and sugar canes, PH will be next global economic superstar.
If her daughter wins in the Senate I really hope she is pro R and D
previously, we have drought resistant rice that dont need much water to grow and gotten golden (yellow) rice. yellow or gold rice was developed to address vit a deficiency as most filipinos dont have enough vit a in their diet. kaso, the rice was genetically modified and people were scared to eat it.
I think, we should revive the golden rice. these days, genetically modified foodstuff are common as in canola oil. canolas are now modified and resistant to plant diseases. same maybe with soya beans.
I think you are right and maybe Geneticslly engineered trees will also be a thing like cocolisap proof ge coconut trees.
Aside from the number of Negosyo Centers being opened is there an accounting of how many businesses are in fact being started and how they are fairing? And are the folks being helped DE?
Thanks, that is probably most important. Really, no idea. Maybe Karl is able to contribute to that.
There is an entire infrastructure missing for small and medium-sized business there that for instance exists here in Germany: access to loans via local banks and rural banks (the Sparkasse or savings bank helps fund many a tradesman or master of trades with an own business over here, be it a painter, a plumber, an electrician, a “roofer” or even builders that have entire teams; the venerable Raiffeissenbank helps farmers and the like), access to a somewhat stable rule of law (including a proper land titling system) and institutional supports like for instance the Munich Chamber of Commerce that offers all sorts of discounted courses for freshly minted business people to ramp up their skills. I have zero idea as to what exactly Negosyo Centers offer, and given the Filipino penchant for window-dressing, I am skeptical.
I’ve attended seminars with friends before at the negosyo center in Cebu in Lapu-Lapu and UP Cebu. Negosyo centers are a good idea, but here are the problems on why they are not very successful:
1.) Many aspiring “business people” see making a business as a magic bullet to instant wealth. Quite a few less educated Filipinos love get rich quick schemes, which always fail.
2.) My friends seemed to try to abuse the finance options as “easy money” and spent it on wants, and not their alleged “business.”
3.) Just like personal loans in the Philippines, many borrowers simply run away from their utang and don’t pay it back. When challenged to repay, they will either feign ignorance or outright get aggressive and indignant. There’s a reason why 5-6 is effective — the “bombays” enforce payment. Same goes for handing over ATM debit cards to BPO coworkers who run personal lending on the side to their office mates.
4.) If someone needs the resources of a negosyo center, then they don’t know how to make a successful business in the first place.
5.) If negosyo center “advisors” can provide good business advice, they probably wouldn’t be working as an advisor for a negosyo center.
6.) Even if someone is serious with making a micro or small business, the lending terms are often onerous in paperwork requirements for even small amounts.
7.) There’s usually very little follow-up from the negosyo center advisors except to remind on loan repayment.
8.) Those who start micro and small businesses usually don’t have any concept of plowing back a portion of their profit into investing in growing the business — they just spend it all, or are pressured to give money to family/friends.
I started my first business in college with $300 I had saved up. First I served local small business clients, graduating to medium business clients. I spent a lot of time researching, which usually involved reading thick tomes on business practices and the field I was providing services in (this is before the days of Google being the go-to for information). I re-invested in the business in order to provide more services to clients to generate more revenue. My real breakthrough was when I had my first mentor. My mentor guided me with knowledge I did not have access to, and allowed me to tackle other fields and clients. Following a series of mentors gained by professional networking, I was able to reach corporate clients as an independent consultant. Having strong mentors who give their advice essentially for free is extremely important in my opinion, and is often overlooked in the Philippines.
“5.) If negosyo center “advisors” can provide good business advice, they probably wouldn’t be working as an advisor for a negosyo center.”
“My mentor guided me with knowledge I did not have access to, and allowed me to tackle other fields and clients.” Thanks, Joey. I can totally see Negosyo Center “advisors” as political appointees eg. nepotism. just another layer of corruption. My question now is are there other programs or groups (i guess like Masons, or PMA batch etc. etc.) that can provide said venue for mentorship. Ireneo, maybe do a blog on Filipino groups and mentorship as part 2? like in Munich or other parts of EU, i’d be curious about the 2 year citizenship program in Spain if there are Filipino groups or Spanish groups in place to ensure success, maybe import those programs to the Philippines.
I see promising signs of first Filipino migrant businesses succeeding in what seems to be more than just “one-time big-time” in Europe, but probably, this is just the start, and few have the headspace to mentor yet.
When in doubt, one could always make a balikbayan service a la “SBC Packers.”
Interesting though. I have seen the younger members of the Filipino diaspora here in the US or Canada start to make businesses as well outside of the traditional Filipino restaurant or balikbayan service. But then again these younger diaspora members can’t speak their mother tongue and their exposure to Filipino culture is maybe just knowing what lumpia and pancit is. They are 3rd or 4th gen by now.
A lot of real estate agents for condos in the Philippines among migrants in Germany now. Whew, I have a bad feeling about those condos. There probably is a lot of basura being sold, fool’s bargains.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/muppet/images/7/7a/Air.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200117031750
Wait, why are the real estate agents of property in the Philippines living overseas? Are they scamming Filipinos with badly built condo units marketed to the new lower middle class, then stashing the money overseas? I did notice a lot of newer condo units being quickly and shoddily built. A lot of those condo units in the Cebu area were heavily damaged by Odette… I’m sure a lot got rebuilt on the now cleared land, then will probably fall over again during the next bagyo. Not really sure why it was someone’s idea to build California-style condos in a typhoon-prone area. I would’ve preferred concrete or at least rebar reinforced hollowblock/brick.
The major condo developers are present at some overseas Filipino events. One even sponsored a bus trip within Germany, I wonder if they do that often. Maybe new nurses are their market?
The real estate agents are at the lowest end of the food chain, similar to insurance agents some decades ago (someone tried to recruit me once) or even cobradores for the one regular (but short-lived) hueteng game in a Filipino community I knew about. The joke song about a couple who was most enthusiastic at selling tickets was “Knew You were Hueteng” inspired by George Michael and Aretha, so when that was is clear. Someone once tried to recruit me as a sales agent for mango products to Asian stores, I saw red flags and stopped. There was also a rattan furniture producer who wanted me to find clients but never sent me a price list. German stores I talked to all insisted on a price list. Also common until the 1990s here were small-scale remittance agents. Pinoy stores, restaurants, Balikbayan box senders came and went..
Well this is how I see it: Filipino scammers are willing to scam those who they think it won’t have a big affect on financially. It seems that even while scamming, Filipinos are pious enough to consider the amount of bad karma incurred. This is why scamming OFW, nurses abroad, feels less guilty. Even more so if AFAM is scammed since all foreign men are rich apparently in their countries paved with gold! Personally I’ve been the target of AFAM scams before, which were ineffective on me. I’ve heard plenty of American guys here crying over a beer with their friends at the bar about how their Filipina “girlfriend” they were giving all their spare money to turned out to have “another” local boyfriend.
As for nurses being targeted in real estate schemes. I think the condo units or houses are very real. I see them sprouting up all over Cebu and Mindanao in the last 2 decades. I’m no master builder but I’ve built homes for Catholic charity and Habitat for Humanity, personally rebuilt my ex’s parents house, and my building technique is better than what I’ve seen. Since most of those new build condos use wood frame construction I’m familiar with here in California, the wooden skeleton stage at least looks structurally unsound to me. I had a Cebuana nurse mentee in Mindanao once, who I had advised not to buy a luxury unit for her parents but she didn’t take my advice. Poor girl funneled all her earnings working in a rural hospital here in the US to buy her parents a house so they can be elevated to rural high class. They were living in a barely serviceable home before that was 3 decades old, made with scrap wood and tarpaulin. She bought a brand new truck for her laborer father too when he had only driven Hondas before. Within weeks family and neighbors started coming asking for stuff or help. She wasn’t just supporting her siblings and parents but practically the entire clan. Anyway the house was termite ridden within 5 years or so.
I don’t think those business schemes you were introduced on to be scams per se. Maybe just badly thought out business plans. I wonder how those Filipinos got their money to invest in a business — maybe through an OFW or abroad family member. My take on a lot of Filipino businesses is they adopt a YOLO attitude. If they make money they strike it rich. If they lost it all, well they hadn’t invested the money or time to begin with. Their relative had invested the money, while targeting an abroad like you takes care of the work part.
Around my area in the Los Angeles suburbs pinoys mostly own small scale stores that don’t seem to make much money. Restaurants come and go, even the ones with good cooks. Balikbayan senders are mostly reduced to LBC and the upstart service Johnny Air Cargo. For remittances those who can’t speak English well use LBC or Johnny Air, while those who are a bit older but can speak English use Western Union. Younger people like me exclusively use Wise. So even in terms of businesses it seems to be taken over by western firms or Chinoy owned businesses.
Full ACK on Pinoy scams and YOLO business mindset, as well as harebrained “investments”. I am quite happy that I quit on those weird business schemes, and all I had wasted was time. As for Filipinas exploiting AFAMs and sending money to a Pinoy boyfriend, whew lots of stories like that here, one sending money to a Bikol kotong cop or a Filipina divorced from a German computer expert (a real weirdo) going for a Pinoy TNT who was a bit of a Tagalog gangster. There also were the more often quoted stories in German and Filipino media in the 1980s of Filipinas in the clutches of a certain type of German who wanted a compliant Asian wife. Though some were surprised at Filipinas turning the tables. Or the too nice Germans used by the Filipina’s relatives. The recent ABS-CBN and GMA drama “Unbreak my Heart” is caught in those clichés (applied to Switzerland) even as they are no longer the norm nowadays, Germans being more cosmopolitan and Filipinas coming here a far cry from those of the 90s or 70s.
But re business, there are new things going on here I haven’t quite grasped yet, like a Filipino in Milan taking over an actual Italian restaurant, a Filipino Swiss bakery near Zurich or the Filipino Italian fusion restaurant in Malta shown below, so there may be more to come. There is also a small Filipino owned hotel in a German town I won’t mention as they kind of steer clear of talk in the community due to crab, and I guess that will mean no mentors on a larger scale for now.
https://lovinmalta.com/food/filipino-cuisine-meets-italian-check-out-this-unique-fushion-in-valletta/
I was invited into investment schemes too, which was a hard no for me since as a foreigner I can’t maintain majority control. Plus when running a business one needs to oversee it. Silent investor schemes in the Philippines usually end up going sideways and failing, with the investor losing their capital.
The AFAM scams are actually getting worse with the advent of cheap Android phones and cheaper hotspot data. Even girls living under bamboo and tarpaulins next to the river are engaging in scamming nowadays to support themselves and their local boyfriend. Not so many from Luzon anymore though, or even Cebu. Most are concentrated in Mindanao. I don’t feel bad at all for foreign guys who expect a compliant woman as most are hambogero and regressive in thinking. There a lot of Western engineer types who are socially awkward, but are serious about relationship that get scammed and I feel quite bad for those. There are countless FB groups nowadays dedicated to sharing tips and conquests for AFAM Hunting.. some have hundreds of thousands of members. It’s also a popular topic for Filipino socmed influencers. Many times the entire family, and even the local boyfriend are “in on” the scam. In my ex’s squatter neighborhood in Bankal, that was the goal of many young women. They’d compete with each other on who has more modern appliances and electronics. While attending a Christmas dinner a few years back in Bankal, one young woman (early 20s) brought her senior Japanese fiancé, only for the Australian fiancé to call on the new iPhone given by the Japanese. Then the Ford Ranger parked outside was lent by an American guy 😅 the men were all hambogero so I didn’t feel bad for them, except the Japanese guy who was humble.
I checked out that restaurant and it looks good, though probably would be outside of the price range of most Filipino immigrants. Food presentation is key though if a Western audience is to be developed. Filipino food is good but is often… brown. In my own cooking I fuse techniques from different cultures I encountered with the goal to bring out color while staying close to authenticity.
https://www.gabinascuisine.com
This place is pretty good in San Diego. Their food is quite pinoy and is presented in an authentic way that appeals.
“Most are concentrated in Mindanao” – funny coincidence that the place in Mindanao reported recently as having a lot of AFAM hunters is Dapitan. Oh well, Rizal taught them to be self-reliant and industrious!
https://www.cafe-86.com/locations ever tried Cafe 86 in Chino Hills? They often have the Wish Bus parked outside when a Filipino group is in LA and have them performing there. Their menu sounds good, though it is more of a bakery.
Dapitan definitely, concentrated mostly around Rizal University. But at least those students can speak English. Many are spread around Mindanao too since they teach each other and spread word of mouth in their neighborhoods. What was really shocking is that random women “cold call” foreign men on FB/IG or use dating apps to try to strike up a relationship. I got the former. Not too interested in that sort of thing so they usually move on from me… I have heard from men here in the US they get cold calls or cold reach outs also. For a single divorced guy who’s a bit lonely, that’s the targeted victims. There’s tons of FB groups dedicated to AFAM Hunting. If you ever see a young woman who suddenly has many luxury things, well, that’s how they usually got it 😅 There’s even a subset of pinoys nowadays who allow their partner or even encourage it, since the guy will enjoy the fruits of the labor too. I guess it’s a new type of business!
I usually go to Cafe 86’s location in Chula Vista (San Diego area) but I’ve been to the Chino Hills one too. I forgot Chino Hills has a good number of Fil-Ams since houses were cheaper there and are/were subdivision new builds. Terrible place to live though… there’s not many good paying jobs nearby so need to drive into Orange County or Los Angeles for work. Traffic might be 1-2 hours a day both ways. Cafe 86 is more like a fancy Filipino bakery serving trendy versions of traditional Filipino baked goods. I believe Cafe 86 was modeled after the very popular Taiwanese bakery chain 85 Degrees. As I’m getting older I need to mind my carb/sugar intake so I don’t have much of a sweet tooth.
I don’t think the negosyo center advisors are political appointees or examples of nepotism. Nepotism needs the requirement of exchange of favors. I’m quite sure most negosyo center advisors are just regular hired workers trying their best and reading from scripts based on their training (or lack of training).
Not sure how the Masons would be very helpful here. Most modern Masons are deluded people who have remade modern facsimiles of what they “think” masonic lodges were in the past. Historical Masons were usually wealthy sons, who were also usually quite educated, and had ideas of how to affect positive change to society. Not so with current so-called Masons.
Also not sure how PMA graduates are able to help either, unless they have went into business after their military career.
See there are actually A LOT of diaspora Filipinos who are very educated, successful, occupy positions of power in business, government, society. The problem lies in that not many seem to want to go back to the Philippines to mentor young Filipinos. Every other ethnic diaspora I can think of has quite a few members of that diaspora eventually going back to their ancestral country to help build society or business.
The Philippine diaspora is NOT YET where the Iranian diaspora is at. Germany is full of Iranians from the educated middle class that Khomeini drove out. They have an infinite sadness in them as home isn’t home anymore.
The diaspora that left due to Marcos at least still had hope, but Duterte was horrible for most, and even as some now may be relieved that Marcos Jr. is running a relatively conventional administration, many may give up if Inday Sara wins in 2028.
I wonder how many Fil-Ams with US military background might feel about a possible Chinese aligned Philippines if that happens, will it be similar to how Nicholas Taleb, a Greek Orthodox Lebanese, feels his old home had changed its identity?
I think the comparison to the Iranian (Persian) diaspora is a bit imperfect. I would put the Iranian diaspora closer to the feelings of the Vietnamese diaspora, where even nearly 50 years of separation for both groups from their motherland still hasn’t extinguished both the feelings of sadness and desire to go back to improve the ancestral land. The Vietnamese diaspora is already doing so since the 1995 and increasing the pace since the 2000s; the Vietnamese diaspora played and continues to play a crucial role in Vietnam’s economic rise by bringing back expertise and investment during a time prior to investment from larger companies. The Iranian diaspora hasn’t had that chance yet due to a fanatical religious group still controlling their homeland, but I’d imagine they would do so if given the chance with the wealth and expertise they have built up in the US and UK.
I haven’t seen the same level of returning expertise and investment by diaspora Filipinos. Fil-Ams are the second highest earning ethnic group in the US (far above average White families) as in general most Filipino immigration was by middle class and up families who were able to take their wealth and education with them. Fil-Ams are well represented in companies, private business, and government positions. It just seems that by the 2nd or 3rd generation, they just don’t have an interest in going back to invest, or even to visit.
Hmm… most older Fil-Ams with US military backgrounds (that would be mostly US Navy) are quite conservative and pro-MAGA. I have never seen so many MAGA flags as driving through the Filipino heavy cities around San Diego like I did last week in National City while visiting a friend. Recent immigrant Filipinos usually adopt the politics of their foreign husband, which is usually MAGA or at least very conservative. When they later sponsor visas for their family members, I’ve found that those family members are usually hardcore Duterte supporters and so MAGA is a natural fit for their worldview. Fil-Am liberals who are Democrats are usually older, more educated middle class immigrants from the Martial Law period or before. I do personally know a few Fil-Am veterans who are now fighting in Ukraine though. Younger military vets occupy a similar cross section of other Americans, some conservative, some liberal, but it seems to lean liberal a bit, maybe center left. Perhaps those younger guys would be interested to go back to the Philippines for Mango Ave. or Fields Ave., but I doubt they would stay to build.
Hmm.. very sad, but it is corroborated by what I know of the Philippine diaspora over here by now – even fellow Pinks that I got to know due to May 2022, or who contacted me as I was still a “well-known Twitter influencer” back then.
Patriotism is not so deep, actually. Of course, it has to do with the Filipino nation being a very recent construct of some elites, while the bayan defined by Andres Bonifacio wasn’t all the people as there was no way to reach them all. They didn’t have the same language even. The only time I ever was in Cebu, in 1975, there still were old people who spoke neither English nor Tagalog. The joke of a Bikolano getting into a fight in Manila because he points to fish sold in the market and says sirâ is from just after WW2. The story of a Manong yelling at young ladies studying in Manila for still speaking Tagalog after crossing Tuguegarao bridge is early 1980s. The Visayan brides of Germans in the late 1980s were unfamiliar to both the old migrants and the Embassy Staff, who were nearly all Luzonian. The first folks from Davao or Pagadian here..
Well, maybe the Philippines will manage to define itself realistically on a deeper level at some point and move from there. Then it will no longer need myths, except perhaps Trese. As a special bonus for LCPL_X, I add the video of Judas singing what might also apply to Bonifacio.
“Israel of 4 BC didn’t have no mass communication!” After all, it took until the early 1970s for most Filipinos to have at least battery operated transistor radios. Rural electrification started off then due to USAID. Socmed etc later.
Isko played Bonifacio in the movies, but that didn’t make him Bonifacio in spirit. Cesar Montano is not Rizal. The country relies too much on saviors anyway, then makes them into statues.
I don’t think there was anything wrong with making a new national construct. The problem I see is that the project was only half-heartedly carried out, and due to lack of adequate inputs from the Visayan groups they felt disrespected thus opposed. It would’ve been better to build a nation based on English nationally while still keeping the regional languages. I still have a hard time accepting the official view that the various languages are but “dialects.” Dialects of proto-Central Philippine maybe… but even then some languages are not within that family outside of Tagalog and Visayan languages.
Singapore actually provides a great model of how seemingly disparate ethnicities are able to come together to build a country. Singapore is an even “younger” national construct than the Philippines. They were able to do it because everyone agreed on a common language and worked together. I find it both amusing yet sad that many Filipinos seem to see Singapore as a model yet don’t understand what it took to build a Singapore besides the “dictator but good dictator” part.
Your stories about different Filipinos finally interacting due to increased opportunity to travel between the islands reminds me of my first forays into Cebu and beyond where I was not aware of false friend words between Tagalog and Cebuano. I certainly got some amused looks, other times I got glares of “how dare” I use Tagalog in a Cebuano area. This was in the early 2000s.
Speaking of USAID and electrification. I found out that a lot of power plants built then are still in use now and are in a dilapidated condition. Energy inefficient and producing a lot more pollution than necessary due to age. It reminds me of Puerto Rico, where even though it is part of the US, the local administration has done a bad job governing so they have bad basic services and electric supply. At least Puerto Rico has the US to fall back on, or their residents can migrate to the mainland since they were made US citizens decades ago.
The regional languages are no longer officially dialects, even if the notion that they are still often lingers. Bisaya is as different from Tagalog as Dutch from German or Portuguese from Spanish. I am familiar with Spanish and good in Tagalog and German but pick up just a little in Bisaya, Dutch, or Portuguese – never full sentences, of course. Dialects of Spanish like Cuban with its singsong I get if spoken slowly and some specific words I may not understand, just like with Batangas Tagalog, or Swabian German – no problem with Swiss and Bavarian dialects.
Yes, the elite failed to put its effective stamp on the nation, unlike Italian nationalists who managed to make Florentine spoken by just a few after unification the national language “Italian”, though there the islands of Sicily and Sardinia predictably held out and still hold out. Malaysia and Indonesia were lucky to still have the lingua franca Bahasa, which in Indonesia conceals otherwise obvious Javanese dominance. Coulda shoulda woulda, either all English or all Tagalog or maybe even Bikolano as the language between Tagalog and Visayan, but too late.
One could say the present nation was formed by the school system first and media later, by internal migrations first and OFW migration later, and finally by Cebu Pacific. What it will become is, for better or for worse, possibly hardly in anyone’s hands. But let us all see.
I’ll have to find out when regional languages were no longer considered dialects. Even younger Filipinos still refer to regional languages as dialects and get very confused when I attempt to explain — I guess decades of education pushing the dialect narrative is hard to shake. You should be careful with your Spanish though Irineo, you might get invited by the Hispanistas like they did to me hehe. The Hispanistas are probably the most out of touch group of pinoys I ever interacted with.
The Third Republic project to make “Filipino” the national language makes me think of the movement of European academics back then to push for Esperanto as a common language. A bit out of touch with the common people’s usage of language I think. But with Spanish being the “lingua franca” in the islands for hundreds of years among those who were literate, then being replaced by English, everyone should’ve just stayed on English. Despite the various movements to have a common European lingua franca, the history of lingua franca across the world points to each being the dominant trading language at the time period — so no surprise that English became the lingua franca of modern Europe and the world. At times I think the revolutionary zeal of Filipinos ends up shooting themselves in the foot with trying to indigenize everything.
Going back to the Philippines, I think English eventually will become the common language tying everything together. Or at least a blending of Taglish and Bislish. I don’t know if you noticed as well, but ever since the facilitation of internal movement by Cebu Pacific, more and more Bisaya words are entering the national lexicon.
Re dialects, even Morissette Amon, who had to take Tagalog courses to get by in Manila when her career there started, calls her Bisaya language her dialect, and she is just 28 years old. By definition, you don’t need a language course when you move from, let’s say, the Appalachians or Brooklyn (both places that might still have strong dialects) or from York to London – the York dialect is like all British dialects WAY stronger than any US dialect, I still recall British Youtube reactors from there proudly saying it’s easier for them to pronounce the A in Tagalog songs..
Allegedly, “bakla” is not an original Tagalog word. It is Bisaya, we were told in the 1970s. Ewan. There was a time in high school (I was Pisay batch 1982, and we had a hitherto unprecedented mingling of people from different regions) when “buang” trended among the girls, I wonder why. Well, MLQ3 did write in a blog that Visayan influence has made Manila Tagalog way simpler in its grammar than ever before. Of course, there will be Visayan stars like Morissette, Maymay Entrata, KZ Tandingan, and Visayan talkshows like Kuan on One that influence the people.
As for English, it is a safe bet that it will stay in an official capacity while the language of the streets keeps evolving, as teachers of Filipino are most probably still teaching what is now an ancient tongue as Filipino language evolution is in an extremely dynamic phase at this time. What I found interesting was the use of “now na” as “ngayon” is too vague. I have read articles about how Germany’s sense of time changed when trains were introduced and industrialization kicked in. Even without studies, one can see how the 1950s Philippines was a different place.
First here are statistics on Startups.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1342728/philippines-number-of-startups/#:~:text=The%20Philippines%20have%20has%20around,keep%20growing%20in%20succeeding%20years.
The number of beneficiaries reached 13000.
https://gonegosyo.ph/beneficiaries-from-go-negosyos-kmme-program-reach-13000/#:~:text=More%20than%2013%2C000%20entrepreneurs%20from,in%20Muslim%20Mindanao%20(BARMM).
DATA from the Trade Department
https://dtiwebfiles.s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/Transparency+Seal/2019+Transparency+Seal/IV.+Projects%2C+Programs+and+Activities%2C+Beneficiaries%2C+and+Status+of+Implementation/2020/Status+of+Implementation+of+LFPs+and+FAPs_21B19.pdf
On reflection, while we do not know much about the pre-Spanish Filipino culture due to gaps in the historical record, a record often recorded by others, one can look to similar raiding cultures oceans away. The proto-Scandinavians’ raiding culture were expeditions to gain luxury goods they themselves did not produce, while those “back home” lived on subsistence farming or herding. But mostly, raids were conducted to capture foodstuffs where food was scarce in the Northern climate of their home territories. While often romanticized, these early Scandinavian cultures were groupings of minor chieftains who sometimes submitted to a paramount chieftain. Undoubtedly, one can imagine that the more “pure” ones who remained in the Nordic regions looked with disdain on their clansmen who set down roots in the British Isles and Northern Europe, adopting the local culture, eventually becoming lords and kings.
And so, the modern “bayani” — the OFWs who send regular remittance home supplement their family’s meager resources, also continue the age old life of subsistence where a family does not know if their food stocks will last until the next payday. Like the seamen of the past, many OFW are also barely surviving, hoping that their labor will pay out in the end and the journey will be successful.
Those Filipinos who leave permanently may be seen akin to traitors to their tribe. After all, the bayani who accompany the chieftain are expected to come back bearing gifts. We can see many echoes of this in modern Filipino culture. There is the word “handa” (preparing) and the related “handaan” (feast). Those waiting back home will make handa for the handaan the returning bayani will provide with their spoils. Those who adopt a life overseas apart from their birthplace may be seen as ungenerous, even untrustworthy. After all in my travels of the Philippines I’ve found that the common gesture of trust making is to give gifts, preferably generously.
Of course in the modern context, judging as many OFW work in low skill or menial work, supporting and growing a nation depending on success based on this OFW bayani spirit is not reliable. Many Filipinos can’t engage in subsistence farming anymore due to moving off of ancient lands and crowding into urban shantytowns. Those who remain in the bukid seem to have largely lost their skills to farm, or face the fact that subsistence farming cannot support a modern, dignified life at even a simple level.
It would seem that pre-colonial Philippines was not a nation of builders. But what if the bayani spirit can be reframed into another context? After all, humans have an ability to reinvent ourselves and even pay homage to our cultural past after the remaking. Manufacturing can be a new way of creating, just like farming creates sustenance out of the soil that the ancient barangay worked on for generations. A new generation of young Filipino graduates specialized in different fields could become the new bayani, striking out onto the global marketplace with indigenous companies. Thus a transformation for the modern age and into the future can happen, while respecting the ancient heritage common at the root of all Filipino cultural groups.
My prior observations of the D and E classes developing home grown grit and ingenuity through BPO work, VA services for overseas clients, while continuing the “side hustle” are but examples of young Filipinos who refuse to be held back by a laggard government that seems to constantly be in a state of torpor. But while slow progress can be made by these self-starter pioneers breaking down the walls that hold them back, would it not be better if the government can assist in facilitating a clear path?
The Philippines will keep moving to the future, bad governance or complacent corporations be dammed. It is a question of how fast and when, not if it will be possible. As Filipinos become more connected to the outside world, they will start to ask why the Philippines can’t be where other nations are too. Filipino leaders in government or business have an opportunity to be part of that transformation, or they should get out of the way to clear a path for those who want to move forward.
“Those Filipinos who leave permanently may be seen akin to traitors to their tribe. After all, the bayani who accompany the chieftain are expected to come back bearing gifts.” – unless they regularly return and/or successively take their tribe or clan with them. In a never published study of Filipino migration to Germany, which my brother and I typed on the C64 our father had bought for us, my father compared modern Filipino migration to old Austronesian migration. Lots of Filipinos there tried to get relatives over to Germany, and many also tried to utilize Germany as a stepping stone to the USA if they already had family there. That batch of Filipinos was composed mostly of Tagalogs and Ilokanos, BTW. The next batch of Filipinos that came, I was able to observe as I worked for Embassy and Honorary Consulates – was mostly Bisaya. Visas for nursing were no longer available then, so they came via marriage. I knew three sisters. One had met her German husband in Malaysia, and she then invited her two sisters to visit and quickly got them introduced to divorced friends of her husband.
After all, even the bayan of old was a fluid unit, balangays or clan groupings within it could shift to the bayan of another datu if it was better for their kaginhawaan. One could see migration as balangays taking to sea as the bayan itself can’t provide for them.
“Filipinos can’t engage in subsistence farming anymore” possible 2 million people inhabited the archipelago in 1571. Around ten million in 1898 and just over 20 million in Magsaysay’s time, making the two million who visited his funeral truly significant. No space today for old farming. Some residents of UP Balara had pigs and chickens. We often heard pigs getting slaughtered. Nowadays slum dwellers in Metro Manila often eat pagpag. Not even space left for kangkong.
“Pre-colonial Philippines was not a nation of builders.” No Borubudor, as there was no need for royal or priestly representation yet. And typhoons. It is not a coincidence, I believe, that Manila, Cebu, and Sulu as the first major towns are either far enough from where typhoons first hit or have a mountain range to protect them like Manila. Plus, in abundance, no need for Pharaohs to control the water supply. When the Spanish came, they found localized irrigation along the Bikol river but nothing grander. The legendary Handyong of Ibalon never was a Pharaoh.
“humans have an ability to reinvent ourselves and even pay homage to our cultural past after the remaking.” Exactly. Look at today’s Vikings who espouse human rights instead of raiding the coasts of Europe and no longer believe in Valhalla but in Protestantism.
“The Philippines will keep moving to the future, bad governance or complacent corporations be dammed. It is a question of how fast and when, not if it will be possible.” Oh well, when my parents arrived back from Europe with a three year old kid (me) in 1968, the peso and Deutsche Mark had a 1:1 exchange rate. The Philippines was still richer than Sokor and Singapore. The DM peso rate was I think 4:1 when we left again in 1982. Singapore had surpassed the Philippines. Now, the Philippines is close to being surpassed by many other ASEAN countries. There have been so many lost chances and constant beginnings that it gets a bit frustrating.
“they will start to ask why the Philippines can’t be where other nations are too.” Many already did that in 2016 and blamed the dilawan for everything, voting Duterte, hoping for “Singapore.”
Re leaving permanently: legends like Datu Puti or the legend behind Ati-Atihan seem to indicate that groups that lost in the fight over power and resources often moved either up the hills or across the sea.
DDS often told dilawan to leave the country if they had criticism, possibly a reflection of an older mindset that you either are with the new chief or not.
That’s the pattern of Filipino migration to the US also — Tagalogs from the middle classes first, then Ilokanos who usually served in the US Navy, and lastly were Bisaya who came through marriage. It was relatively rare to hear someone speaking Cebuano, Waray and Ilonggo in the US until the last decade or so. All my Fil-Am peers are Tagalogs who were able to bring at least part of their wealth or education over from the Philippines. My friend who I made my first visit to the Philippines with is a Tagalog from Batangas whose parents are both MD graduates of UP Manila College of Medicine. Most Bisaya due to living on the old “periphery” in relation to those who can live in Manila had lesser educational opportunities, and at least Bisaya women are quick to recognize the value of foreign pairings in terms of opportunity. So it seems the story of the various waves to Germany is quite similar as the waves to the US.
I had a discussion once long ago during my early college years. GMA was newly elevated to the Presidency at the time. We had discussed about the shifting loyalties of the DE classes based on which politician they think would benefit them to be akin to the migration of balangays in the ancient past. Though in the ancient times medium sized or even smaller islands might have a dozen or more datus for the migrating family to choose from compared to today where the major politicians who often seem to be different variations of the same flavor.
I did try to teach some urban farming for vegetables and kangkong during my time in Manila, since gardening and hydroponic farming is of interest to me. Growing up as a poor kid, we squatted the empty lot next to our rented house to plant vegetables. Okra, talong, ampalaya, kalabasa, patola, kamatis, sitaw, abitsuwelas, etc. We planted kangkong in an old children’s wading pool we scavenged from behind the thrift store. Amusingly as both of my parents had been rich, they had no concept of farming or planting; they just did a trial and error based on what they remembered the hired help had done on their family farms. It seems a lot of vegetables for Vietnamese are similar to Filipino vegetables! Anyway, so the people I tried to teach in the Manila slums were more interested on *me* planting and them *asking* which obviously didn’t work out since I wasn’t going to be able to stay long enough until harvest. In Marikina though and other places with a river nearby, riverside dwellers usually planted something beside the river. It was a bit gross however since the rivers are very polluted, with people washing clothes or dumping food/human waste directly into the river.
Civilizations usually become more organized due to generating agricultural or farm surplus, which requires building progressively larger settlements in order to protect the “stuff.” Surplus allows for trading to get “other stuff” the civilization can’t get or make themselves. Permanent settlements usually build more long lasting structures and so on until we get to temples and palaces. Even with Manila, Cebu and Sulu being relatively protected from typhoons due to mountain ranges compared to the flatter lowlands, even if a typhoon hits houses were probably easy to rebuild due to being made of largely bamboo and palm fronds. Supplies to build native structures and needs were abundant. When harvests failed, just looking at the wild food available in the less populated areas of the Philippines even today, I’m sure people back then were fine. Some Filipinos I talked to who were similarly educated wondered out loud that maybe the reason why Filipinos have a hard time adjusting to concepts like saving, planning ahead, organizing at a larger scale is that the ancestors simply never had to and the nation as a whole never changed from that base habit.
The biggest factor in the Viking raids stopping was the introduction of Christianity in the 800s, along with communities that the Vikings historically raided becoming better defended. The Scandinavians evolved their thinking, instead of adopting “foreign” ideas as a bad veneer. The change happened in a matter of 100-200 years, and by 100 years after converting to Christianity, they had started conducting crusades to Finland and the Baltics to try to bring Christianity to the Baltic peoples. Today of course they are an advanced society, having taken part in all the advancements of other European countries. There are countless examples of other societies doing the same, but not the Philippines.
I think the immediate post-war period of relative prosperity, while for sure being led by better leaders, I think one cannot discount the massive amount of help the US had poured in. And there was still a large American business presence with the not yet expired licenses/concessions that continually brought in investment. I feel that a lot of Filipinos mistake this prosperity brought on by American investments as Filipinos “doing it ourselves,” which is a big mistake in my opinion. There’s no shame in accepting help when needed. South Koreans and Japanese will readily acknowledge that “the Americans” helped out their respective countries a great deal, to allow their countries to be where it is now. I feel that with the pivot to confront China, the Philippines has a big chance and advantage being at a strategic location to take advantage of new help to build the country… if it isn’t squandered again by someone like Marcos Sr.
Interesting point on DDS telling Dilawan to leave the country if they have criticism. This one might be a base human instinct. There are many MAGA here in the US who tell non-MAGA to leave the country if they opposed as well.
On Singapore: The DDS phenomenon of 2016 until now only latched onto the authoritarian aspect of LKK, thinking that LKK’s authoritarianism as the “good dictator” was what made Singapore into a fabulously rich nation, despite not having land or resources. DDS willfully or not disregarded that Singapore’s rise was a collective effort by all Singaporeans, whether they were British, Chinese, Indian or Malay to agree on a new national identity and work together to achieve it. LKK only strictly enforced the laws that were already agreed upon by all. So basically DDS wanted to take shortcuts without doing the hard work. Same behavior as all the other failed attempts before their rise.
My opinion aligns with JP, baby steps no.giant leaps. And no greesing your way to shortcuts and also no bulldozing. Or else you will always be far sighted.
https://business.inquirer.net/482791/contributing-to-the-economic-vision-for-the-philippines
such filipinos visionaries complete with titles, humdingers and all. now we have to wait and see how well they can get us out of the doldrums and into the promised land. already finance sec recto is bleeding philhealth dry, billions of fund being waylaid and transferred, all that money just lying around and doing nothing, allowed to accumulate and gather dust, will finally get to work its butts off!
a labyrinth of agencies entrusted with aforementioned economic visions, all under the control of the president. ahem.
I agree with JP too. I liken development to be like climbing a ladder. The first one to go often needs to climb slowly and carefully. The subsequent climbers can depend on their friend at the top and friend at the bottom to watch their progression and warn of dangers while they can climb faster. There’s folly in going at things alone when one can have friends to help watch out.
Since the US is now building so many semiconductor factories that will come online within the next decade, the Philippines has an opportunity to join the supply chain as a chip packaging destination for finished chips. It would require less electricity and water than chipmaking itself, but if the Philippines can make a better electricity supply it can be a start of a good opportunity. Malaysia and Indonesia got on this in the last chipmaking factory building boom and the sector anchors their economies.
Yep, it is about leveling up. Observations about all sorts of places that have success stories show that progression. And often, the progression is very extreme, like California from the Gold Rush until today.
The rise of California in the Gold Rush was due to mixing of many cultures: the various regions of the US, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Mexican immigrants. But the real skyrocket rise of California was during the Golden Years of Hollywood and following WWII when many GIs settled in California. In any case mixing different experiences creates both competition and innovation. In many ways each region of the Philippines is at a standstill, and the nation overall moves very slowly. All of my friends who have made small businesses are at once envied and also others try to take advantage to enjoy the fruits of their labor.
off topic. Napoles acquitted.
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/922555/sandiganbayan-enrile-pork-barrel-scam/story/
Yup. Napoles, Enrile and Gigi. The writing was on the wall when Marcos Jr was elected president. He is a Du30 Lite, IMHO.
Enrile is his kegal xouncel afterall.
I think, enrile was represented by atty estilito mendoza. mendoza mentored lots of lawyers who went on to become judges in trial courts. most are in awe of him. worse, mendoza probly knows their style, their weaknesses, and the extend of their arguments. maybe in mentoring them, mendoza did not impart all he knew, upang may lamang siya palagi in case they become adversarial. kaya, most often, mendoza wins his cases, his ex-protegees acting as prosecutors can barely counter him, he charged a lot though. his fees are sky high!
Again a good point.
Re
Double meaning words.
Four letter words like ****
now to opportunity which is another bad word
because of opportunist or oportunista.
So opportunity in the philipines maybe more of street smarts or diskarte.
Speaking of four letter words- Work is a four letter word. In pro wrestling it means scripted act.
Ah, thanks, Karl. I didn’t know that, and will now be careful as to how I use the word.
With AI and Google research would be easy.
I am proven wrong on that rice vertical farming.
not impossible but it is weird.
https://www.fanaticalfuturist.com/2022/09/vertically-farmed-rice-opens-the-door-to-guaranteed-food-security-in-singapore/
Now on sugar.
https://projects.sare.org/sare_project/fne11-703/
the impossible made possible, it starts with a vision, a theory. with all the academic researches we have and with research outcomes as more research is further needed, we ought to have open mind.
like houses, instead of single storey, many are now living vertically and higher up the ground. farming could well be the same. the technology is not new. there used to be ancient hanging garden of babylon, now lost to the past.
but if we continue on to depend on imports and import what we need, we may have to partner with those in the know. until we get the knowledge to be on our own.
Since hydroponics is one of my hobbies, vertical farming is just hydroponics but on a larger scale. My setup uses natural sunlight to grow vegetables, even though my property has enough land (I use the rest for fruit trees). For an industrial scale vertical farming operation it would require a lot of electricity and water though. Not sure if the electrical and water supply in the Philippines can keep up. Electricity and water are a big limiting factor for a lot of modern industrialization.
KB
While we are in this I small talked the Agriculture secretary in charge of BFAR about Indoor fish farms and since her driver arrived she just said I don’t think so, not in the Philippines.
Out of curiosity, what was the Deputy secretary’s opinion on why this can’t be done?
so like a cichlid fish, the secretary is mailap. maybe the answer given by the sec is the result of the numerous researches done on the topic. not in the philippines. cost the country quite a bit.
Under secretary ny bad. Joey and KB maybe she was thinking to prioritize our long coastlines
I know of a gardener who made a small pond out of landscape timbers and an old swimming pool liner and successfully bred pet store gourami for his personal consumption. He said it’s his “taste of the Phillipines.” Gouramis here are sold at the pet store and usually put in people’s personal indoor aquariums.
Near shore coastal fish farms would be a good start, besides the possible pollution in the vicinity caused by concentrating more fish, antibiotics, feed, and fish waste in a small area. Indoor might cost too much at the start but the cost can also be offset by collecting things such as fish waste to turn into fertilizer, and having the operation be in concentrated tanks so that there is less loss to ocean creatures and less energy needed to run the operation.
under sec has obtuse way of showing that maybe our long coastlines are envisioned for fish farming. there are clandestine maritime activities best done at the dead of night that netted tons of money, but best kept secret and away from prying eyes. oil smuggling is rampant and caused our govt to lose billions of money in revenue. truly, there are really very rich filipinos living among us.
Actually in one zoom meeting I heard the often lament of the line agencies, the LGUs. Again the lgu supervises the enforcement kahit pnp o pcg o pn pa yan. It I supposed to work out well but we are good in making good on paper stay that way and never come to good in practice.
Then the House and the regional offices of Departments, whoever is involved, should ask the LGUs why they can’t implement things as planned. In the real English sense of why, as in really looking for reasons and solutions, not the Filipino sense of why as a reprimand.
For instance, I have experienced software rollouts not working because the GUI was too big for the small screens people had at remote locations, or the bandwidth in the boondocks was too low for the new version. Or people simply were not trained and went totally Luddite as a result. That kind of reality check is what is probably needed, just like Joe once noted how impractical it is to require motorcycle helmets in the provinces, even as it seems seriously dangerous there as a dog crossing the street recklessly can send you “tumbling-tumbling” or worse.
Though the involved mayors if they can sing, might just sing “I Want it That Way” to the people from Manila, like in the video below.
Of course, it is great for them to be the go-to person to push the LGU administration to do their work, just like Tulfo probably enjoys calling up agencies to help his clients. In case anyone does not agree, they control the police as well.
Nicely explained
Example DENR. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1990243/a-denr-challenge-when-politics-creeps-into-protected-areas
That kind of stuff happens here as well, don’t have all the details but I have seen and read about how former forest- and farmlands have gradually been turned into housing or commercial development land in and around booming Munich.
The conservatives will be pro-business, the socdems pro-housing, while a few Greens who are usually already well-off hipsters, etc. will try to prevent the creeping reduction of green space. There were similar debates about for instance turning parking on the street into bike lanes, which the Greens who are a majority in Munich city center applauded but small business owners hated as they got difficulties in getting deliveries and their customers couldn’t park. Usually, finding a sensible balance isn’t easy, but that is what politics is about.
denr is often contradictory and full of bs, often responsible for the degradation of land environment too. took denr 19yrs to find out what nasty things socorro cult has been doing right in denr land, under the noses of denr admin and with the blessing of kapolisan, some are members of the cult.
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/climate-and-environment/2024/04/08/2346210/denr-cancels-deal-surigao-cult-over-land-violations
If only verbal and written BS is good for the environment like the excrement of bulls.
Not totally OT as this is about a late 19th century “agricultor” who even studied modern farming methods in Spain – but also a bonus video for LCPL_X as it shows the ancestor of many of today’s Aranetas including Mar Roxas. Also interesting as it shows how the short lived Republic of Negros won against Spain by bluff and by luck as there also was a cult leader involved who kept Spanish forces busy but one can also see what a spent force Spain was by then.
The genealogist “Mighty Magulang” also has this video on the Hontiveros family:
She also has stuff on the ancestry of Quiboloy, Remulla (whose ancestors in Cavite switched surnames twice in the 19th century), and many more.
“but also a bonus video for LCPL_X as it shows the ancestor of many of today’s Aranetas including Mar Roxas.”
“As a special bonus for LCPL_X, I add the video of Judas singing what might also apply to Bonifacio.”
Thanks, Ireneo! I think you just gave me an idea for an in from which to do this UFO/aliens blog and still make it relevant to Philippines. cuz it won’t otherwise. so with that thread you shared (can Dutertes/Duranos trace their blood to deeper roots too?) and I’ll pick probably the most interesting and int’l examples for UFOs probably just a couple cuz this rabbit hole goes too deep. but its also related to my question to Joey re Masons and PMA batches. same as families theres threads of connections that go generations even centuries deep, with many (and I agree with Joey) forgetting there purposes of said groups to begin with. just going thru motions. then theres individuals in Philippines who are kicking ass giving pull yourself from bootstraps motto credence like zero connections, but upon closer look can actually trace their lineage to bigger blood lines as well and I guess the purpose of adultery there (a numbers game). maybe. have to connect this to Inday Sara as I want it to be the 4th in the series, if you have anything more on them i’d be obliged. so thanks! As to Judas theres also the whole notion of discerning who villains and heroes are in history. I for one think the Jesus Christ Superstar Judas is the accurate one historically. similar to how Mary Magdalene became the antagonist per Dan Brown. so I’ll have to add that too in how to discern heroes from villains in the moment. no suprise I think Inday Sara is hero but they’re giving her the Judas treatment now.
ps. If am not mistaken it was the reds that made Bonifacio a hero again.
pps. This isn’t related to opportunities per se, Ireneo, but as you’ve said theres tons of Filipinos creating really good content now via youtube et al. so maybe Filipinos getting into UFOs is or can also be opportunity in and of itself. i dunno. but all you need is Google really. like this (which is a really big clue i’ll try to fit in with Inday Sara):
so being left handed and being gay (men) also has a lot to do with this apparently. AstroSeed is in Manila. so for left handed (i know left handed ness is a term synonymous with Judas there) and for gay dudes this might be added opportunity to get into this as well.
ppps. clarification. not be involved in the black program, but i meant the content creation youtube stuff. I imagine it would suck being part of this program. but youtube content making opportunities seems endless. merchandize this stuff too.
https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/229627/kanto-boy-duterte-is-so-de-buena-familia-sa-totoo-lang/ this and the following video are about the Dutertes.
Re Bonifacio, the Act decreeing that his monument be built was passed in 1918. The Act for the Rizal Monument was passed in 1901 just months after Aguinaldo surrendered. By 1916, the Philippines already had its own Senate and House of Representatives. The Flag Act of 1919 was soon to repeal the ban on the Philippine flag and other Katipunan related symbols. Sure, the Left tried to appropriate Bonifacio, but that was much later, there wasn’t even a Filipino Left before the 1930s. The Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan was built from 1929-1933.
That Veloso Chinese mestizo connect in Cebu proper is interesting. thanks! as for Bonifacio and Rizal, pre-left was Rizal seen as Judas, eg. not walking the talk? or were the two seen more like Peter & Paul? pre WWII.
Tagalog and Visayan languages being Proto-Central Philippine languages would be more comparable to let’s say the relationship of languages descended from Proto-West Germanic like English, Frisian, German, Dutch. There are cognates due to progression from the same root proto language for sure, but the languages are largely intelligible.
Actually the Yorkshire (along with other Northern England dialects like Northumbrian, Lancastrian, Cumbrian) kept the Old Norse influences. The short “a” sound is a feature of other Norse descendant languages like Norwegian and Swedish too. Further away to the south of England there is a trap–bath split that distinguishes between a long and short “a.” We can thank my high school English teacher again for torturing me with this decades ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap–bath_split
By the way, do you find Bisaya to be much more expressive a language than Tagalog? It seems to me that there are many more ways to say something in Visayan languages in general. For crazy there is “buang” and “baliw,” which I need to remind myself that out in the bukid those words can be construed as very rude. In the city it can be a joke among friends depending on context. I have a friend who I nicknamed “baliw” and she nicknamed me “buang.” I was surprised at how many words there were for a lady of the night. There must be at least a dozen in Bisaya.
Ah is “now na” and “na now” before you going to Germany? It’s common nowadays to add “na” to everything. Usually it’s combined with the Filipino love of shortening everything and using acronyms, but sometimes it can make things longer. For example “no” is usually used as “not na” colloquially. In Cebu or other Visayan cities they usually use “sige” for “yes,” but out in the provinces I usually hear “oo” instead.
Yes, around a thousand years ago, what someone in Saxony and someone in the kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, Essex and Middlesex spoke would still have been dialects of the same language – I have seen comparisons of both.
Two major shifts and, of course, English being influenced by Viking and French made different languages of them. Thanks to church records, it’s documented.
For Tagalog, William Henry Scott did document some direct Malay borrowings due to the Brunei connection, and I have read of Pampangan influence, especially on the Tagalog of Bulakan. The little Bikol I know has some words like Tagalog, some like Bisaya, for instance, “buhi.”
Linguists can probably estimate how many centuries apart Tagalog, Bikol, and Bisaya are.
Ilokano, though we had maids from Cagayan, is as elusive to me and seems as far from Tagalog as Swedish from German. Some words are identifiable, but that’s about it.
Bisaya is still relatively new territory for me. Bikolano, I finally get a bit more.
The little Bikol I know has some words like Tagalog, some like Bisaya, for instance, “buhi.” LOL. this one I know. buhi means life. without gutteral stop. buhi’ with gutteral stop. means pet or a dependent . but both words buhi and buhi’ (apostrophe to indicate gutteral stop) means life. poetically, and this is my point, your buhi’ also means your penis, eg. your dependent as well as your life force the thing that keeps you buhi. (from Mango Ave.)
Oh my LCpl. I didn’t expect this connection of “buhi” haha.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/72/NakaBUHI_Park.JPG“
this is another connection at the entrance of Buhi town near Lake Buhi in the hills of Camarines Sur. Weird place as the lake filled up in the 1600s due to a volcanic eruption or a landslide that blocked a stream. There is lore of fishermen seeing the lost town under the lake and of lost churchbells and people fleeing Moro pirates, but also survivors of volcanic eruptions fleeing there – nakabuhi means survived so it could have been a mixture of all three events of more.
Buhinon, though, is one of the strangest dialects of Bikol, only spoken in the area near the lake..
Good steering before we get derailed Irineo 🤣
I didn’t know the story of Lake Buhi, so learned something new. Not sure if anyone here believes in the spiritual — I’m Catholic so I have my reservations. But I have heard some scary stories from my mother since our land was in Kon Tum near the misty central highlands of Vietnam. I’ve had strange and unexplained experiences when staying near the mountains or old jungles/forests of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Philippines. So perhaps the Buhinon did see something in the watery graves below Lake Buhi. This could be a great plot line for something similar to Trese that mixes the age old tales of survival into a story that can be presented to a wider audience.
Oh, the spirit world in the provinces is intense and real-world. Catholicism is a branch of it, not the other way around. I’ve heard ghosts knocking at windows too high to be reached, and seen a woman possessed by them. My wife’s rituals respect the spirits and I’d not go into the jungle alone, day or night. Carlos Castaneda should have visited here. The energy fields are spectacular.
I kept it vague so as to not scare our dear Lance Corporal when it’s so close to Halloween haha.
My mother who was very intune with the spiritual world told me many stories of her childhood living near the misty forests. When I was growing up in the 1980s, we lived in a drug and gang infested part of the city. Our run down duplex apartment’s former occupant was a drug dealer and small time pimp who was killed in a drug deal gone wrong. His body laid rotting in my childhood bedroom for a few months before the landlady came by because he hadn’t paid his rent. That apartment was definitely haunted; the juices from his corpse were never fully cleaned out of the wood flooring, and covered by a carpet.
I’ve had strange experiences all over South East Asia. Some say especially near the jungles or forests the spirits are still strong, the forests having swallowed successive human settlements over the generations before being cut back again. During my time in Luzon, I would sometimes spend time on the Eastern shore of Laguna de Bay where it was still a bit more rustic at the time. On more than one occasion I saw a White Lady with her white camisa and flowing dress standing by the water before disappearing again. I spent some time with the Subanen in mountains of Zamboanga del Sur and on a cold humid night, I was standing under a tree having a cigarette, not being able to sleep. Suddenly the night air felt electric and hot. The mountain mist seemed smokey and I could have sworn that I smelled smoke in the air mixed with the shouting of men fighting. In the morning there was nothing. Later a Subanen elder told me stories of how the Subanen originally were a lowland people and retreated to the mountains due to Muslim raids from Sulu… hundreds of years ago… When I stayed with a family in Butuan in the Caraga region in their balay payag, the matron of the family warned me that I should keep the wooden sliding window closed at night, with the rod secured because an dalagangan (Visayan sorceress) had taken to the dark arts, became an aswang and had her territory in the area. The monsoon nights are unbearable so I did not take heed and left the window open. In a dream I saw a dark figure moving quickly between the trees outside, then suddenly the sliding window started violently opening and shutting repeatedly with no one touching it. Have seen plenty of evidence of ghosts as well in South East Asia. Maybe the nearby forests in the bukid gives them anchor, and people’s continued belief gives them power.
“In a dream I saw a dark figure moving quickly between the trees outside, then suddenly the sliding window started violently opening and shutting repeatedly with no one touching it.” I would have totally soiled myself, Joey. but that white lady in her wet camisa, that will get me in trouble. for sure. and why I prefered bars to the pick up random girls scene. at least you can see them interact with other girls etc. thus deduce she’s no white lady. how about st. elmo’s fire I’ve heard alot of those but they produce it santelmo (I’d later learn about St. Elmo’s fire later on) but usually santelmo follows them (eg. the Mango ave girls from the mountains) or even talks to them. nothing evil or anything though, just that its conscious. turns out in my dive into UFOs ball lightnings are pretty common here too, had not heard of them ever. but santelmo i learned from Mango ave.
From the blog of Abdon Balde:
(Start of quote) These thoughts were very much in my mind when we left the cave at De la Fe. It only changed when the coconut farmer who was our guide offered us lumbod or young coconuts—both as a refreshing drink and a delicious fruit. We walked to his place, and we entered a large cleared are with a big hut where he burned his coconut shells to make charcoal. While we were feasting on the young coconut I noticed a captive bird perched on a twig eating an overripe papaya. “An unusual dove,” I said noting its dark brown feathers, black tails, long beak and piercing eyes. The farmer said, “That’s not a dove, that’s a Korokoro.” Again, I felt the hairs on my nape stood on ends. A Korokoro, so near the cave of Oryol!
This was what Fray Castaño wrote about Korokoro in 1870: “The Bonggos were beings with a human, Ethiopic, and very ugly figure that cast sparks of fire from their eyes upon showing up, burning up everything within its reach out of its intent to consume it. These were the most furious ministers of the Asuang and were always preceded in their vengeance by the nocturnal bird Corocoro launching its saddest and most doleful laments—the unfailing premonition of the close arrival of the Asuang, who had to devour the entrails of a child. The natives therefore tried to hide their children with utmost concern and diligence, guarding them carefully until the Corocoro ceased its wails.”
Centuries after the events related in the narrative of Ibalong, and the KoroKoro still lives near the abode of Oryol! Coincidence? Here is the interesting part: When I went home to my wife’s ancestral house in Tiwi, Albay I told her about the Korokoro—and was immediately informed that there is a barangay in Tiwi named Corocoro! I said, “Where the Corocoro lives, there also lives Aswang!” Then a relative who happen to be in the house told me that a person suspected as an aswang lives not in Corocoro but in the adjacent barangay named Nagas! “Then I should go to Nagas,” I instinctively said. “Why?” asked my wife. “To look for the person and interview…” I replied. May wife said with a very firm voice, “If you do that, I will not allow you to come home anymore.” I asked why, and her reply was, “Because I could no longer be sure that it’s the same YOU who comes home to me!” Indeed, I’ve heard stories of persons with supernatural abilities like Aswang or even Oryol who could enter another body and assume the victim’s identity. Is it still possible in these modern days? I think what is important these beliefs are still very much in the memory of people here. (End of quote)
So is Abdon Balde not as originally native as I thought or just more academically curious? Interesting that his wife is the one with the ancestral house, but it could also be that he married a well-off woman, just like Hilario Salazar back in the days..
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/sarung-banggi-one-evening.html all that makes the lyrics of the most famous Bikol song Sarong Banggi creepy in addition to already a bit sad:
In some translations, hinuni nin sarong gamgam is translated as the cry of the bird of night.
In many interpretations, the mother is alone. Especially Albay was where the Spanish galleons docked when typhoons made passage along the San Bernardino strait impossible..
Omg, we’ve had a Korokoro (that bird!) living or hiding in the tall bamboo adjacent to our property for years. Its call is more of a hoot than chirp. I’m getting creeped out.
Thanks for sharing Irineo. This passage gives one chills down the spine.
Abdon Balde in addition to being a poet and writer, is a collector of folk tales I believe. He’s doing a much needed service to preserve oral stories passed on in families and communities that may be lost soon due to modernization. It has also been shared to me that Bikolanos are deeply spiritual and superstitious people, which is probably why the best folk stories come from Bikol.
Some modernists may say that folk tales and legends were invented to explain the unexplainable, but I find it interesting that the concept of familiars and spiritual energy in nature goes across continents and cultural lines. It has been thought that a nexus is required for anchoring spirits, which might be why there is a lower prevalence for new “ghost sightings” in the modern era as many of these natural nexus have been destroyed or cleared away. The famous J-animation “Mononoke Hime” explores this in the Japanese context, as the Japanese were famously spiritual people in ancient times.
If you have a chance, watch this Vietnamese-American film Oan Hon (Spirits) that explores the spiritual world from the mainland SEA perspective. It’s a low budget production but was one of the few ghost movies that ever gave me chills.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0413302/
“and very ugly figure that cast sparks of fire from their eyes upon showing up, burning up everything within its reach out of its intent to consume it. “ That fire I’m very interested in , Ireneo. thanks! “like Aswang or even Oryol who could enter another body and assume the victim’s identity.” this too. whether possession or shapeshifting. there’s also smell of sulphur thats consistent. everywhere these similar stories happen. though ball lightning here in America don’t talk to people, but that following of people that’s happened.
Well judging from artistic renditions of various types of spirits, monsters and demons from survivor memories I’d probably advise against chasing spirit tail. You’d never know if the White Lady is a benign spirit or something like an aswang in disguise. I for one don’t want to open FB one day and see gawker pics of you LCpl with the post caption “Suspected hunter becomes the hunted; found in only his panty” 😂
“I’d probably advise against chasing spirit tail.” That is the funniest line ever written in these considerable number of blog pages, Karl’s riotous remarks not withstanding. It deftly melds the spiritual and military worlds into one majestic piece of advice. I’ll laugh forever.
Well, the closing line is quite good, too, but I can’t get my mind to go to the visual of that.
Glad to provide you the laugh of the day, Joe 😀 In all seriousness though, powerful aswang can hide among ladies of the night, or so I’m told. It might just be an old wives tale told to terrify their husbands to not visit establishments to taste various exotic “sundries,” but men like us will never know 😉
Well, all the ladies of the night that I have known are as real world as stock brokers. Real people doing business. I’ve not met any witches among them. My first ex-wife had gifts though.
If ever I return to Mango ave. and bar fine a white lady and she says give me your buhi’, LCPL. I’ll come prepared having dipped it in holy water. if that doesn’t work cuz it only works for vampires, like Abdon Balde’s wife said , don’t ever come back home to TSOH. At which point I’ll be toast. probably will become a white lady myself. for karl, i’ll be a white lady boy. lol. wet camisa with black t-back. that last visual’s for Joe. (but seriously , i need you guys to stop bothering me so I can write this blog on UFOs already, lol).
😂🤣😂 Oh, my!
Make sure you don’t forget the panty also LCpl haha!
I’m still amused when I think of recently immigrated lolas shouting to their Fil-Am apo “don’t forget to pack your panty” in a thick Tagalog accent. Panty of course coming from the the older Tagalog “panti” which further comes from the Spanish “pantimedias” which is a compound word panti + medias consisting of the borrowed English “panty” short for pantyloon and Spanish “media” meaning “half” or “shortened.”
Be careful that you don’t tangle with Oryol herself. Even Trese might not be able to help. In the Dr. Burgos story arc, Oryol is hiding in plain sight as a high-class escort. She turns the horny doctor into a man who sets all the women he sleeps with on fire. In the end he burns.
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/trese/images/7/70/OriolEnchantressUpdate.png/revision/latest?cb=20210824140925
There y’go! Perfect elaboration of the crossing point between us and the spiritual world of the Philippines, and, indeed, other parts of Asia. Good to know I’m not alone in my encounters.
Supposedly in my oral family history, before my mother’s side had converted to Catholicism in the early 16th century (as was common among minor nobility/branch family), we came from a line of powerful shamans who had the power of the “third eye” (“Con mắt thứ ba” concept from the Ajna chakra) which gave the ability of additional perception. Indeed in many cases the spirits can become tools of shamans, though there would be a constant inner spiritual fight for dominance between man and spirit for control of the shaman’s body.
There are many cultural connections between mainland SEA and insular SEA in terms of ghost legends. The most common ghosts I can think of are the hopping corpses still wrapping burial shrouds (somewhat like a zombie), the old hag with large pendulous hanging breasts, the bamboo ghost which hides in bamboo groves waiting to snatch passerby (to fool it one breaks a twig or stick), water ghosts that look like beautiful young women who inhabit lakes and the sea and pull fishermen down to their watery graves. Of course there are vampiric spirits as well similar to aswang that explain how someone who wandered into the forest ended up dead. During the Vietnam War “Operation Wandering Soul” was tested as a form of psyops to terrify VC soldiers, who mostly came from superstitious village backgrounds.
I’ve witnessed evidence of kapre-like entities up in bayan trees. Scariest experience was while backpacking through Thailand in my teens. Our group of boys would regularly stay with villagers (we’d pay for room and food of course). On that occasion we were nearby Chiang Mai and around the “haunting hour,” myself being an insomniac was awake having a cigarette while watching the nearby fields. I thought I saw a shadow pass in the corner of my eye, but then saw that the green rice was definitely parted upon investigation. Suddenly there was a cacophony in the room we rented. I ran back and saw the boys gripping their bamboo beds in fear while shouting. Stuff starting falling down and one of the beds launched halfway across the room. My group quickly left in fear right there and then, though I did make sure I stayed to pay the family for the room.
I do take “spiritual” encounters calmly though. My mother always said that the spiritual world can be dangerous indeed, but that the real monsters are among living men.
Ah, your mother offers deep wisdom. You should write a book about the spirit world in the Philippines. Make each chapter so that ABS-CBN can convert it to an episode, or series, depending on the length. Philippine Game of Spirits. Given your word volume, it will take a few months to do.
I think just a few posts from Irineo and myself in their wordiness would be enough to write an entire teleserye season, haha!
Ha, yes. Two weeks. Go!
https://dateline-ibalon.com/2023/08/the-search-for-ibalong-part-1-abdon-m-balde-jr/#finding-the-kingdom-of-handiong
I found some stuff on the Ibalon legend and the possible places where it might have happened researched by historian, folklorist, and poet Abdon Balde.
The place is not just full of caves, which explains how remontados held out in Spanish times, the ex-cop Simeon Ola held out against the USA for longer than all other Aguinaldo generals, how the guerilla against Japan and even NPAs against Marcos Sr. held out so well there.
But one of the caves near Lake Buhi itself seems to be the place where the snake woman Oryol herself dwelled, luring in the men of Handyong with her beauty to devour them. Took the Uber Oragon Handyong to make her his ally (some folks say his wife even) in taming the rough land.
Abdon Balde is not just from Tiwi. His surname indicates his family was most probably native in 1847, when the Franciscans gave surnames in Albay by going around the Mayon volcano after giving Legazpi residents surnames starting with A. Tiwi got B and C. Oas got R.
Abaca planter „Don“ Marcelino Saenz certainly was not of Tiwi, his fellow planter and mayor of Tiwi in the 1870s Higino Templado was Kapampangan, his son-in-law Hilario Salazar was from Batangas and his grandson Irineo (my grandfather) would marry a mestiza from Sorsogon.
There is an associate of Saenz named Tomas Salvador in our old land papers who is not in any genealogical connection with any Tiwi families of today. Did he go to Buhi to get lured and eaten? It is just a few kilometers away through the jungle. Well, bushwhackers beware in Bikol.
Abdon Balde also talked to Xiao Chua in a podcast about Nuestra Señora de Salvacion of Joroan, which is a coastal barangay of Tiwi. Something about her statue being kept uphill. She also has a boat parade like Naga’s lady of Peñafrancia, not on the river but along the coast.
That all the most scary aswang stories AND the possible abode of Oryol herself converge in Buhi is extremely interesting. This is stuff both interesting and scary, like The Mummy and Indiana Jones combined. There is curiosity, but one does not want to unleash angry spirits.
Check out this Google Maps of commercialized limestone caves in the Bikol region alone:
https://www.google.com/maps/search/caves+in+bicol
Of course, geologists know by now that limestone is commonly associated with volcaniclastic origin through magma-limestone assimilation. Limestone caves being both sources of shelter and danger to early humans probably left echoes in the human consciousness that has lasted millennia. There’s something mysterious about going into a dark hole to escape the elements and dangerous animals. In my youth I had explored many a limestone cavern (in my more athletic years I enjoyed rappelling and rock climbing) in the US, Europe and across SEA. There’s always a sense of both peace and foreboding that exists in mutual relationship, where ever singular sound becomes magnified and any air currents wafting through the cavernous expanse can sound like voices, even moans of agony.
The Bikol region is famous for its caves, especially in Camarines Norte and Camarines Sur. As mentioned, some who still hold to the folk beliefs across cultures I’ve encountered think that places unclaimed by human civilization contain nexus of strong spiritual energy. That would include both the still wild forest lands and the unknown caves, in bodies of water like lakes and perhaps even the open sea beyond the horizon as siren-like creatures are prevalent in most seafaring cultures.
During my travels, the folk stories of spirits and nature monsters were strongest in places where people lived on the edge of the wild, where even in the modern era human efforts at unwilding must be constantly fought against the creeping forest that seems to seek to reclaim its power. Limestone caves dot Luzon, Central Visayas and Leyte, Mindanao, Palawan. Usually the caves are located inside or around still wild forests. Over time I heard such stories less as the younger generation grew up not minding their lola’s stories, being fixated on the modern and technology instead. Still, if one travels into the interior of Mindanao today one can still hear many stories from elder matrons.
Whoops, not sure why my comment fell out of the thread. Must be a bug in the Jetpack app that unstuck the highlighted reply when apps are switched.
My late high school English teacher who I mentioned before tortured us students with exploring the West Germanic language tree so I have him to thank for my small knowledge in this area. Western Europe had the benefits of the Catholic Church to carry on learning and education, at least within the church itself after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and entry into the Dark Ages. Of course we know that learning by the societal elites carried on in the Byzantine Empire for another millennium. It seems to me that what’s required for the propagation of knowledge beyond local communities is a standardized written language, which can either be facilitated by governments, religions, or both.
Cultures in the Philippine islands, despite being the “second stop” for the Austronesian migration out of Formosa seem to have received influences from the daughter civilizations of proto-Philippine societies who migrated onward to the Indo-Malay islands and to New Zealand and beyond to Polynesia, but not the other way around. Such influences like Kawi and South Sulawesian we can see on the Laguna Copperplate and the Butuan Seal. I’d like more study in the area of the Cham influence, as due to Champa being extinguished in influence largely by the late 1400s causes gaps in our knowledge. There are some scholars like Geoff Wade who argue that Central Philippine languages were more influenced by Champa than by Java or Sulawesi. I wonder what William Henry Scott would make of that if he were still alive to consider new archeological evidence.
As far as I know, Tagalog and Bikolano diverged earlier from proto-Central Philippine while the Visayan languages diverged later. Even before I started reading more about the subject, I had started noticing linguistic similarities among the various Visayan languages (mainly Bisaya/Cebuano, Waray, Ilonggo, Tausug) when I first encountered Visayan people. IIRC from the last time I examined the current linguistic tree, the Visayan languages are mostly a dialect continuum descending from Bisaya (Cebuano). That works out well with the current Out of Taiwan migration model where it would make sense that Visayans reached the Visayas and Mindanao much later than Tagalogs and Bikolanos. Does your father still subscribe to his UP contemporary Prof. F. Landa Jocano’s Core Population Theory?
On Ilokanos, I had previously read that once upon a time Ilokano is a language isolate which may be an older theory. In either case that didn’t make sense to me. I think the most accepted theory now is that Ilokanos were proto-Malays that “reverse migrated” back north from the Malay islands to their current homeland in Northern Luzon.
Speaking of the Ilokano ancestors being proto-Malays who migrated north… aside from the now hoax Datu Puti model of the Maragtas text, there was also the more seriously discussed in scholarship out-of-Sundaland model that was also discredited. Both models (one the hoax and the other scholarly) proposed a northward migration from Sundaland. One can’t fault certain anthropologists in the past for the Sundaland model since during the last ice age it could be reasonable to assume that humans migrated over the much exposed Sundaland Shelf. But specifically to the Datu Puti story, I sometimes wondered if this is a lingering echo of the pre-Spanish prestige status of Bornean and Javanese cultural influence in the Philippines.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289802554_Like_a_shady_tree_swept_by_the_Windstorm_Malays_in_dissent my father’s take on the Philippine’s place in the Malay world is summed up in this article where he also mocked the lunatic fringe author Ahmad Ibn Parfahn, a Cotabato school teacher who alleged that even the Pharaohs were Malay, and Alexander the Great (LCPL_X is aware of Parfahn BTW) – the article also tackles the debate as to whether Filipinos are Malay as Rizal, Vinzons and Quezon wished, whether they are not Malay like Jocano wrote, or whether they were at the boundaries of the Malay world like my father wrote, probably most correct as the Tausugs would be Malays in the classical sense, with Islam and Adam customary law. They may even have been in the Majapahit sphere of influence, which the rest of the Philippines was NOT, even as some teachers in the 1970s taught that the archipelago had once been part of Sri-Vijaya and Majapahit. I won’t go back to the Parfahn × Stargate satire with Dutertane as the atomic fuel of Pharaonic chariots of old from my old blog.
My father did use Austronesian in the 1970s when the consensus in the Philippines was still “Malayo-Polynesian,” referring to a French journal article title “Le peuplement du Pacific. Re French, I do recall (with caveats about childhood memories) my father referring to Jocano as “petit con,” which is not a nice word at all. UP has its own extensive GOT, including my father NOT being accepted in the Anthropology Department even as his Sorbonne PhD was in that subject as his original UP degree and original UP department was History. Even as Agoncillo himself had thrown my father out of that department during his long study leave in Paris. Actually, no wonder in all that toxicity that some professors used Martial Law for vindictive purposes and ratted out colleagues. The place could accomplish more with less of that stuff.
In the 1990s, my father was quite fascinated by the common origins of many SEA people and even the Hokkien and Cantonese in Southern China, with related mountain tribes and all..
Hehe, there were Ilokano professors (again, this is unreliable preteen memory, from a research field trip to Baguio to check out faith healers) who speculated that their people might have been Batak who moved up and named the birthplace of Marcos Sr. after their tribe. That must have been too much BS even for that era as nothing of that sort was ever published. In terms of features and language, it makes sense that they remigrated from somewhere south, though.
Indeed both Datu Puti and the Ibalon legend with “Handyong of Bhottavara” might have to do with claiming the prestige of Java and Brunei which the Pampangans of original Tondo as well as the Tagalogs of Manila had some access to, but not quite the Visayans and Bikolanos.
It is a bit like the inflated claims to mestizoness that some Filipinos have. Or how the abaca planters in our neck of the woods in Albay all styled themselves as Don, but still had to bear the Indio designation in official papers like my great-great-grandfather. “It’s complicated.”
In a league with the Code of Kalantiaw, Datu Puti, and all the rest is the nonsense that Agapito Flores allegedly invented fluorescent light.
https://www.thoughtco.com/agapito-flores-background-1991702
Real accomplishments even of the modest kind are worth far more than BS.. but then again, the Philippines is the land of illusion as per.. myself:
There were teachers in the 1970s who actually told the Flores story as if it was true.
During my time at Berkeley I met a Stanford student who was a Filipino foreign student (assuming his parents are rich and donated here) who actually repeated the Flores + fluorescent light myth credulously. Safe to say, our group of Berkeley students soundly mocked the guy and had a good laugh at how simply insane it would be for someone to believe such a myth. It made me feel a bit better about not being able to afford attending Stanford (Stanford was my first choice during my high school years).
What you wrote in your old blog post is exactly what I’ve been saying in the Philippines for years though! Be proud of even small accomplishments, and then build on it. Some of the things I’ve heard repeated in the Philippines about supposed greatness has the tone of a child making boasts to try to one-up their classmates. There are many things, however “simple” that is great about the Philippines. Filipinos abroad have proven they can rise to top positions in militaries, government, NGOs and business. Our next governor of California may well be a Filipino-American, and one with moreno skin at that. There are so many examples to learn from, but I guess you’re right. It’s easier to try to game life by having “diskarte” by metaphorically cutting class and having the bookworm share his/her assignment answers. It’s also easier when someone is standing by to catch the failures, whether it be the OFW breadwinner, charity, or countries that donate developmental aid.
I’ve heard some wild theories that somehow became “folk knowledge” and are still passed on today. I often wished Filipinos would be proud of whatever achievements their respective ethnic groups have contributed to the nation and the world, and not invent some fantastical history in an attempt to elevate Filipinos to the “level of others.” Other cultures started from somewhere; the starting place was always one of disarray and discohesion as the culture developed and united. Another example of the penchant to try to leap-frog ahead using shortcuts without thinking of the path to take first…
I think by now Jocano’s theory has been replaced by the Out of Taiwan consensus. Out of Taiwan makes more sense anyway considering the Austronesian seafaring technology, and I’m surprised anthropologists back in the day didn’t notice the technological progression of native dug out canoes to balangay/bangka type ships prevalent in the Philippines/Malaysia/Indonesia to the blue ocean going ships of the Polynesians. I guess the Sundaland theory made more sense due to the early findings of hominid fossils in Indonesia and the assumption that humans simply walked everywhere. The older Sundaland-centric theories might also be racially tinged with the tiered degrees of “human-ness” that early anthropology used to hold, and didn’t recognize Austronesians can be innovative in seafaring. So it would make more sense that most Malaysians and Indonesians descended from the ancient settlers of the Philippines, rather than the other way around.
I didn’t know about the GOT situation at UP back in the day. In my time and interaction which was much later since you experienced it in your childhood, I found students from the Big 4 in the 2000s as being very smug and self-congratulatory, with UP people being top-tier in this.
On the Guangdong tribes of coastal China, the old legend is that there were 100 Yue clans (tribes) that were part of a loose confederation. The Yue were not necessarily all of the same ethnic stock, though they lived in close proximity to each other. The ancient Vietnamese were also part of this Yue mega-confederation as the Kinh people (Vietnamese) originated in what’s now Guangdong. Viet Nam translates to “Yue” + “Nam” with “Nam” meaning “South/Southern,” so thus means “Southern Yue.” In ancient times the Viets in the Nanyue kingdom held dominion at a time over almost the entirety of the former Yue territories, including the island of Hainan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanyue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baiyue
While Vietnamese consider Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Chiuchow among others to be relatives/cousins and vice versa, surviving mountain tribes are not considered related by all these groups even if the mountain tribes descended from Yue tribes that were pushed up to the mountains. This is because dwelling in the lowlands and cultivating rice was considered a mark of being “civilized,” and as the mountain tribes had “abandoned” civilization, they were now considered “barbarians” along with other non-related mountain tribes such as Hmong.
There were also mainland SEA migrations to insular SEA and even the Indian subcontinent, as far as the Munda people of India and the Nicobarese of the Nicobar Islands. Sumatra, Java and Borneo were originally peopled by mainland SEA migrations before later intermixing with Austronesian migrations. This would make more sense in the Sundaland Shelf dispersal theories, combined with island hopping. The Hòabìnhian culture in Vietnam pre-dated any civilization in China and were related to the Jōmon of pre-Yamato (Japanese) Japan and the Jahai of peninsular Thailand/Malaysia. The Jomon still live on in the Ainu of Hoakkaido and the Ryukyuans with Japan reversing old policies of Japanification to protect indigenous rights, while the Jahai are still around but are dwindling due to Malaysia’s policy of Malayization.
An opportunity for Education
https://bilyonaryo.com/2024/10/06/ready-to-seize-new-opportunities-ramon-del-rosarios-phinma-education-secures-initial-funding-from-kkr/business/
Reddit thread on dialects and languages.
Neph, we in TSOH have always known our regional languages are so. Intelligibility & fluency are the best tests, I think.
Oh yes uncle and we are here to impart our knowledge with the best of our abilities. If not now anytime someone browses our pages.
Despite the malls there are still a lot of Sari Sari stores despite the debt collection problem we talked about.
https://business.inquirer.net/483973/sari-sari-stores-continue-to-dominate-biz-registrations-in-ph
The way our international community sees it no more jeepneys but continued existence of minibuses.
Unless we present jeepney modernization as mini bus reform.
https://changing-transport.org/publications/reformation-semi-informal-minibus-system-philippines/
Irineo we can be the next Broadway and not just with a Broadway Centrum that gave us That’s Entertsinment.
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/arts-and-culture/2024/10/08/2391053/philippines-eyed-broadway-asia-5-years-through-westside-city
Part 2 of the Bworld article on manufacturing.
https://www.bworldonline.com/opinion/2024/10/09/626555/can-philippine-manufacturing-ever-recover-the-transition-from-industry-1-0-to-industry-4-0/
more on Sari saris
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/business-life/2024/10/07/2389634/small-stores-big-impact-empowering-sari-sari-stores-through-education-tech-inclusive-growth