Who is the Center-Right of the Philippines and what do they stand for?
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
I received an interesting criticism of my Left/Liberal coalition idea on Twitter. The writer viewed liberals the same way the American MAGAs in the US do, a pox on society, the root of all our troubles.
Well, I think that view is pretty much nonsense because liberals essentially represent social compassion. Healthy democracies typically have a whole lot of it. It’s what democracy is for, fer cryin’ out loud. Fairness, inclusion, and engagement. Not discrimination and shoving poor folks into the streets.
But that’s not the issue. The issue is, does the Philippines have a Center-Right? We might do well to recognize it and bring their followers into the good governance coalition while ejecting those troublesome commies and rebels of the far left (Makabayan).
I asked the critic who represents the Center-Right and he said Baguio Mayor Magalong, Sonny Trillanes, and Christian Democrats.
- Sonny Trillanes is an iconoclast independent who promotes leftist Risa Hontiveros over liberal Leni Robredo for President, and will hopefully be Mayor of Caloocan this year. Military, yes. Right center I suppose, but flexible. Law and order guy.
- Benjamin Magalong is former PNP (Deputy Ops Chief), covid czar to stop transmissions, and Chair of the Mamasapano inquiry that laid blame on President Aquino for the deaths. So I consider him a weak thinker. But, yes. Right Center. Has a big following. Law and order guy.
- Christian Democrats. Hmmm. There is no party by that name. He could mean the Centrist Democratic Party which has an anti-patronage platform and is headed by Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, a political butterfly who switched from Roxas to Duterte. Irony, that, or hypocrisy. Or he could mean Lakas-CMD (Christian Muslim Democrats) which has a confusing history that led from Aquino to Teodoro to Gloria Arroyo and Sara Duterte. So maybe not that.
As I look at this, the Center-Right of the Philippines seems to exist only haphazardly, and it is on the edge of being the party of patronage, even if they say otherwise. A personal-power party.
Hard to trust.
I’d be interested in reader insights on this. Is there a Center-Right that can be trusted, or are there just individuals of power who might be able to help build a principled opposition to dynastic privilege, populism, and patronage?
If there is a Center Right, I’m having a hard time seeing its principles or its players.
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Cover photo from Manila Standard article “Trillanes close to making a decision in running for Caloocan City mayor“.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Is there a “Center-Bright”? 🙂
In any case, could this “Fire and Brimstone” message from Rappler somehow help lead to the answer on the question about “Center Right”?
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Fire and brimstone
Apocalyptic, like an atomic bomb dropped — was how eyewitnesses described the wildfires that have burned down villages, houses, churches, schools, and businesses in Los Angeles, California.
Was it God’s wrath, they wondered, that swayed the fierce winds through the dry lands and caused what American meteorologist and climate journalist Eric Holthaus described in the Guardian as an “exceptional mix of environmental conditions…without known historical precedence” and which “overwhelm our ability to respond?” What’s caused the fires? Read this piece.
From celebrities and A-listers to Filipino caregivers, the fires uprooted everyone along the drought path. A “climate whiplash” is linked to the recent disaster, according to a BBC report, citing a study about how climate change has made the earth more volatile to a sequence of dry and wet devastations.
On their screens, Filipinos saw furious balls of fire across California’s skies on the day they showed the world their grandest display of Catholic devotion: January 9, the Feast of the Black Nazarene.
It was a jarring mix of conflicting images: catastrophic fires that sparked fear and despair on the other side of the globe, and a black statue of Jesus Christ that inspired sacrifice and burning devotion among hundreds of thousands of barefoot devotees. (Perhaps add this to your moments of reflection: Joan Didion’s essay on Los Angeles four decades ago and Benedict Cumberbatch’s reading of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1988 letter to the future.)
On Monday, January 13, God will be invoked once again in another setting and for more secular reasons: a political rally in Metro Manila and key cities nationwide by the religious group Iglesia Ni Cristo (INC) to show support for Vice President Sara Duterte, who is facing impeachment complaints at the House of Representatives.
The rallies are expected to be massive, prompting local governments to suspend classes in cities where they will be held. A recent survey showed that four in 10 Filipinos favor her impeachment.
The last time the INC held a political gathering in Metro Manila was when its members staged a five-day protest against then-justice secretary Leila de Lima in 2015. Is the Iglesia ni Cristo today pro-President Marcos or pro-Vice President Duterte, asked Rappler’s faith reporter Paterno Esmaquel II in this piece. Paterno tells us in this analysis that the group is hedging its bets for the future.
In the public sphere, a different kind of fire was set off by the world’s third-richest person, Mark Zuckerberg, when he announced Meta’s decision to scrap its fact-checking program in the US that has allowed independent fact-checkers to spot, review, and then rate viral lies and disinformation across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.
He said doing so would “dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.” This “false assertion,” said a Philippine coalition, vilifies fact-checkers at the cost of democracy.
It was nine years ago, in 2016, when fact-checkers wrote to Zuckerberg about the real harm of lies that were spreading on Facebook. In response, he created a fact-checking program. Zuckerberg’s move to abolish this program in America, seen to appease incoming US president Donald Trump whose power base has claimed that fact-checkers were biased against them, will make the world a more dangerous place, said Rappler Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Rappler CEO Maria Ressa. As we said in our statement, it’s an “ominous sign of more perilous times in the fight to preserve and protect our individual agency and shared reality.” According to the International Fact-Checking Network, Meta has similar programs in more than 100 countries with various degrees of democratization and development. “Some of these countries are highly vulnerable to misinformation that spurs political instability, election interference, mob violence, and even genocide,” it said in an open letter to Zuckerberg on January 10. It bears noting that last year, Meta shut down its social media research tool CrowdTangle, which journalists, researchers, and civil society groups used to track and better understand how content is spread through Facebook and Instagram. Meta did this despite an appeal from these groups.Why do fact-checkers do what they do? Because, as Rappler’s Victor Barreiro Jr. wrote in this piece, they “wade through the muck so you don’t drown in it.”
So here’s to persistent, unrelenting efforts in the Philippines and elsewhere to lessen the muck in our lives.
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If so I don’t see the connection. Zukerberg is like Philippine House reps, they all will shift allegiances to the person in power so that they and their dear riches will not be torn apart. Disgusting practice totally lacking principles. I do think the right in the Philippines is the dynasties, power driven rather than compassion driven like the libs and left, who do have principles.
From Rappler:
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The #FactsFirstPH coalition is composed of over 150 groups in the Philippines involved in journalism, education, media and information literacy, development work, research, and legal defense. An award-winning fact-checking collaboration founded in 2022 by Rappler CEO Maria Ressa, it showed how various sectors — from lawyers and environmental advocates to religious groups — can work together to promote facts online and defend those who tell it.
The coalition pointed out how disinformation has greatly affected at least two presidential elections in the Philippines: in 2016, which saw the rise of strongman Rodrigo Duterte; and 2022, where lies about the Marcos family and legacy of the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos were used to bolster the candidacy of Ferdinand Marcos Jr….
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“FactsFirstPH” … interesting. Over 150 groups in the Philippines … hmmm
Can they be relied to provide facts? What is their track record?
What facts, if any, do they know or have about the “Center Right,” for example?
If you are questioning Zuckerberg’s removing all the third party fact checkers and leave it to the users to fact check like what they do on Twitter X then say so.
Rappler is a fact checker, they can still fact check on their own.
The fact checkers will survive until they have served their purpose.
What will the users use to fact check, their own knowledge, wisdom and experience? This is clearly cost cutting.
Good questions. I think they focus on incidents, but have a liberal bias in favor of honesty over power. I doubt they think in terms of liberal or conservative, and it is their journalistic charter that is liberal by definition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre-right_politics
“Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalism. Conservative and liberal centre-right parties have historically been more successful in the Anglosphere, while Christian democracy has been the primary centre-right ideology in Europe.
The centre-right commonly supports ideas such as small government, law and order, freedom of religion, and strong national security. It has historically stood in opposition to radical politics, redistributive policies, multiculturalism, immigration, and LGBT acceptance …”
I have to check details of this, but the LA city fire chief and the Mayor are at odds right now, but la fire dept was defunded. but see the LGBTQplus fire chief also during that defunding hoopla which she’s not complaining about well she also set up a DEI bureau. so priorities were skewed. DEI vs. fire fighting issues. DEI was her priority. Mayor Bass was probably all like this is your budget now, figure it out. and Chief Crowley said we need DEI bureau. but she totally undercut the Mayor. people in glass houses, i7sharp.
It’s what democracy is for, fer cryin’ out loud. Fairness, inclusion, and engagement. Not discrimination and shoving poor folks into the streets.
I dunno about poor folks but for sure I know that if you put rich folks into the streets, there’ll be hell to pay.
blue arrows is the direction of santa ana winds, kicking up again today til Wed they’re saying. Santa Ana mtns is south of Corona, supposedly the winds are named after Santa Ana pass that connects Riverside and Orange counties.
first time ever I experienced the Santa Ana winds was in bootcamp whilst at Camp Pendleton and we were in the field. weird experience, still weird today. surfers love it though. they get pipe waves due to it.
ooooopss… hoopla which she’s *now complaining about…
The point is that democracy is liberal by constitutional intent.
This statement by the LAFD chief was taken out of context and blown out of proportion by — right wing commentators and “legitimized” by right wing media, principally the new billionaire owner of the LA Times who has exposed himself to be a hardcore MAGA.
Look past political agendas and outrage manufacturers and one would understand the problem is much more complex and nuanced. Electrical grid infrastructure designed for 60mph/95kph winds being hit by sustained 80mph/130kph typhoon force winds. Decades of *conservative* NIMBYs building into chaparral that the native Indians had avoided; I mean, much of the West’s native ecosystem *depends* on wildfires to propagate seeds and the chaparral ecosystem. Global warming that has been ignored by oil interests since the 1950s. Even things like “hydrants” running out of water being blamed on stupid stuff like Delta smelt is another culture war issue — just like in a house, the more faucets are used at once the water pressure drops but of course the mundane isn’t as outrageous as shouting “they turned off the hydrants!” Does infrastructure need updating to the current climate problems? Sure. Does how departments work together need to be looked at as a holistic sum-total of how organizations can harness synergy better rather than working separately? Sure. Of course all this is a lot harder to do than just simply casting blame for political purposes.
When one side is only interested in stoking outrage, they are not interested in solving problems, which can often be complex. Easier to just accuse and scream, blaming others rather than needing to do anything themselves. Not to mention their red states are effectively welfare states subsidized by the vigorous economies of the blue states due to the mismanagement of right wing leaders. Which is why MAGAs can’t get anything done when they actually (accidentally) win and have power, because for complainers and agitators, it’s more powerful to NOT have power or responsibility. The reality of governing and leading large organizations is not compatible with simplistic fantasies or magic bullet solutions.
my bad, it was actually Mayor Garcetti that stood up the DEI Bureau.
Of course all this is a lot harder to do than just simply casting blame for political purposes.
I agree hoses is no match for wild fires in santa ana winds. since much of the winds were localicized meaning just Socal. you’d think, since all the fires before you’d have some sort of staging of aircrafts all set up already. after the Thomas fire (2017) in Santa Barbara county then all the fires up Norcal. there should have already been a state wide mobilization process moving planes and helicopters in place, that involved nat’l guard and active military assets too. I gotta feeling, next CA governor will be Republican. too many rich people lost their homes.
Then Mayor Bass will fire Chief Crowley for insubordination , then the rich people will say fuck that we want your head too, Mayor Bass. like dominoes. Maybe you’re right, Joey, DEI bureau doesn’t factor in, but its all the crap Californians are just fed up with. LA county DA race was a perfect example. That Riverside county Sheriff looks like he’s gonna run for governorship. though RFKjr.’s former running mate is also , i think she’s from Berkeley too, eyeing the position. whomever runs lots of GOP contenders and Musk will be funding them all i’m sure. talk about center right, right? I agree w/ you mostly, but this hoopla is also all about the governor race in 2026.
I think your DA is also gunning for governor, correct?
It’s impossible to beat Mother Nature. Much of the Western US is chaparral that has wildfire in the biome’s ecological cycle. There are 15,000+ firefighters currently deployed in LA, not including assets brought in from Canada and Mexico. The firefighting strategy against chaparral and forest fires is not to put out the fire with hoses like an isolated house fire but to create firebreaks to redirect the fire into a smaller area so the wildfire burns itself out — that’s what the aerial tankers and retardant dropping helicopters are doing while firefighters on the ground try to clear firebreaks by hand and with heavy machinery. Even if there were 100,000 firefighters it wouldn’t be enough. People ate looking at this too simplistically because most of the complainers are too far, just like complaining about the border while living in lily white states where they have never met a non-white person. CalFire has a good budget, with all of California’s budget surpluses. Californians can take care of ourselves and provide welfare to other states too. There won’t be any Republican governors here as the CA GOP is run by freak shows, and Pete Wilson destroyed the state party back in the 1990s with blatant racism.
Let’s get back on the discussion though. While the situation in California, and nearby where I live is sad, it doesn’t have much to do with the Philippines. I kind of regret replying to correct the record. Information we see online should be taken with scrutiny. It’s not what’s actually happening.
Thank you for trying to bring the discussion back to the topic of the blog. So far no one has been able to tell me who or what the center right is, in the Philippines. I conclude in the interim that it does not really exist, other than as dynastic clans and opportunists. There is no organization to it and no way to bring it into the Peoples’ Coalition.
Well, maybe the good governance thrust at LGUs would catch some.
I have some thoughts that I’ve written down in Notes form but have not yet organized. The short version is that I have not observed a traditional left-right political orientation in the Philippines. As it exists, most the Philippine political scene seems more to be like the chaotic years of the French Revolution where various populists careened from one extreme to another then back again, and the French liberals quickly fractured into radicals or reactionaries depending on political expediency. As such a Filipino center-right in the traditional sense doesn’t exist. It can also be argued that the Filipino center-left and Left are also do not have the traditional ideological markers, and may be better defined as “reformers” or “Westernists.”
Westernists, I like that for the liberals and moderate left. The far left is idelogists, or half-baked communists.
To be fair, a lot of things and beliefs in the Philippines are half-baked (half-sun baked?). Some of the more recrementitious politicians are insistent like teenagers who have just discovered (and misunderstood) a new, contrarian viewpoint and cling onto it just to stick it to the adults who are actually trying to accomplish serious work.
poor mother nature, she did not cause the lack of preemptive vegetation maintenance. didnt also cause water shortage of reservoirs, or cause 100 plus firemen to be given the marching order for not being vaccinated, or cause the 100 or so firetrucks to sit idle coz local authorities directed the trucks’ maintenance fund to DEI coordinator, or cause the governor and mayor to be unprepared for the raging inferno as their attention was elsewhere.
apparently there has been prior summits about forest fire attended by both local authorities and firefighters, some of those firefighters were invited from overseas and were experts in managing forest fire. but local authorities were more interested in listening to politics than the concerns of firefighters.
No KB, I’d have to disagree on this one. Sadly all these points are part of the American far-right propaganda network that went into overdrive due to envy of successful blue states. A few months ago that propaganda network even attacked following two typhoons that devastated their own communities. As I mentioned earlier, it’s much easier for these malcontents to criticize when they do not need to solve the problem, and live far away in another state, and are unfamiliar with the local issues of the affected area.
1. California’s reservoirs are near-full. There is one local reservoir that was empty under multi-year maintenance, but that is a factor of bad luck. The connected political fight here is “Delta smelt,” an endangered fish that became the face of “water war” fights in Northern California where large farming corporations wanted to use excessive amounts of water to the point where the local rivers would be harmed. Fights over water rights have gone back to the founding of California, as most of California is a desert. Also most reservoirs are nearby mountains that receive a lot of snowpack, which are in Northern California. There is a big mountain range separating California’s Central Valley from Southern California where Los Angeles is that places a natural obstacle in the movement of large amounts of water as well. The aqueducts, which rival ancient Rome’s, actually need to take a circuitous route all the way to the Nevada, Arizona border before cutting back across the desert to Southern California.
2. Firemen are like soldiers. Order is enforced and insubordination is punished harshly. Unfortunately there seems to be a few dozen out of 15,000+ firefighters who are MAGA and are making an issue of their vaccination status. If a soldier disobeys they would be court martialed and punished. If a fireman or soldier doesn’t want to obey the rules of their organization, they should find another job. Insubordinate firemen cause disorder among the ranks and decrease the effectiveness of the other 15,000 firemen.
3. CalFire and LA Fire Department’s budget is actually quite high. DEI is another American culture war issue. DEI means equality of employment and without it qualified non-White applicants would not have a chance over incompetent White applicants. Despite equality being the law since the Civil Rights Act, racist White managers would still quietly discriminate non-White or poor White applicants. DEI is a reflection of the actual citizenry, and without it there would be a South African Apartheid situation, and is the reason why Fil-Ams can attain high positions based on their merit. Even when I was still in elementary (1980s), it was quite hard for non-White workers to work in any job outside of the Federal government, which had been integrated since the 1950s. DEI has been taken out of proportion (I agree with the principle, but wish people would come up with better names that cannot be used as political weapons).
4. Water supplies are designed for municipal use, including for firemen to put out regular house fires. It is impossible for any water supply to handle being able to put out 5,000+ house fires at once, and no water supply in the entire world is designed for this. When a water supply is heavily used, the water pressure drops decreasing the flow. At no time did the fire hydrants become turned off as the far-right accused.
5. California, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and Northern Mexico is a chaparral environment. Chaparral environments are shrublands that depend on a fire cycle in order to maintain the environment. This was known even in the pre-Spanish times by the Indios. Chaparral is similar to Canadian grasslands, Australian brushland, African Veld, or Russian tundra, all areas that require a natural fire cycle and thus have frequent large wildfires. It is us as modern humans that are building into fire-prone areas, because previously large wildfires occurred every 50-70 years with much lower intensity. Climate change has changed that, just like how the Philippines receives more frequent and powerful typhoons.
https://www.nps.gov/places/000/fire-followers.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaparral
6. Just like typhoons can’t be stopped in the Philippines, chaparral fires can’t be stopped. No amount of forest management (a favorite attack of the right-wingers) would help, when California’s land mass is bigger than the Philippines with the territorial sea added. Reminds me of how PNoy was attacked for Yolanda, as if a single man is able to stop a supertyphoon. “Forest management” or as Trump liked to say “sweeping the leaves” is a simplistic attack of American propagandists that do not live in California, and hate California. The strategy against wildfires is by creating fire breaks to try to re-direct the fire into a contained area until the fire burns itself out. There was no way to save those lost houses when the typhoon-force Santa Ana winds have been blowing for almost 2 weeks.
7. I am cautious about filtering information, as this tragedy has attracted mass hysteria across the US and the world. People are assuming that the entire city of Los Angeles (which is comparable in size to Metro Manila) has burned down, when it has been 3 neighborhoods (subdivision in Philippines). Most of the fire is contained in the chaparral mountains. In our social media age people are looking for views and clicks, and even flying drones illegally to capture pictures and videos for their socmed posts. One of the very important “water bomber” airplanes was even damaged by a drone that flew into the plane’s wing.
8. I think it’s good for dialogue and learning among firefighters, but as the three main populated wildfire-prone areas are California, Northern Mexico, Canadian grassland, and Australian brushland, the views of firefighters elsewhere probably isn’t that helpful. Californians already know how to combat these wildfires, and the foreign countries with expert firemen who were sent to help are from Canada and Mexico.
9. Politics is always an issue. Just like when a typhoon hits (hurricane here), politics demands that the homeowners are helped with rebuilding in the same exact disaster-prone area. The same politics happens in California where fire-affected homeowners are helped with rebuilding in the same exact spot. A lot of these suburbs were built 60-70 years ago when there was no climate change and very little fire danger, as Joe who has also lived in the area can share.
10. In terms of US national politics, it never ceases to amaze me that even after MAGA won all 3 branches of government, they still go on complaining and acting as if they are the minority party. That gives me an indicator of what their plans will be once they have power. More demagoguery, more attacks, less doing anything to help normal Americans while giving all the tax benefits to their billionaire backers. The Republican Party, which I was formerly a proud member for many years, has become the Do-Nothing Party.
A most rational summary of current events. Unfortunately, sense is subordinate to insult these days. Republicans want power, not reason, not compassion.
Republicans want power, yet they don’t know what to do with power once they get it. Much easier to stand outside as the minority to agitate and complain, much like the US far-left that masquerades as the “progressive” faction of the Democratic party nowadays. When Republicans actually get power, they don’t know what to do as now they are held accountable for governing, so since Reagan they just try to transfer as much wealth to the billionaires as possible through tax cuts. I left the Republican Party when I started following the money and found that the only group that benefit from Republican policies were billionaires who have no love of country or patriotism.
Yes, so what is coming is a screeching battle between knee-jerk leaders and institutional moral inertia.
No amount of forest management (a favorite attack of the right-wingers) would help, when California’s land mass is bigger than the Philippines
I think this is what kb is referring to re mismanagement or “lack of preemptive vegetation maintenance” as one of many issues involved not just DEI, eg. why they had to “reintroduce” this practice in first place?
First of all, use of “quotes” has been misused and as a former English major in appalled even media organizations do it. Quotes have gained the implication of “not true,” which is not the purpose of quotations.
Secondly if I recall, native California tribes were prevented from engaging in their native fire management activities even on tribal land by the earliest White California governments that thought the practice was dumb since they didn’t understand it.
Well we understand things better now. So it isn’t a surprise or bad thing that the actual experts who have lived on this land for 10,000 years long before European settlers, both Anglo and Spanish arrived, are consulted. Consulting non-White experts has nothing to do with the so-called “DEI,” which as you can see here is an appropriate use of the misuse of skeptical quotations.
as to DEI personnel per kb, this is LA county fire demographics. LA city fire i’m sure is more diverse (will try to find that info), Joey:
LAPD was subject to consent decree in the 1990s after Rodney King riot, that trickled to LAFD as well. so too DWP, etc.
DEI is not really about hiring per se but cultural sensitivity trainings. thus a whole bureau is needed of ethnic studies majors etc. to accommodate these trainings.
To the majority aggrieved by 4 decades of right-wing propaganda lies, the notion that somehow public servants should reflect the community they serve elicits horror.
I live here. And it is incorrect to make the statement that LAPD’s consent decree resulting from LAPD’s blatant abuse of power back in the 1990s and prior “trickled” down to other agencies. I would caution against simplistic explanations. People are not that dumb.
So you’re saying, LAPD due to consent decree had to hire and diversify (that was part of consent decree mind you). but LA city decided to shield its LAFD and DWP? thus LA city in the 90s said no we’ll keep ’em 80% white. just cuz?
It seems you do not live in Los Angeles and are not familiar with issues Angelenos face abs what is being done to solve it. I could go on and on explaining everything as I live here, but you’ll throw out something else like “what about” the 80% white, and we’d be back at square one. The reason why police forces are largely white is really obvious, and doesn’t even require me to be a far-left freak to understand it. I think that’s lacking here is a failure of imagination on your part in your pursuit of having the last word.
Well we understand things better now. So it isn’t a surprise or bad thing that the actual experts who have lived on this land for 10,000 years long before European settlers,
Okay , then why were there no controlled burns of the chapparals , Joey?
for example, in Altadena, why they just doing this now? again , kb, is correct. here’s video on this.
It is useless to explain complex problems of the other side has no desire to understand.
It is useless to explain complex problems if the other side has no desire to understand.
Controlled burns are not easy to do. If they go out of control, you have started a fire, not put it out. So there is a risk/reward calculation, a humidity calculation, and a wind calculation to consider. To do a controlled burn in a santa ana condition is playing with dynamite. One would have to know where, why, and risk calculations to understand why they do and why they don’t. To presume incompetence or ill intent means mainly that you weren’t there to do the calculations, and don’t have any accountability for outcomes.
The reason why police forces are largely white is really obvious, and doesn’t even require me to be a far-left freak to understand it.
But its not anymore is my point, Joey.
To be clear, I am not referring to you as far-left, LCpl. Rather the freaks are the far-left and far-right agitators and bomb throwers who only lie that everything is so easy to fix, yet never want to take responsibility for fixing anything. The freaks simply gaslight and move onto the next manufactured outrage. You may be stuck in their outrage cycle, which is why I’m being so pointed so you can snap out of their grip.
I honestly don’t see far-left chatter over this, Joey. though you’re right MAGA is all over this, I suspect cuz they want a GOP governor for CA next year. but my point again, is that some concerns posed is relevant and will help going forward, like more or wider fire breaks, taking out invasive vegetation that dry up adding to fuel, prepositioning of materiel and personnel, etc. etc. why I don’t agree with you disparaging or quieting kb’s commentary. cuz kb’s non argumentative. she’s got points galore on this.
I am not disparaging KB’s comment. I respect and greatly enjoy KB’s commentary which gives me a smile quite often. KB cares about the effects of misinformation and disinformation, and in this case even the most vigilant among us can fall to insidious tactics of propagandists. I am simply providing accurate information, as an actual resident of the affected area. The wildfires, like hurricanes and typhoons are natural disasters that don’t care about politics, yet one side being MAGA has decided to propagandize an unpreventable tragedy.
As I shared in my quite detailed comments, it is not economically nor humanly possible to clear out the dried chaparral. Clearing the chaparral means clearing the entire state, which I’ve mentioned is as big as the whole Philippines. Not to mention the dried chaparral is part of the local ecosystem and holds the topsoil in place. Burning it off or clearing it would create even more problems. Aside from rainwater retention, preventing floods by soaking up California’s hard and fast rains when we get rain, chaparral provides an ecosystem for countless native animals and plants. I’m also not about to want to live in a dust bowl when all the topsoil blows away. It gets dusty enough during Santa Ana wind events.
The actual solution serious politicians whisper about is to not allow building homes near fire-prone areas to begin with, but people who already own homes in those areas would be up in arms just like hurricane destroyed homeowners demand their house to be built exactly in the same spot only to be destroyed again in the next hurricane. People are irrational. But consider if the chaparral can be feasibly cleared, that would take decades and billions of dollars, not to mention political capital granting the authority to the government to spend that much money. We know how much people hate to be taxed on what they think they can’t benefit from. No one thinks they benefit from taxes until there’s a calamity.
These issues cannot be understood unless someone has actually lived in the affected area, and has spent time thinking about the underlying problem and human dilemmas. It is much easier just to blame from afar, which is what MAGAs in poor red states living off of my tax dollars supporting their welfare and food stamps are doing.
as an actual resident of the affected area.
Joey, if am not mistaken the last fire near you recently would’ve been the Airport fire which went the opposite way into Lake Elsinore from you. so you’d not be a resident of the affected areas.
But this is what I mean by disparage (etymologically speaking), your i live here and you guys don’t, so i know more than you. that’s disparaging.
As to no preemptive vegetation maintenance as solution. that’s no solution at all. and those houses in Pacific Palisades and Altadena have been there for quite awhile now. so your no building is also no solution.
here’s a good pdf: https://woodsinstitute.stanford.edu/system/files/publications/New_Strategy_Wildfire_Epidemic_Whitepaper_1.pdf
(“reintroduction of prescribed fire” and “fuel breaks” are underlined as well as “home hardening”. as solutions)
(that says all of the above was done at UCSC thus survived a wild fire).
(underlined, “understory clearing and thinning”)
kb: “but local authorities were more interested in listening to politics than the concerns of firefighters.”
Things were not prioritized, Joey. all the above couldve been done. the fact that KTLA featured fuel/fire breaks being done just now during the fire, is very telling.
disparage (verb)
dis·par·age di-ˈsper-ij -ˈspa-rij
1: to belittle the importance or value of (someone or something) : to speak slightingly about (someone or something)
2: to lower (someone or something) in rank or reputation : degrade
This is the definition of “disparage.” To disparage requires active dismissal, and implies a high or correct thing is being brought down or lowered. Correcting misinformation cannot be characterized as disparagement. Not “winning” forced arguments is not equal to being disparaged, and the more random stuff being thrown at the initial argument, the argument becomes much weaker. Notice that in my replies to you LCpl, I maintain a straight line of reasoning that doesn’t waver rather than pulling stuff from all over the place hoping something sticks. By throwing random stuff at the wall I can point out here now you’ve pulled out introducing the “you don’t actually live EXACTLY next to there” argument which in my honest opinion insults both your and my intelligence. But to answer that specifically, sure, I’m well-informed enough and fortunate enough not to live in fire-prone areas, but in prior LA/OC area wildfires that were thankfully contained to the brushlands by luck of freeways creating a barrier from subdivisions while rain helped contain the fires. I lived 15 minutes away from those wildfires and had to drive through smoke and ash to get to work. Every long-time Southern Californian knows that chaparral wildfires happen every year as it has for hundreds of millions of years before the native Chumash arrived, so being so invested in this argument leads me to think you don’t live here locally to Southern California anymore. You may feel like I’m attacking you when I disagree with what you say, but I’m actually spending my limited time engaging with you as a friend in this community, which should speak volumes to me trying to operate in good faith and patient friendliness.
There is a lot of misinformation being thrown around right now that literally no one cared about prior to these wildfires breaking out, and anyone, including myself are possible susceptible targets which is why in an information warfare environment we must remain vigilant and insist on the truth. I would hope that KB and I engage cordially as equals with even laughs occasionally, which is the same respect I accord to you. Some of the information you’ve shared, may have some truth, which is why conspiracy theories being spread depend on having a kernel of truth. But looking at things in the singular disregards the bigger picture of how everything fits together, and I think I’ve thoroughly explained why “clearing and thinning” alone can’t solve the wildfire issue when the MAIN ISSUE is that people continue to build homes in areas that are known to be fire-prone. Actually these situations are not even the fault of the individual homeowners as no one can be expected to know every little nuance. They just want to own a part of the American dream of having a house of their own. So place the blame at the feet of those actually responsible, which are the moneygrubbing corporate home builders who build in known high fire risk areas and the greedy insurance companies that collect high monthly insurance premiums yet don’t want to pay out a cent to policyholders in times of loss. Notice how corporate interests I identified to this particular situation and the billionaires redirect people’s confusion and anger with culture war issues so no one noticed it was actually the monied interests that caused the harmful results to happen in the first place or exacerbated known problems they keep hidden in pursuit of corporate profits?
I think this thread has been polluting this particular blog post with more than enough comments irrelevant to the topic. In all my other comments not related to your replies I’ve striven to stay on topic and provide an alternate viewpoint informed by experience and history. Not sure what your agenda is LCpl of trying to troll me for comments, but as I said before half of the comments end up being derailed which is getting a bit frustrating. If you want a friend to listen about random stuff, I’ll give you my number and you can invite me over for beers if you live in Southern California. Otherwise, let’s get back to the Philippines topic and have a bit of seriousness and maybe some laughs together with you like when I originally joined commenting here.
The topic of this blog is who is the center-right of the Philippines. How does this comment relate, and how do you expect me to attract Filipino readership when you stuff the discussion thread full of information pertinent only to you. Last warning.
I have put you into moderation to enable me to focus on delivering a Filipino discussion on today’s article. You can still comment but your remarks will be put into “pending” until I can review and approve them. Well, you know the routine.
Burning it off or clearing it would create even more problems.
I’m just saying kb’s correct and your opposition to controlled burns is wrong , Joey. its in fact part of the solution. here:
whether its thru controlled burns or simply cutting ’em down, this is what’s supposed to be done, Joey. see the difference?
thus, kb’s correct. stuff wasn’t done.
Altadena is not rich, and the way Republicans are behaving, I can’t imagine anyone going red. I do think Newsom has his eyes set on the presidency. He is working hard and the fires have boosted him into the news. The link to the Philippines is that populism matters in the US, too. ps, who are top Republican aspirants for governor, do you know?
Joey’s gonna know more about GOP in CA, Joe.
But I think Shanahan is gonna be a contender, Elon Musk I think will back her. And Musk has an axe to grind with CA Dems. but Dem constituents are sick and tired of same old same old, Joe. so I gotta feeling they’ll throw in with Shanahan.
Fond memories of growing up buying milk from Altadena drive through diaries throughout Orange County and Los Angeles. We would also make occasional trips to Altadena to buy pigs and chickens from the farms, then stuff our freezer with every usable part after the slaughter, including the innards and blood. A much more simpler time even just 40 years ago.
Whoa, that goes back a ways, young whippersnapper. Were you in diapers at the time?
Well, part of that time I’d imagine. I slaughtered my first pig when I was about 7-ish, while my younger brother puked his guts out nearby. Cleaned out pheasant, ducks and other waterfowl my old man would hunt on Raahauge’s land out in Riverside at an even younger age (the late Mike Raahauge was my dad’s friend). I remember the first 12 gauge I shot, when I declared I was too grown up for the plinker, where I flew back a good half dozen feet. The old men had a good laugh. The last Altadena diary store in Orange County actually closed down just a few years ago after the pandemic. There may be a few left in Corona or Santa Clarita. The best milk I ever had was local Southern California dairy cows. Probably contributed to my height hah.
Ah, milk. I was just thinking about it this morning when I awoke, psychic that. Half gallon boxes of Lucerne milk that my Mom bought at Safeway in Colorado. That was after we executed our milk cow Bossy who delivered the goods daily at 4:30 in the morning. We had a pasteurizing machine, like a big coffee maker, that would clean it up. We’d churn butter and occasionally crank up some ice cream. Holy Cow, that was good stuff. As for weapons, I mastered the .22 by shooting jack rabbits on the eastern plains of Colorado with my grandfather around 10. Later on I mastered the M-14, M-16, .45, and M79. And 105 and 155 howitzers 😂🤣😂. Life’s rich.
ps, I’m 6’4″ but I attribute that to my great grandfather, not the milk. My brother and sisters drank the stuff and did not reach such great heights.
I’m about 6’2.5″ but I usually just round down to 6’2″ to make things easy. Height doesn’t matter past a certain point when I’m a head above others in church. My cousins are 6’4″ and 6’6″ though, and I had a great uncle who was 6’5″ or 6’6″ I can’t recall as he shrank with age. Interestingly my (distant) French relatives through both great-great-grandmothers are quite short, typical Napoleon height I suppose. When my grandfather the former treasurer of Kontum was a young man he was 6’1″. I’ve noticed that ethnic Vietnamese who are related to the former royal family, like my family, tend to be a whole lot taller… He probably looked like a giant there in South Vietnam, just as I look like a giant when I’m in the Philippines.
Altadena has become just a “brand” now with the independent dairy stands closed down, just like Lucerne. It’s difficult to get fresh cow’s milk in Manila and Cebu for a decent price, so I imagine it’s even more difficult in Biliran. Sometimes I just want some fresh strawberries, which I was only able to buy in Baguio (a long time ago), or need to drive down to some place in the mountains like Boljoon, Cebu. Can’t beat the intensely sweet, juicy California strawberries grown in Oxnard, Camarillo, Ojai in Ventura County.
Just had dinner with my old man and as he gets older he waxes and wanes about his time in the war. Surprisingly he can still field strip an AR-pattern rifle with his eyes closed at his age, even though he hasn’t shot one in anger since 1976 (yeah, he was one of the holdouts and got thrown in the commie reeducation camp for it, from which he escaped). He trained in the 1911, M-14, M79 and those M102 105mm mountain and M114 155mm field howitzers too back in the day, though being in the LLDB I’m told by his former subordinates that they more commonly used AK’s they took from the VC while behind enemy lines, wearing the black pajamas and all. I built an officer’s Colt M1911A1 replica for him for his 70th birthday just like the one he carried as a young captain, but I guess after being in war, one does not really enjoy firearms anymore.
A tip of the iron pot to your Dad.
Bingo. Spot on.
My understanding is that the defunding claim is erroneous, that it is based on a line item that was struck in favor of increases elsewhere, notably personnel expenses. The matter is a bit confusing and I personally am not inclined to blame people for a natural disaster beyond ANY funding level.
That’s the interview that got her into hot water w/ Mayor Bass, Joe.
She contacts said reporter (during these fires while still going on) to tell reporter that the City has defunded her fire dept and then showed all her memos saying so spanning months prior i think years (eg. i told you so). so the defunding seems legit.
My only issue with Chief Crowley is she threw her Mayor and city council under the bus during a fire. I don’t think she’s working for Trump or Elon. just kinda dumb i guess. for that she should be booted. hard.
Nor is she running for office or anything like that which is really weird. So why call an interview? and right now w/ all the fires. i dunno. but thats where the defunding stuff comes from. from her. the fire chief.
She blamed the mayor and the city council. while the fires ongoing.
I see. Well, I guess the Philippines does not own the market on incompetence then. My position on it is that such disasters are not preventable given global warming, and all the personal upsets are largely irrelevant proof that the eyes that be are off the ball.
The definition fits mainstream Republicans. Not the extremists who are power-based and not principle based.
This is a rant of old tunes.
Is it too late to have a two party system in this fragmented Philippines?
The partylist system continues to be repurposed or shoehorned to make square pegs fit in a triangle or a circle.
More political parties splinter out of grievance or out of convenience, sometimes a party is revived to supposedly espouse the founder’s principles.
Left-Center-Right
This is very linear, but the world is round and money makes the world go round.
All year round the budget is being discussed.
Local governments want their IRA, Congress men want their latest pork variation down to the barangay saying that remember this face and this project is where your taxes go
Investigations in aid of reelection , many bills are filed and refiled at the start of the Nth congress what ever legislation proposed will be after elections.
If its is truth seeking, then bring back the truth commissions.
Never mind.
Perfect summation of the illogic to Philippine politics, tribal to the core, defying logic.
Thanks? I wish I could answer the Centrist Right questions l, but I am here to learn more.
We are equally studious then. 😀
🙂
Lincoln for sure was centrist-right, Joe. but that was just his day job.
The US Republican Party as founded, was not center-right, nor was Lincoln.
Nice. GOP are center left then? would you agree they are center left again? pro-workers etc.
<<<<<
Ok, if you’re interested in the subject, I would suggest you to read about the history of American political parties. The wiki is sufficient if the wiki is read slowly, taking in the information. It’s much more complicated than that. “Pro-worker” is a modern idea and you’re mixing modern viewpoints with the founding of the GOP. Parties are not static and may contain multiple factions within the party. The GOP was left when it was founded. By 1890s, the GOP kicked out most of their left faction and fully kicked out their left faction after Teddy Roosevelt was rejected by his own party. GOP exiled all their center-right politicians a long time ago (Rockefeller Republicans). By the time of Nixon and Reagan, GOP became increasingly right-wing and the march to to extreme right has been steady since then. When I was active in the GOP in the 1990s and 2000s, the party was already quite close to far right, making regular right wingers like Bush Jr. look like a moderate in comparison.
“Pro-worker” is a modern idea and you’re mixing modern viewpoints with the founding of the GOP.
I’m just equating pro-worker with anti-slavery. paid vs. non-paid. then fast forward to today its the rank & file union members going pro-Trump. thus pro-worker like coming full circle from Lincoln GOP. like how most even majority first responders and military are pro-Trump, Joey.
Hmm. Lincoln himself did not originally politically support emancipation of American slaves. Flattening history and flattening current issues in pursuit of simplifying stuff to find through lines to connect unconnected events or ideas often creates more confusion. As usual for stuff humans touch, “it’s complicated.” How this relates to identifying the center-right in the Philippines however, to use a favorite Filipino slang: “ano connect?”
Which is unfortunate because the military used to be pro-US. Pro Constitution. A politicized military is actually third world.
Parties are not static and may contain multiple factions within the party.
however, to use a favorite Filipino slang: “ano connect?”
That things can in fact come full circle , Joey. Maybe Lincoln didn’t care about slavery but in the end he came around to it. And vampires feared him more.
It would be incorrect to say that Lincoln didn’t care about the issue of slavery — Lincoln did and was concerned about the treatment of slaves and how the existence of slavery went against the Spirit of the Founding Documents save the Constitution. Lincoln came around to the Emancipation Proclamation due to the politics around the Southern recalcitrance. Most in the Union originally just wanted the South to re-join peacefully, and were fine with keeping the Mason-Dixon Line and the Missouri Compromise.
And the constitution *
What are your goals, LCX? What are your principles?
That makes sense about Lincoln. but I still think vampires feared him more.
Shocking how the “vampire Lincoln” thing started out as a jokey web meme and now people actually believe in it. Our brains have truly become melted by socmed.
True that. It is incredible.
I don’t think the US military was politicized per se , Joe. though i think it has always been more GOP leaning. its just reacting to DEI woke stuff– again Hegelian push and pull. i think first responders too are doing the same, reacting to it, eg. what kb said above.
I am anti-vampires, Joe. that’s for sure.
The US Military has always been conservative-leaning especially when it was more White, but to broad brush the services as “pro-Trump” is a bit far-fetched. Conservative-leaning is not the same as MAGA. Today’s US Military as a result of post-War integration of the troops is the most diverse and effective fighting force in the world. Note how those who accuse the US Military of “DEI” are almost exclusively all right-wing agitators who HAVE NEVER SERVED nor give a damn about veterans benefits and are targeting non-White flag and general officers who have given decades of service to the country. Furthermore, none of those bomb throwers and agitators can define what “DEI” or “CRT” means when challenged. So are we now going to start chasing invented boogeymen together with those idiots?
What are your goals? What are your principles? I’m struggling to see them.
Shocking how the “vampire Lincoln” thing started out as a jokey web meme and now people actually believe in it.
Okay, don’t blame me if you get bit by one.
“If it is truth seeking, then bring back the truth commissions.”(?)
The truth commissions … or the fact-checkers … or “FactsFirstPH”?
Karl, I am not being sarcastic; I simply want to LEARN more. For the sake of the facts or the truth.
I am not questioning FactsFirstPH (or Zuckerberg’s actions, for that matter). I learned of FactsFirstPH for the first time when I came upon the Rappler article I had quoted in this thread.
btw, who has not heard of this Joe Rogan/Wesley Huff interview? Here is from someone who apparently has: https://murraycampbell.net/2025/01/14/is-wes-huff-correct-did-jesus-believe-he-is-god/
(This is not off-topic, I think, because we can relate it to the INC and their beliefs.)
btw, based on my very little knowledge, I think I can see what Rogan and Huff are missing. Let me state two facts (or what I believe are “facts,” anyway):
I see, thanks for replying. I only get to watch Joe Rogan when he is on UFC doing his play by play and post fight interview of winners.
https://clkrep.lacity.org/onlinedocs/2020/20-1600_rpt_BPC_5-25-2021.pdf
okay, i found LAPD’s personnel by race break down, but having a difficult time finding LAFD’s , but i suspect it’ll match. and I’ll bet LA city was first to reach this before LA county (Sheriffs and fire) again due to consent decree in the 90s. my point as far as “DEI” was concerned, first responders were already pretty diverse before it became politicized.
Furthermore, none of those bomb throwers and agitators can define what “DEI” or “CRT” means when challenged.
DEI/CRT is also found in academia , Joey. I’ve linked to articles of professors getting fired for not using “pronouns” and then bickering within depts (i’ve shared English dept drama) due to this already.
Within first responders, its mostly due to training which support a cottage industry of sorts for DEI.
Military is the same. but not as bad as local gov’t stuff. I don’t think pronouns ever reached the military.
What are your goals? What are your principles? I’m struggling to see them.
Specifically re centrist right, I’d say that its just going back to its roots GOP. pro-workers. pro-first responders. pro-military. thus pro-Trump. my principles is same same with anti-censorship. cuz every time Joey says DEI/CRT is communist propaganda etc., its like he’s sweeping these issues under the rug (nothing to see here , folks). but we see it in first responders and military, and academia, so its not a big nothing. and Trump was voted due to it. the principle here is address the issue, not sweep under the rug. kb I think is right, why is DEI prioritized over other more important stuff that has to do directly with first responders and military matters? though military imho I don’t think has the brunt of this, Joe (imagine DEI/CRT training 18 year olds). So its local state first responders. and why they are very pro-Trump. again GOP coming full circle.
Those are your goals on that topic. I’m struggling to understand what your goals are in the macro sense, for you as a person. And what are your principles, as a member of the Society of Honor? Truth, or enjoyment. Building, or devil’s advocate. Laughing at Filipinos or helping them? What is your personal framework, and your reason for being here?
I guess right now specifically, I’m just backing kb’s post to Joey, Joe. Joey’s saying these issues are big nothings. and he’s wrong. its something. As to my principles in TSOH, of course its both truth and enjoyment. both building and trolling (so long as it fruits new ways of thinking for me mostly, but others too). Laughing and helping—- did you see that news of Cybertruck owners who descended into Pacific Palisades with Starlink connection. see, it works!!! Starlink for ALL.
Personal framework is harder to answer, to look at everything from all possible angles i would say. Reason for being here same as since 2015 I guess, to learn more about whats going on in the Philippines while also reminiscing. But lately to see if VP Sara will be President in 2028, things are heating up. cuz that would really shake things up vis a visa USA vs. China. and I think you guys have a big blinder on when it comes to reading VP Sara, especially Joey.
My reading of other contributors here is that their goals are to seek insights as to why the Philippines is as she is, and to understand the gap between what she is and could be, in terms of the health and wealth of her peoples. Their principles are to be candid, fact based, and willing to listen to others to help frame their issues. And have a little fun now and then. The purpose is self enrichment, not winning battles that can’t be won because lf impure data and different lenses based on experience.
You wish to do battle for your enjoyments and it leads to theories and beliefs that you seek to ram down others’ throats. Okay, a little bicker and banter is to be expected, but these days I arrive at my own blog and find these ridiculous contests over matters so far from MY GOALs that I come close to shutting down all comments because they tend to be worthless, in the context of those goals. I can do better just writing articles and inviting others to do the same.
I suggest you align your goals and principles with ours or find your jollies elsewhere.
The recent discussion on the LA fires has gotten tiring, blown out of proportion.
The stuff Joey posted about cliques is relevant when we talk about Philippine elites.
Groups on the street are different parts of the Philippine masses, whether they are out for the Nazarene, as INC, or once upon a time as Pinks or in long ago in legends as yellows.
MLQ3 has covered the present state of various interest groups pretty well in his recent articles. The place sounds more like Italian city-states in Macchiavelli’s time when one reads him.
At this point, the big picture evades me even as I admit that I am no longer looking as closely as I did even a year ago or especially 3 years ago. I am more in wait and see mode.
Our compact family watches a You Tube series on Hannibal, Junior’s interest. After Barca (he has a last name) got through the mountains with his 37 elephants and what was left of his army, he took to rebuilding his army by recruiting Guals who lived in Italy, and later on, other tribes who weren’t too fond of the Romans. I thought to myself, hummm, a lot like the Philippines. Group interests over national interests.
Joe,
I was mistaken on that video i shared with Joey above to support kb’s points. that KTLA video was not in fact a controlled burn but just fire fighters creating ad hoc fire breaks. to prevent spread of fire.
The point though is why didn’t fire depts do this as “preemptive vegetation maintenance” before hand. and all things (cuz lots of media coverage on this now) point to diversion of funds to DEI etc. as well as defunding budgeting issues. so again kb is correct.
We’ll see on this issue am sure.
My point about the graphs (in order to shed more light), cuz i never could find personnel demographics on LAFD is that LAPD was 100% white, then 80% white when Rodney King happened, then post Consent Decree which decreed LAPD had to hire more non-Whites (among other decrees). to around 60% then 50% Whites now.
Thus that DEI bureau for LAFD under Mayor Garcetti was unnecessary. due to those trends. I added LA DWP there cuz they go all the way up to Mammoth and Mono lakes, and dump all the way in the South bay whilst eliciting electricity from water. and more Hispanics/blacks were hired in the 90s as linemen, water and sewage, etc.
So it matches with Consent Decree, though Consent Decree federally binding was for LAPD. my point it spread thru out the city, cuz it made sense. and this was in the 1990s. so kb’s right about DEI (and other issues that stem from that policy).
kb’s point is also what all these voted officials as well as state and local experts, knew already what needed to be done. were the things needed to be done, in fact , done? that’s the issue. after actions as well as shake downs of elected officials and fire chiefs will clarify this.
It relates to the Philippines cuz although not much wild fires, lots of neighborhood fires do happen there, due to lack of codes, etc. fire i don’t think is national unlike police over there. but the lesson learned is citizenry needs to put pressure on their local gov’t and elected officials.
I read invasive species of vegetation was also a big contributor, so that falls under kb’s preemptive maintenance. planting local native shrubs, etc.
Now I do concede Lincoln Vampire Hunter was just my jollies, but these fires is serious stuff, Joe. and does connect to the Philippines. as well as the impending political fall out that’ll ensue. but the citizenry, no matter what side you fall under, the citizenry bitching and moaning about why vegetation was not managed, why planes/helicopters were not already prepositioned, why firemen themselves were also not out of their station houses to already preposition, why funds were diverted, etc. etc.
all issues kb listed and Joey answered line by line, well…
All that is fair game and has relevancy to the Philippines. so I only apologize for Linconl Vampire Hunter, Joe, that was my attempt at joke to which I thought Joey wanted a debate over. but my supporting kb’s commentary is important and relevant.
(now the winds forecasted for last night and early today never transpired, we’ll see later today…)
ooooooooops… *Lincoln Vampire Hunter
to around 60% then 50% Whites now.
oooooops… 50% should be 30% per graph above.
I didn’t say DEI/CRT is communist propaganda. I’m saying that those academic terms which no one knew about a few years ago, and no one outside of academia can define those terms now. Most non-academic, non-propagandist Americans who are using the culture war terms are actually just very lonely and resentful of their own life’s failures so are looking for someone else to blame it on. What benefit do you gain by being so invested in these random issues LCpl? If there’s no benefit and the (fake) issues don’t actually affect your own life, who cares? Why are right-wing agitators in other countries like Germany, France and the UK all upset over fires that they don’t understand and live thousands of miles away from? Doesn’t it get tiring to buy into the manufactured vitriol of culture wars? Live your life, ignore these propagandist messages, spend time with your family, drink a beer. You’ll be much happier in the end.
What benefit do you gain by being so invested in these random issues LCpl?
Joey, first responders (and military) are responding to all this. its not “nothing”. As for academia, here: https://www.compactmag.com/article/a-black-professor-trapped-in-anti-racist-hell/
What that professor is complaining about is the same thing, first responders and military, are complaining about. that its gone too far.
But you’re right, I myself am not affected by any of this. but if people who are , are talking about this i’ll listen. Not censor them as big nothings. that’s wrong.
I also wish I had unlimited time to be concerned about things, real or not, that have no relation to me or the close people I care about. I need to save my bandwidth to listen to my insane BIL rant about things have no effect on him or his family.
I thought iglesia ni kristo is being centrist right, a show of force to thwart sara’s impeachment. pbbm asked that INK’s right to hold a rally be respected, by its sheer number alone who would dare to oppose them? and if INK wants to be respected, shouldn’t they also respect others that want to impeach sara? not nice if respect is one way only, respect must be both ways, mutual.
so, now that INK’s rally is done and dusted, maybe a hybrid centrist right can stage an opposing rally, an impeachment rally, in support of our constitutional right to impeach an elected official. and see which rally musters a greater crowd!
the impeachment rally probly wont have that much crowd with people paid not to attend. still, freedom of expression should not be monopolize by one segment of society, it must be exercised by all.
I suppose INC is centrist right, which rather proves my contention that it consists of opportunists. It does not fit with a principled center-left peoples’ coalition.
The center-right in many parts of the world is beleaguered. It is by definition conservative but also centrist, meaning open to working with non-extremists.
That in itself can become an issue in more extreme times.
The German Far Left had a field day in the late 1960s when a Grand Coalition of center-right and center-left ruled, similarly the late Merkel years bolstered by a Grand Coalition of the center most likely made society peek at the edges Left and Right.
Austria now is going under populist rule. There long was a sense that the two major parties of old, Social Democrats (center-left) and People’s Party (center-right) were basically running a system of patronage for state jobs, even down to receptionist level, one Austrian told me.
The Democrazia Christiana of Italy once was plagued by similar popular sentiments. Of course, the media owner Berlusconi proved what my father once said about Mussolini, that Italians tend to make political operas and operettas. The populist Meloni now runs Italy.
The German Christian Democrats and their Bavarian sister party are now fighting a major political battle against the AfD. Many don’t know that the latter was founded by a group or disgruntled Christian Democrats who it seems found Merkel more center than right.
Similarly, the present Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance has a long history from members of the Social Democrats who found Schröder too centrist, even neoliberal, leaving and joining former East German Communists. AfD, of course, attracted elements far right of its founding group.
——
Karl mentioned the old Philippine two party system. Well, big tents have been torn apart in many countries that used to have them as well.
Joey mentioned that most ideology in the Philippines is essentially a fashion statement.
This jibes with my father’s old critique and translation of Marx, where he writes that the analysis of the Far Left doesn’t apply to a country that barely industrialized.
One could add Stanley Karnow’s somewhat simplistic statement from his book In Our Image that the Philippines is essentially tribes in disguise. Is the Philippines just a national village (which I wrote in the article of the same name) with many barkada disguised as parties?
Are what Joey calls the Westernizers just the konyo barkada while the Dutertistas are the budots gang while the Far Left are like the HS cliques that prefer to be edgy and weird?
So the Philippine has no party system, but a lot of parties happen. It may not be well organized in the Philippines, but it’s more fun. The Austrians have the half-ironic saying that the situation is hopeless but not serious.
Sometimes, political groups in the Philippines are more like fandoms than true believers.
Many oppositionists, especially on social media, are trying to nitpick every error of Marcos Jr. reminded me of those nitpicking about PNoy at times. Unable to see the forest for the trees.
Run-ins with some Filipino PPop fan groups who get riled up at the slightest perceived criticism of their idols had US producers who moved to the Philippines use the acronym FYF. Sometimes, the OA of those in the Philippines with similar political ideas as myself makes me think FYF..
——-
Of course, Magalong went against PNoy re Mamasapano because his barkada are the po-lice. Maybe there are people there who really believe principles are not just the head of the school. But I would ask how many Westernizers, Leftists or Easternizers (pro-Chinese) are just making their fashion statement of sorts, but if you hit their thumb with a hammer, they just go Arouch. Meaning they nearly say aray but manage to catch it on time, could it be that the CDE folks in the Philippines who say that politicians are all the same be right after all and we are the fools?
“… but if you hit their thumb with a hammer, they just go Arouch. Meaning they nearly say aray …”
When things go awry, “aray” is what comes of the mouth of some. 🙂
This classic article of Edgar Lores, Xiao Chua’s recent repost of his article last year, comparing the Filipino fight for freedom, including EDSA Uno, with the translacion in Quiapo (his PhD topic BTW) and a comment by an Italian-Filipino liberal friend that Filipinos are too much on bandwagon all kinda fit together – BTW bandwagon can be strength, the rise of PPop on the global stage also is fueled by fandoms who are way more united in online OA than KPop fans.
Maybe, maybe the Chinese, Annamese and Siamese of old did not even try to attack the archipelago as in they knew what a swarm of islanders in boats would do in the age of swords and arrows, inspired by the songs of their babaylans. But that shows the limitations of “paramihan” if one compares that to today. Pink was able to fill the streets but did not win the elections. Sorry, Dr. Xiao, the fight for freedom as just a translacion will never be won. BTW, two million who went to Magsaysay’s funeral in times of only 20 million Filipinos were truly MANY.
Wow, a full tenth of the nation! That is indeed MANY.
Speaking of MANY …
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/12/travel/india-maha-kumbh-mela-2025-intl-hnk/index.html
“Over the next six weeks, a staggering 400 million people are expected to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, or the festival of the Sacred Pitcher, on the riverbanks in the city of Prayagraj.”
Due to their beliefs.
Irineo, it seems that Siphonopore article elicited 375 responses. Of those were the 24 little contributions I made where I mentioned of GILAS. Also “Ro-Ro Magilas-Masigla” as a campain slogan.
The Annamese and Siamese probably never invaded the Philippine archipelago because probably they were busy fighting each other for control of mainland SEA, while the Han were constantly trying to invade everyone else, hah. The Han were never that good at building a navy, so mostly focused on land invasions.
I do think a lot of Filipinos didn’t really realize how the world changed in half a millenium since Magellan, even after the certainly surprising conquest by Spain. They also they turned away from the sea during the colonial period and lost awareness of the neighborhood:
My somewhat sarcastic comment on the Filipinos driving away invaders by sheer numbers also refers to what the Katipunan tried to do with just one gun per dozen troops or the shock now felt by many at how helpless the Philippines is against China at sea, as if nothing was learned.
Funny you described Filipinos driving away invaders with sheer numbers. That’s how Koreans and Vietnamese describe the countless attempts by the more numerous Han Chinese to oppress China’s neighbors throughout history. The literal phrase of humorous martial caution is something like “The Chinese are terrible at war, but they may still defeat you by standing at the border and pissing in unison.” Koreans and Vietnamese, being much smaller in number were forced to develop a martial history of excellence in order to defend their homelands. It is telling that the Koreans and Vietnamese were two of the few nations that outright defeated the feared Mongols despite superior invading armies. In Asia, even the Japanese had to depend on the divine intervention of the Kamikaze to escape Mongol invasion. Though in the Korean case, the Koreans isolated by a mountain range to the north were aided by military tactics introduced by a Vietnamese prince who became the Goryeo supreme general. That Vietnamese prince is still honored as a Korean national hero to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BD_Long_T%C6%B0%E1%BB%9Dng
As for Siam, the Thais were historically a bit like Vikings in their local area when they did not face pressure from India to the West and the Khmer Empire to the East. Even up to the escape of the boat people following the Fall of Saigon, Thai pirates were a major problem that caused the death of many boat-people unlucky enough to drift into the Gulf of Thailand. Brigandry was still relatively common in the northern Thai highlands near Laos.
To illustrate what was going on in mainland SEA a few decades before Magellan’s arrival in Cebu that even most Filipino academics who are nationalism-brained don’t seem to recognize, Đại Việt had gone from a small Yue tribe that left the greater Baiyue confederation of Guangdong region 1,500 years prior, and had conquered past Champa, the Khmer Empire rump states, and the Laotian hill confederations to the doorstep of Siam and Burma. The casus belli being that Vietnam’s historical SEA enemies the Siamese and Burmese engaged in piracy that their respective kings condoned. French Indochina was basically the former territory of the the empire of Đại Việt, including Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina in Vietnam-proper along with the Khmer and Laotian territories, and some chunks of Burma and Siam. Mongkut of Siam certainly caught a big break during the course of those events and stayed independent while at it.
In the last blog you reminded, Irineo, of Pigafetta’s account of his observation of the Cebuanos (or were they Bruneian? HEH!) and how the expectation of prowess expressed power in the form of boasting and posturing, and how MLQ III observed that not much has changed since Magellan landed. It’s just that nowadays the boasting and posturing is expressed through power-displays in Malacañang , Congress, governor’s and mayor’s offices, trickling down to doctor’s offices, bank clerks, minor government officials with a little power to lord. We even see instances of power-displays on the street, like the Cebuano wannabe-rapper Salera (his music is so crappy btw) shooting the American at the disko and being compared to a modern day Lapu-Lapu who “showed that foreigner!” in order to build street cred on the premise of being slighted. Well, unlike Lapu-Lapu the probably-maybe-non-Cebuano, Salera can’t return to Brunei and is currently sitting in jail. Not sure how power-plays work against an enemy willing to smack one’s head. Reminds me of the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy, after watching the native’s swordplay with bemusement, simply shoots the man dead. Displays of power works at home, but outside of that context it amounts to bringing a knife to a gunfight.
I don’t think Filipina guerillas or the outnumbered Filipinos at the Battle of Yuldong were bad at tactics. I can’t say much about strategy. But Filipino groups, for instance, fandoms or the often not very different political groups, often try to impress by numbers. One way to try to undermine a rival fandom is to have many keep repeating their idol is “laos” (not Laotian) as over there most people want to be on the winning side. That is, I think how yellow in the later part of PNoy’s time collapsed so quickly. Or how Joe suddenly had MANY followers after PNoy mentioned him in his last SONA, and less after Duterte won. Or how Congressmen flock to the winning President into the supermajority. Or how Raja Soliman of Manila quickly switched to Catholicism, though he was Islamic and married to a niece of the Sultan of Brunei. Or how the Filipino elite switched from being pro–Spain to pro-America, then pro-Japanese and back to pro-USA again (mostly) with a similar back and forth between 2016 and 2022 re China/US?
Otherwise, Filipino tactics can be perdeganas. Some chess tactics I learned from UP Balara kids kind of caught some Munich chess players I knew (not pros but good amateurs) off guard but one told me if I did that with a pro he would crush me. It involved crazy figure sacrifices. Katipunan having one man shoot, and 11 others have bolos, with one taking over the rifle if the one shooting was shot, is also perdeganas based on having sheer numbers and a prayer. Sometimes, they indeed had anting-anting, which didn’t work for the Lapiang Malaya in the 1960s. The tactic of Lapulapu’s warriors of jumping around to not be easily targeted is also perdeganas, even as it partly worked against muskets. Running the BRP Sierra Madre into a reef was quite successful perdeganas. But there is little big strategic mindset over there. Rizal gave a Katipunan delegation that visited him in Dapitan the advice to buy enough arms IF they decided to do it, which he advised again. Of course, some nationalists deride Rizal as “duwag.”
Also part of strategic naivety is thinking appeals can move the enemy or those working for it. There was an incident described by Katipunan specialist Jim Richardson where Bonifacio and his men ran into a group of Guardia Civil, I think in Caloocan. Most were Filipinos. The officers were Spanish. Bonifacio appealed to the soldiers to join them as Filipinos and brothers. That didn’t work, and they got into a shootout they had to flee from. Sometimes, I got the feeling that parts of Pink in 2022 thought the moral appeal alone would sway people. The opposite of that is, of course, Duterte saying that one could not go against China as that would cause a war. That is likewise naive and shows that they wouldn’t even get basic Clausewitz or Macchiavelli.
Right, Filipino quick thinking combined with a bit of luck often results in tactical victories in war and in daily life. I have observed Filipinas at the wet market rocket through mental math that I struggle with without a calculator, while I’ve met Filipino farmers who didn’t even complete a grade education intuitively know how much rice they would end up harvesting at the end of the growing season. In battle certainly bravery is a strong attribute to have, and for a poor Filipino everyday is a personal battle they must surpass through ingenuity and perseverance. Sadly, all the tactics in the world if not organized by a sound overarching strategy can’t win wars, and a strategic mind requires being able to think ahead and consider multiple outcomes. In the Philippines many DE’s struggle with identifying the consequences of decisions unless the affect is felt immediately — there’s a sense of leaving the fight for another day.
As I noted in the last blog, there are so many words in Tagalog and Cebuano for “rival,” “oppose,” “enemy,” etc. But here I’ll note that there are so many words and nuances for the words “ally” and “assist.” Linguistically I can hopefully conclude that when there are so many descriptors of varying degrees for simple words, those words must have a deeper meaning in the language and culture. In a sense finding alliances is an acknowledgment of one’s smallness, yet doesn’t consider that one can grow stronger with hard work applied to a reasonable plan.
In contrast, the words for “loyalty” in Tagalog and Cebuano seem to be much less, and have meanings related to fidelity — fidelity among family and close friends. Perhaps another way to understand the shifting loyalties towards perceived winners when dealing with a larger group or organization.
Now that you had mentioned appeals for help or alliance, I had not considered this before but upon thinking about it there are equally many words for “appeal” in Tagalog and Cebuano, both native words and borrowed words from
Spanish and English. So this concept of appealing for support must also be integral to understanding what it means to be a Filipino.
As I constantly emphasize, Filipinos abroad go very well while keeping and honoring their Filipino descent. Heck, Filipinos abroad by nature of being removed from the ethnic tribe have somewhat homogenized into a “new tribe.” There are countless examples of Fil-Ams alone who demonstrated great bravery earning the Medal of Honor, but there are also too many to count Fil-Ams who attained positions of power and influence in their adopted country. So perhaps it really is “something in the water” over there that limits the growth of Filipinos individually and as a nation.
What I’m starting to consider is how to integrate subconscious undercurrents in the Philippines, which are habits neither good or bad, rather the negative or positive outcome is how those habits are applied given the environment it is applied in and the situation it is applied to. I think “enemy,” “loyalty,” and “ally-ship” can be used in the positive to elicit support for the opposition at a “machine level.” For example a.) “enemy” can be redefined as who and what limits the Filipino; b.) “loyalty” can be redefined as fidelity to fellow Filipinos to help boost each other up in turn; c.) “ally-ship” can be redefined as those who are willing to embark on the journey together to distant shores to form a new bayan/yutawhan. We cannot change who we are, but we can change the outcomes by redirecting ourselves at an inner level that inspires.
I’ve got to commit that to memory. “The situation is hopeless but not serious”. Beautiful. So is “the analysis of the Far Left doesn’t apply to a country that barely industrialized”.
I agree on the nit-picking, which is shoving data into a preformed conclusion. Emotional, not rational.
“O’ rise ye land of fools!”
In the US the center-right is all but banished into the wilderness with the remaining Rockefeller Republicans long gone. Even solid right-wingers of the 1990s have been banished by the cult of MAGA. Democrats are still a big tent party holding center-left, left, and progressive factions, but the old progressives have been pushed towards the moderate left while the progressive movement has been hijacked by far-left entryists with communist leanings. I don’t think party systems are very healthy when the political landscape is pushed to the populist extremes of rage. Unrestrained and unfocused populism leads to figurative public tribunals, with the people not knowing why it is exactly they feel their rage in the first place.
I think in the Philippines the only two serious parties that ever existed are the Nacionalistas and the Liberals. It wasn’t a consequence that those two parties have an intimate connection to each other, as the Liberals split from the Nacionalistas long ago. All other parties seem to be more of personal platforms for various modern-day would-be datus jockeying for personal power. Sometimes those modern-day would-be datus make alliances with each other and appoint one as the paramount datu in a coalition of datus.
Even Makabayan, which descended from the philosphy of Joma, has Satur Ocampo as its datu. Joma, despite being a former professor had many ill-formed views, not quite understanding the communism, Marxism, and Maoism he so ardently championed. Was Joma just using the philosophy of communism in the pursuit of power, or did he really not understand the bloody history of far-left projects that always resulted in rule by an autocrat? It seems true that one can be naive despite one’s age, and the teenage naivety is the most dangerous stage of one’s life when there is a sense of invincibility and infallibility.
What’s more damning is as so-called leaders, these party heads should know better as they consider themselves fit to stand above the Filipino. It is not the job of the average Filipino busy toiling away or fending off poverty to understand so deeply politics and the ramifications of governmental decisions. That is why societies have appointed leaders to guide the rest. So if these so-called leaders have no desire to improve the lives of the Filipino outside of token actions to gather more accolades for themselves, I can only conclude that most of these party heads only care about their personal fame and power.
In the time of datus, the people of the ancient barangay elected the datu based on prowess and ability to provide. Without the people’s consent, the datu was no datu and was just another man babbling about his own greatness. The old datus had to go out there and bring home the bacon, or manage farms to grow their own. Today’s datus beg for handouts from elsewhere, perhaps an oligarch or foreign aid or a foreign loan, then with great fanfare emblazon their names on countless banners and engraved on the backs of chairs. But just like ancient societies that settled and grew their own food, becoming more prosperous as a result, forgot how to raid and steal a pittance in comparison, today’s modern equivalent is being able to plant factories and trade the excess overseas. Filipinos of today also hold that old natural power to give their consent to able leaders, if they remember how to.
I think a lot of Filipinos make two “scoping errors” when choosing leaders.
One is what the article below, a rambling riot by me, describes
Bayan means both town and country, and Filipinos often believe a good mayor automatically makes a good President. Many seem to lack the abstraction needed to understand the scope of a nation. They might even have what chemrock called “the barangay mind.” It includes a lot of personalization of politics, acting as if they know people they have never met personally. Naive political ideas that have trickled down to the masses and a lack of understanding of how a state is supposed to work add to the mess. Hard to find a common ground to communicate.
Second are the narrow horizons of many I describe in the article above.
As education was often misused by certain people in the Philippine to confuse people or to assert status, a lot of Filipinos trust the eyes and ears of people they know well more.
There are indeed people who believe Leila de Lima is guilty, for instance, because some relatives whose judgment they respect a lot in matters related to daily life say so. They won’t even listen to sources they don’t understand or see as representing other groups of people. There was a seaman who supported VP Leni in 2022, who said it took guts to stand by that, as one’s colleagues might try to “make you pulutan.” It’s very complicated. Many knots to untie.
I have long come to believe that the Philippines was stunted in a way, being stuck in a certain way of doing things even if that way of doing things is detrimental. The much commented “tigas ulo” probably plays a part also. But even as I can name dozens of laudable attributes of Filipinos, the one I admire greatly in resiliency, the main sticking points are the ones that holds the nation back… as many of the laudable attributes are in a sense behaviors learned to get around roadblocks…
Filipinos abroad generally don’t have these problems at all, and the world is their oyster, being able to achieve positions of wealth and greatness. In my early trips that led me to believe there is “something in the water,” to use an American idiom, that causes this disparity. It may be after all the society and culture itself that is quite insulated despite having international adornments externally. When Filipinos, being human like anyone else, are exposed to externalities they soon adapt and evolve, just like any other human.
Now the Philippines has had many opportunities and chances to consider how external cultures and Filipino culture both have things in common, where good ideas can be borrowed and bad habits reduced, but somehow failed to successfully borrow enough to evolve the nation. I suppose one cannot fault the average Filipino for being naive on the bigger picture, because everyday problems often have simple solutions: A barong-barong is built by hammering corrugated metal and scrap wood together with nails, simple enough. Leaders are meant to solve big problems that singular individuals or small groups cannot solve. Though Filipinos constantly voting back in brigands with larger-than-life personalities creates a vicious cycle. What is really required it seems is for a strong and principled political class to rise and guide the Philippines out of the wilderness of small-mindedness. But how such theoretical leaders can emerge and break the cycle would be the most difficult problem. Change often requires societal shock, but the Philippines survives at the edge of figurative starvation and desperation, and seeing the light on the other side, never facing a societal shock large enough since probably WWII that can cause an entire society to change. EDSA as glorious as participants remembered it, probably wasn’t enough even though the dictatorship was defeated…
Realizing “opportunity” is real is the difference. Once outside, the reality strikes. Inside there are only rules and constraints, the ever-present blanket of the oppressor, today the entitled.
A new citizen Fil-Am once told me that when he left the Philippines, he felt like his life up until that point was an elaborate Truman Show. Not sure if that description is apt, and the description might be a bit too out there, but it does sort of fit once one thinks about the lives of DE Filipinos. Now the harder objective is to how to get everyone to wake up in an orderly fashion.
Indeed. The problem is, if you’ve never experienced real lifetime opportunity, you don’t know what it is.
The terms originated in the National Assembly of the French Revolution where the supporters of the Ancien Régime sat to the Assembly President’s right while supporters of revolution sat to the left. By the time of the Legislative Assembly, the “defenders of the constitution” sat to the right, the “innovators” (who were making sh*t up as they went) sat to the left, while in the center nearest to the Assembly President sat the “moderates.” This seating arrangement continued through the National Convention, until after the arrest of the Girondins (moderate monarchists of the Jacobin club) that resulted in the right seats being empty. Following the Thermidorian Reaction (aka Thermidorian counter-revolution) in response to the excesses of The Terror, the reactionary Montagnard Jacobins of Robespierre were ousted and thus the left seats were empty and the left-right seating as abolished along with all political clubs. In the Second Bourbon Restoration, political clubs started operating again and the left-right seating re-commenced.
But first let us define the left-center-right political spectrum in the classical sense. In the classical sense, the “left” traditionally is the “party of movement” or progress, while the “right” traditionally is the “party of order.” During the French Revolution to July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe d’Bourbon-Orleans aka Philippe Égalité there was a “Movement Party” of center-left liberal monarchists, opposed to the “Party of Order” of reactionary monarchists. Interestingly, both parties eventually merged, giving a sense to the fluidity of the political situation where members often “moved between seats” before the time of organized political parties (by this point, the “parties” were still mostly just clubs of young men in salons).
Now we shall move onto 19th century Spanish liberalism and its more extreme form, Spanish radicalism, and the relation with Spanish reactionaries. The spread of liberalism was part of the Enlightenment wave of liberalism that swept over Western Europe, especially influenced by French liberalism next door in the French Revolution which had occurred not too long in decades prior. The Spanish liberals supported classical liberalism, espousing classical liberalism and gradual change while making compromises with the radicals. Spanish radicals agitated for more quick liberalization, even if the means meant the 1812 Constitution of Cádiz needed bending. The most extreme radicals supported republicanism, just like the French radicals had before. Opposing both were the traditionalist monarchists who supported the monarchy and conservatism. This would play out in the Interwar years with the Spanish Civil War between the Republicans (heirs of the Spanish radicals) and Nationalists (heirs of the Spanish traditionalist monarchists until Franco placed the movement under his person).
How does this connect to the Philippines?
The Ilustrados were greatly influenced by Spanish and French liberalism and the respective revolutions in those monarchies. Embodied through Rizal, the Ilustrados believed they could push for reforms in order to gain individual rights, equality and being represented in the Cortes Generales (Spanish Parliament), thus taking on classical liberal positions. This was embodied in the Propaganda Movement. The Katipunan, similar to the unruly so-called “sans-culottes” radicals of the French Revolution, pushed for more radical changes and independence after the failure of the Propaganda Movement following Rizal’s execution. It seems to me that during the Philippine Revolution during the Katipunan period, political figures changed sides not just for ideology which shifted and morphed quickly, but also due to personal egos. Parties were more like the political clubs of Revolutionary France, where egos and personalities reigned supreme, forming and fracturing then forming again into multiple combinations. Not quite sure why Rizal’s Ilustrados took inspiration from the French and Spanish liberal movements, which involved a lot of in-fighting, dog-eat-dog, rather than the American model which seems to have been much more well thought out by the time of the American Revolution. Personally I think it was quite detrimental for the Katipunan to take a lot of inspiration from the French Revolution and Spanish Trienio Liberal, which were movements of populist demagogues all jockeying to be top-dog, while others suffered. Irineo can perhaps help fill in the Spanish parts of that period as I’m more well-read on the French Revolution… though I probably should read more source material in the original Spanish when I have time…
Fast forward a bit to the early Insular Era, MLQ and Osmeña formed the Nacionalista Party which was a center-right party greatly influenced by American liberalism that had just been introduced. NP worked within the framework of the Insular Government and US Constitution. Note here that to avoid confusion, we should be clear that classical liberalism also includes center-right viewpoints. The Liberal Party, which split from the Nacionalista Party, initially comprised of the more liberal members of NP. However LP quickly split into “classical” liberal and progressive factions, encompassing positions from the center-left to left. Well my point of the little history excursion is to illustrate that aside from NP and LP, the Philippines has never had any parties with a coherent ideology and rather had ephemeral “parties” led by personalities and being wielded as tools of ego which seems to be a consequence of the Katipunan’s incompletely formed beliefs, quite similar to the revolutionary Parisian political clubs.
As of today, aside from NP being the largest center-right party, the other “center-right” parties seem to be formed from splits with older parties over issues like anti-communism during the Cold War or religious conservatism (Nationalist People’s Coalition, NPC; National Unity Party, NUP; to name two), with most of the parties actually being quite small. But aside from being a fractious political landscape, it seems to me that most of these parties dislike their opponents. Well I guess the left parties dislike each other too, heh.
If I could describe Philippine political dynasties as I’ve observed and understand, the dynasties would be more akin to the “Parties of Order,” or rather, status quo. As I’ve mentioned before, unless egos flare up, I don’t think most dynasties are necessarily bad, but most dynasties also don’t seem to want to have any change that would threaten their grip on power. To take the other term from classical liberalism, LP, Akbayan and the Pinks are the “Parties of Movement.” Perhaps some votes may be gained by bringing on the smaller center-right parties, but as those parties don’t espouse for change, or movement, I’m not sure how helpful the parties would be for the objective of moving the Philippines forward. An alliance, and perhaps eventual merger of LP, Akbayan and Pink would probably be very powerful and overwhelm the dynasties that stand in the way. The only question then is are these political parties essentially the modern equivalent of revolutionary France political clubs meeting in salons, following singular leaders and losing steam when those leaders are gone, or do the parties want to form a coherent ideology and a lasting organization to make change? As much as voters want to believe in someone, a leader, voters want even more to believe in SOMETHING.
Part of the confusing politics of the French Revolution and Spanish Trienio Liberal was for everyone aside from the most hardcore radicals (republicans), no one could imagine NOT having a monarch as the executive even if the king was at that time, unelected. Constitutional or elected monarchy had not existed in France and Spain yet at the time. Both the French and Spanish were aware of the American Revolution, but made a conscious decision not to adopt the most forward-looking elements of the American Experiment as at the time no one knew if the fledgling US would fall apart in a few years or not. Many Europeans expected the US to eventually give up and adopt a constitutional monarchy, or even an autocratic monarch. As such, the liberal movements in France and Spain quickly spiraled into chaos from the initial demand of the elites for more “equality” for the elites (hmm, sounds familiar?), to outright murderous anarchy once common people stopped respecting authority, which until then had been the king.
The way I see the dynasties in the Philippines is a continuance of the old elites, even if the power of those dynastic families may have had later origins. Just like the French and Spanish before who couldn’t imagine a world without a monarch even if they had stripped away all the monarch’s power, sometimes it feels like that in the Philippines, Filipinos can’t imagine a world without their local dynasty family in power. The Philippines may not have any hereditary princes or kings, but the power bases of some dynasties is as such that they might as well be elected local potentates that people give power to willingly.
France eventually figured things out and settled on Republicanism with the 1870 French Third Republic, while the Spanish didn’t figure out things until 1939 when Franco forced the Spanish nation after his Nacionales won the Spanish Civil War. So it took the French 81 years to figure it out, 116 years for the Spanish. I guess when one thinks of things that way, Filipinos shouldn’t feel so bad for themselves that the Philippines is still figuring things out for herself 🙂
Thanks for this very detailed account of how Spain and France developed.
I had a similar message to yours in a sad article after the 2022 debacle:
The article had some references to France, a lot to Germany and a bit to Spain.
Re Filipino elites my sentence in the article that French Presidents still act a bit like Kings (and one could compare the ceremonial cavalry to the Kings musketeers, I would add) essentially says that societies fall back into old patterns as we humans are creatures of habit.
So I guess even 22nd century Filipino leaders may have shades of datu behavior, much like Indonesia is at times like a modernized Majapahit, with NOT ONE PRESIDENT not Javanese. The Imperial Manilan still in me at times thinks cmon, Visayans, you aren’t that disadvantaged.
The 2021 movie version of Balzac’s Lost Illusions showed those clubs you mentioned in a time when it still went back and forth between cliques.
The writer Rubempre deals with both Royalist and Republican cliques. The former reminded me of Ateneans with their at times annoying sense of entitlement while the latter in their rapier sharp sarcasm and high intelligence reminded me of UP folks. Strange echoes.
Rubempre and his rhetorical power, of course, is a cautionary tale I took to heart after I was banned from Twitter. I was on a roll there and admit it was fun at times to annoy people. But when I was banned, only Karl noticed. Only he would go to my funeral! 😭 OK, enough OA. 😁
I should stop with MC syndrome as well, now na. 😡 “You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you,” is the refrain of a 1990s song. The Philippines definitely has that syndrome, which Joe has at times called self-centeredness, and I have called parochialism.
It can lead to thinking one is the only country with issues. Others also have their struggles..
1972
When you’re so vain was first release.
karl, are the Jan. 16 and Jan. 18 venues the same place?
Joe, looks like we’ll see the Peoples Coalition here. INC got 1.5M i see, so with Catholics they should be able to surpass that.
But INC ‘s been planning their march rally for at least a month. I’m just hearing of the Jan. 16 and 18 events now. so maybe this shoulda been planned more. to get more buy in. cuz if they go thru with this in 2 and 4 days, and Filipinos see Hey they can’t even get above 1M, and it’ll back fire.
Optics.
Hold instead til Jan 31 then focus there. beat or match 1.5M from INC, cancel Jan 16 and 18. IMHO.
all about optics now.
They are near each other but not the same.
About a kilometer more or less apart.
Of course this is a back and forth.
All gatherings involve serious devotees or any word applicable to the event. bandwagoners, observers including but not limited to media and hecklers depending on the security.
From the outside it will always be about optics.
Just do not forget the nuances optics can either attract or distract.
Fun times.
karl, Joe… how many will show at EDSA, what’re you guys hearing there? cuz it seemed like INC really hyped it up (those guys know what to do). even got reddit to guess when they were gonna do it went viral. a lot of hype.
I tried to search in vain at least for a ball park, name of speakers, zilch.
The search results do not specify the main speakers for the EDSA Shrine Prayer Rally scheduled for January 31, 2025. The rally is organized by the Clergy for Good Governance and Citizens for Good Governance (CGG2) as a protest against the national budget, but details about individual speakers or their backgrounds have not been provided in the available information. For updates on speakers, it may be useful to monitor local news sources or official announcements as the event date approaches.
At least a little more background as to the number of groups
https://plus.inquirer.net/news/rally-vs-2025-budget-set-jan-31-at-edsa-shrine/
Interesting that the Good Governance initiative is driving the effort. It would great if they would designate a heavy hitter mayor as head of the initiative, like Joy Belmonte. Sonny Trillanes was promoting the rally, which Magdalo supports, on Twitter. Hmmmm, starting to look like a coalition.
Yes, it is very interesting.
Yes, if one looks at both the French Revolution and the Spanish Trienio Liberal, both revolutions started with the elites jockeying for power amongst themselves *in the name of the people,* and by the “people,” meaning themselves. The elites, being small in number were quickly pushed out by the urban middle class which saw the elite’s uprising as proof-positive of the possibility that the middle class can seize power. With the loss of order, authority of a government bound by a consensus Social Contract, the eventuality was that the masa of those countries rose up and anarchy reigned until people got tired of fighting each other.
If one follows the Philippine Revolution, which undoubtedly was inspired by the Trienio Liberal and Sexenio Democrático, that was in turn inspired by the French Revolution, a similar series of events but with a Filipino flavor becomes apparent. No doubt the Ilustrados were heavily influenced after learning that indeed, people can challenge the established authority. Perhaps the Ilustrados were still in the process of learning and taking everything in. I sense in Rizal’s progression that he certainly was growing politically and intellectually. That seemed to all go out the door though upon Rizal’s death and the Katipunan’s rise. The Katipunan, being further removed intellectually (though as we observed Bonafacio was a self-taught intellectual), seemed to me to be more about claiming power for themselves, and only using the Filipino people in name only.
I think it can be debatable if the US had never taken over, starting the Insular Era, if the Katipunan would’ve eventually burned themselves out and a proper Republic having formed with or without the ideals of the Katipunan. In any case, Quezon had a chance to refashion the Philippines with a fresh start in the lead-up to Independence, but my historical read is that WWII may have thrown the plans off, leading the Third Republic to start off improvising. A land of constant beginnings perhaps, but also of shaky starts like a sputtering motor.
I have long believed that the Katipunan narrative that survived is something similar to the Lost Cause narrative in the Southern US among former Confederate states. “We would’ve won IF not for…,” “Our hero was blameless but he was done in by TRAITORS…,” “The opponent had no HONOR and TRICKED us into losing…” etc. etc. A highly corrosive undercurrent in Filipino society where people believe detrimental myths about supposed greatness that was snatched away until this day…
Of course other nations have myths as well, for example the Cherry Tree Myth of the then-boy George Washington admitting “I cannot tell a lie…” when confessing to mischievously cutting down his father’s cherry tree. But other national myths usually serve to illustrate in allegory a foundational ideal to aspire one’s self to. In the case of the Cherry Tree Myth, those ideals were self-discipline and honesty. Not sure if the myths of the Katipunan are very helpful when the ideal presented is “I was so powerful and would’ve won, but I was cheated” is really a good ideal to aspire to live up to. Southerners in the US to this day believe their Confederacy would’ve won against the Union, even though that would’ve been impossible given the Confederacy being quite poor, lacking in manpower for its armies, and had no industrial capacity of renown. Some of this probably has to do with feelings of inferiority after one’s pride had been dismantled, but what is pride when once challenged crumples? Empty honor and pride alone cannot make a nation!
Going back to the French and Spanish revolutionaries, the political clubs were stocked full of what were their version of excess elites, even if some were of more modest means. How else could a bunch of young men sit idle all day in a salon talking about their revolutionary fantasies? This became apparent when the French Revolution started “eating her own children” and various factions of revolutionaries who were formerly friends started accusing each other of being “aristocrats” irregardless of actual social class in the former Ancien Régime. Idleness and excessive chit-chat often breeds rivalries and accusations, driven by agitators like Marat and Danton in the Corderliers Club. Looking back into history, the farcical nature of how the Jacobin Club fractured into the main factions of Girondins and Montagnards, then the Montagnards further fracturing into the more exclusive Corderliers Club makes highly absurd, yet entertaining drama. Aguinaldo and some of his fellow “generals” (perhaps a modernized version of warrior-leader datus?) seemed to me to be the epitome of idle youths of their day in the late-Spanish Philippines period, having the spare time to engage in their machinations. Some of the club members had more leadership promise, like Luna, but how quickly were those killed off by less deserving leaders. How similar to both the French and Spanish revolutionary movements that the Philippines Revolution was likely modeled off of…
I think the point of yours and my historical exercises is to bring light to events that many Filipinos don’t understand well, even at an academic level so it seems. The Philippines became stunted at some point yet is still clinging to a past, a past that might not really be truly real at all from the supposed glory of datus (who depending on the period were under the suzerainty of the Majapahit and Bruneians) through to the supposed glory of the rag-tag Katipunan who never figured things out.
Still, other nations who had to start with new beginnings figured things out, like in the US, Canada, and Australia. Nations that held onto their history found ways to adapt their culture to the present realities, like bombed out Western Germany and Japan after WWII. In a US-centric world during Pax Americana, people forget that while the American model of new beginnings worked well (at least until MAGA), other models worked too like the Swiss becoming a federal republic modeled loosely off the old confederated cantons. Across the Sulu and Celebes Seas, Austronesian neighbors (or shall we say, descendants of proto-Filipinos) Indonesia went with a unitary republic around as you said Javanese control while Malaysia went with a federal constitutional elective monarchy.
The main difference it seems to me is that these nations mentioned had no one to blame but themselves, or chose to take responsibility for themselves, or both. There was no one, no nation to provide a backstop and a helping hand at the most dire moment. Okay, the US did help out greatly with Japan and in West Germany as part of the European Marshall Plan. But the US also assisted the Philippines quite a bit, yet there’s always something to complain about, just like a jobless family member might complain about how kuripot the sleep-deprived OFW member supporting them is. In the Philippines there is still much blame passed around from politicians fighting each other to local councilmen. Even tanods cannot agree with each other at times, with the captain looking on with a sheepish, defeated smile. Not sure how to fix this behavior to be honest, where the many hang onto the few productive people even within their own families and complain all the way, yet not many people want to talk about it as it elicits a sense of shame. If something feels shameful then why continue doing it?
Over the years I’ve been trying to connect history with events, to understand how the butterfly effect ripples across the human consciousness. I still do have hope that Filipinos can be encouraged to “see the light” with regards to how policies that benefit the nation would also benefit themselves. But if all fails, perhaps what’s needed is what a friend who is an OFW did, cutting off their family financially and forcing a “come to Jesus” moment. Everyone became a lot more responsible and introspective after that…
***
P.S. I have basically been inactive on FB for about 15-ish years I think. People think I’m dead. But they never went to my funeral, lol.
Trying to find a culprit (and not learn any lessons at all) is something done until now by most Senate hearings (“in aid of humiliation” as Karl once quipped) and most shitstorms in Philippine social media.
It is also a culture that often shames those who get caught making a small mistake while showing respect to those who manage to not get caught. How can much be learned there?
To be fair to Filipinos and Filipino culture, this search for someone to hold the blame and the socmed shitstorms kicked up by political propagandists has been happening here in the US since the mid-1990s when political decorum and respect for one’s political opponents started breaking down when the extreme right-wing paleoconservatives in made most famous by the outright racist Pat Buchanan went on a warpath. Of course political norms in the US started breaking down long before with the first criminal US President, Nixon, not being properly prosecuted for his crimes. Americans are having a replay now with the former-and-soon-to-be second criminal President taking power next Monday. People tend to forget the sense and gravity of the urgency once the initial danger has passed. Probably why Marcos Sr. lasted as long as he did back in the day…
So these behaviors are probably a base human emotional instinct to blame perceived out-groups and circle the wagons around one’s own group. Much harder to do when the attacker needs to face the humanity of the attacked target face-to-face, and thus forced to come to face his own humanity. The furthering of distance between individuals and turning everything into a team sport or horse race makes us all forget that humans are all on the same team, sailing as crew of the same boat.
It’s how Republicans thrive, not by accomplishing things, but by blaming people for their own failures. It is awesome to watch disfunction in action.
Well the supporters of chaos are about to “go through some things” and hopefully realize they’ve been lied too once again as part of an elaborate ruse to give religious extremists and billionaires power. I’m very glad I live in Fortress California.
California is being portrayed as an evil marxist state by whacked out MAGAs. California should raise its prices on food sold outside the state. California is by far the greatest state in the union. I don’t know why MAGAs want to declare war. Well, conceptual thinking there has degraded, rapidly going third world. The Philippines makes more sense on most days.
A decade ago California was the 5th largest economy in the world, yet even with a small population loss to the Sun Belt, Nevada and Texas, the California economy is has doubled and is about to overtake Japan as the 4th largest economy in the world this year. If us Californians are Marxists as accused by right-wingers we’re doing communism completely wrong.
Critical thinking is a learned behavior which also requires introspection. With the assault on education in the red states over my own lifetime, their resident’s health and ability to earn a decent living has fallen drastically. That built a lot of resentment that was taken advantage of by greedy megachurch pastors and billionaires, and the political lackeys they exercise power through. And so we’ve arrived at a point where MAGAs are mad at everyone and everything, even when they won, yet they can’t explain at a deeper level why they’re so angry. I suspect if they reflected on themselves they won’t like what they see. They’d also see the gods they worship in billionaires are the very people making folks suffer. It’s easier to continue believing in and living in the lie. Well they can continue to believe their own lies and enjoy the socialist welfare my tax dollars pay for, as long as they leave me alone.
With lack of farmers and STEM grads
He still wants to push through with mass deportation.
I am more worried about this than the annexation of Canada, Greenland and Panama
It is absolutely dumb. America needs the workers. Without them, inflation goes up. Tariffs raise prices, too. A disaster is brewing.
This time I really hope Trump is just bluffing.
big trouble in the offing: donald trump’s government efficiency czar elon musk is looking forward to bringing in foreign techie workers under H-1B visa, allegedly to replace american engineers, technicians, etc with foreign workers willing to accept a much lower pay with less benefits.
Yes. He’s an evil man, as many describe him. No loyalty.
Wait, what Musk do with the tenured ones with high salaries? This is not X or Tesla or Space X we are talking about, we are talking about the whole US. Birds of the same feather.
He fires them.
Like what happened when he fired an entire Tesla team, but was forced to rehire them.
https://indiandefencereview.com/elon-musk-discovered-that-when-he-fires-the-entire-tesla-supercharger-team-development-stops-so-he-rehired-them/
Very good, thanks Joey. right = conservative = status quo = dynasties = no change, at the 80 percent level. So to move the nation to modern productivity, wealth, and health, the opposition could form around liberal and left-center groups (excluding recalcitrant Makabayan), including selected “good governance” mayors of dynastic bearing who are for progress. I’m totally down with that. That would work. All that is missing is a leader and a message. Onward.
That’s how I see most Philippine dynasties — neither good or bad, mostly just the status quo of how things have always been done. That works out for the Philippines most of the time, unless a major calamity or war happens, in which case the deficiencies of maintaining the status quo is apparent.
I do think the best strategy “of movement” to use the classical liberal term, is exactly to find a way to combine forces between liberals, left-center (aka moderate left) groups such as Akbayan, and the Pink independents who are really disaffected liberals who don’t want a label but are still basically liberals. If I had my way and was an upcoming Filipino politician, I’d start dialogue between LP, Akabayan, and Pinks to find a goal timeline that has 80% achievability so everyone is on the same page. After all, as I’ve observed I think LP, Akbayan, and Pinks believe in the same goals — they simply disagree on the timeline and feasibility. Timelines cannot start moving unless an initial set of goals are identified and focused on in the party/coalition. Feasibility is a function of political courage. LP, Akabayan, and Pinks like other political parties or groups have party platforms, and Filipino leaders need to come away with the understanding that a platform is a bucketlist of goals, and goals need to be hammered out one at a time otherwise they just remain somewhat like a to-do list that “I’ll take care of one day.” The Filipino people are not stupid. The reason why they don’t strongly support the center-left and left is because dynasties seem to actually be “doing something” while the opposition squabbles over which goal to accomplish first, before even getting power, and thus never get anything done and stand still.
I’d exclude Makabayan and other far-left micro-parties as just like American right-wingers, they just want a platform to complain from but actually don’t want to put forward the hard work of finding solutions. The Philippines doesn’t need dispassionate leaders or complainers, the Philippines needs builders, movement leaders, and change-makers.
That is a superb wrap-up of the coalition dialogue. I’ll use parts of it in a future blog. Thanks.
You’re welcome Joe! Always glad to help in a small way.
Joey
The nuances of tambays.
Bawal na tumambay sa starbucks.
Starbucks’ Latest Policy Update Garners Mixed Reactions Among Consumers: ‘Absolute Terrible and Greedy Decision’
https://news.yahoo.com/starbucks-latest-policy-garners-mixed-164248206.html
Good reason to patronize other coffee shops and small businesses such as the local bakery. 😆
Tambay sa tindahan na lang ulit kahit walang air-conditioning.
I think, anyone can still tambay at starbucks but they must buy something. seats are for paying customers.
That is correct.
Then tama ako sa sinabi ko nuanced ang tambay.
I used to work for Starbucks back in high school when Starbucks was actually serious about making good coffee. IIRC the open-door policy has existed since the first Starbucks location.
In the US there is an issue with unaddressed mental illness and unaffordable housing combined with stagnant wages that is making people become homeless. It didn’t seem like those socmed commenters are the typical Starbucks customer; those kids probably can afford to go to an expensive “indie” cafe, like the conyos in Manila and Cebu. The homeless tend to congregate where there is light or warmth, so Starbucks is one of the places they go. A bit bad for business to have a bunch of mentally ill homeless people squatting inside an establishment so I get the decision. But then Starbucks baristas don’t get paid enough to deal with the problem either. The real solution is an investigation into the closing of old mental health institutions combined with lack of societal and family support for the mentally ill. This defunding of mental health institutions happened under Reagan and has only gotten worse until now. Gotta find money for those billionaire tax cuts somehow!
In the Philippines, there aren’t so many homeless in the Western sense. There is still family support and the mentally ill live with their family. Tambays at Starbucks in the Philippines are probably kids playing Mobile Legends using the free WiFi while enjoying unli aircon. The Philippines context is more of an issue of self-entitlement and not caring about bothering their fellow humans as those kids aren’t mentally ill. Or perhaps not being considerate about others is another form of mental illness and sociopathy.
Here we still have many retirable psychiatrists, why are the young ones discouraged to enroll in Psychiatry, when there are too many patients.
We still need enforcement of many laws including welfare and public health laws including mental health.
Psychiatry sadly doesn’t pay well in the US private health care system. Therapists and counselors get paid even less. A lot of younger kids here talk about mental health, but there’s still a social stigma of actually seeking treatment. The private sector is great at earning profits but not that good at taking care of the public good. Taking care of the public good is a job for governments, which don’t exist to earn profit, but in order to have a government be empowered to do so the public must invest in the baseline good of all. Americans, like other humans, tend to think in terms of “what’s in it for me?” So people need to be convinced helping maintain public good helps them and the society at large.
Over in the Philippines especially for Millennials and GenZ mental health seems to be largely unaddressed. Families are more fractured due to OFW, unstable live-in relationships, expectations that are unmet by the reality of life in the Philippines. I think each society has to address problems through its own cultural lens. For the Philippines, increasing wages and job stability can probably go a long way with keeping the traditional mental health support, the family, strong and intact. But then we’d go back to the root problem as KB mentioned in another comment that there aren’t enough decent jobs to go around. So it is the job of Filipino politicians to create those decent jobs with decent salaries any way they can. The easiest way is to engage friendly countries with help to industrialize and bring manufacturing to the Philippines.
I watched 2 senatoriables address (meaning mentioned only hehe)
welfare mental health teenage pregnancies
Villar and Marcoletta
The latter more on Magna Carta for the poor (implementation and master plan)
hehe plans come later.
Villar mentioned the other concerns.
good lord! it takes 10 years of study to be a doctor, 15 for a psychiatrist. and like doctors, psychiatrists must have a 100 per cent pass in pharmacology. if they fail pharma test, they are allowed to sit another exam. if they failed 3x, they have to redo pharmacology from the beginning. they need to have a 100 per cent pass in pharmacology as they cannot afford to give the wrong medication or give the wrong dose and cause irreparable harm to mentally ill patients. some of those medications have extra pyramidal effect that are not reversible.
gosh, psychiatrists are the most authoritative clinicians I have ever come across!
Thanks for being here KB,
It answered a lot of my questions here as to why are there still a dearth of psychiatrists even with a lot of patients abound.
cheers, karlG.
Cheers, KB
Thanks KB for bringing the issue into perspective. It indeed does take a long time to train psychiatrists, and in the Philippines there is the very real social stigma of acknowledging mental health. More can be done, but just like treating any other illness treating symptoms alone without treating the underlying root cause can have flare ups come back from time to time. At the present, I think socmed is extremely corrosive to the mental health of the youth and hope that can be addressed.
Reposting in full MLQ3’s analysis of the recent INC rally:
https://opinion.inquirer.net/180020/moderate-your-greed
Columnists
The Long View
Moderate your greed
By: Manuel L. Quezon III – @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:13 AM January 15, 2025
That was a saying popularized—or made notorious—by Jun Lozada, expressing an exasperation with officials since the days of the economic crisis in the 1980s. It was the gist of the behind-the-scenes tensions between then President Benigno S. Aquino III and the Iglesia ni Cristo, who’d assigned an elder as a kind of liaison between the church and the executive branch. Aquino was what I’d describe as a pragmatic idealist, in that he adhered to democratic values and aspired to ethical governance, but also felt it was incumbent on the heads of coalitions to give the different subsets of the coalition their due. Tensions would arise when Aquino felt the requests of any individual coalition partner became excessive, particularly if an appointment was requested for a manifestly unfit or notorious individual. He would, at first, make a gentle request for reconsideration, and failing an improvement, a more forceful reminder that the public interest was being imperiled; and failing that, he would refuse.
All things being equal, requests for appointments here or there, so long as not expressed as a kind of quota, might be considered. But one thing he was insistent on was that reserving entire subsections of the bureaucracy or its functions for the exclusive use—or misuse—of a specific group, had to stop. It didn’t matter if previous administrations had ceded say, the manufacture of driver’s licenses, or vehicle license plates, to a group, or that a group should always have a say in the appointment of at least one member of the Supreme Court: these would stop, and a more rational system put in place. The problem with this was that what is euphemistically called our “litigious culture” could–and did—bog down any efforts at reform in a swarm of court cases, delaying if not derailing efforts at reform—enraging the public, which wanted its services now, and which viewed reform and future benefits to the public purse as inconvenient abstractions.
One might infer the Iglesia ni Cristo reached a point where it failed to see how it could continue to have smooth relations with the Aquino administration, but it enjoyed better relations with its successor. Its relationship with the second Marcos administration has been polite, if not cordial, officially speaking but during the supposed showdown between Victor Rodriguez and the First Lady, quite a few observers claimed to detect a tacit, if not explicit, support for Rodriguez and criticism of the First Lady: perhaps those observers confused the pointed statements of prominent media personalities, who belong to the Iglesia ni Cristo, as being sanctioned by their Church.
That level of protective ambiguity can be said to continue shielding the Iglesia from accusations of being hostile to the administration. Its recent national mobilization was framed as being in support of the President’s own appeal for maintaining national unity, meaning, of course, the continued partnership of the President and the Vice President. More to the point, the timing of the exercise, so soon after the “Traslacion” of the Black Nazarene, serves to counter Catholic fervor with Iglesia numbers, with the crucial difference that the Catholic leadership is practically politically neutered while that of the Iglesia has shown it has a willing and able flock when it comes to the coming midterms. This will count, of course, in local races like San Juan and Quezon cities, but most of all, nationally, in the race where the results count the most: the Senate.
Just as a blunt exercise in bloc voting, where would the 1.8 million, which the police estimated participated in the Iglesia rally, matter most? The last few slots of the 12-person Senate race, where if the December snapshot of Social Weather Stations is any guide, the fate of the following could be affected: Binay, Abby (NPC) in 10th place (25 percent), and Lapid, Lito (NPC) in 11th place (23 percent) while for the 12th place are: Villar, Camille (NP), Dela Rosa, Bato (PDPLBN), and Marcos, Imee R. (NP) all of whom are tied in 12th to 14th place with 21 percent each, and Pangilinan, Kiko (LP) in 15th place (20 percent). The strong contenders for slots one to nine only include about two clearly pro-Duterte candidates; in 12th to 15th place are at least two pro-Duterte senators: the future of that bloc is at stake. Without them, things might look very different.
I don’t think INC’s feared bloc voting is as effective as politicians who are suspicious of INC’s supposed power or are trying to court the benefits of said supposed power think the power imparts. The Church of Manalo has other priorities, mostly regarding recruiting via INC family members, peer networks such as fellow students, friends or coworkers. To what end this aggressive recruitment is for, I have some conclusions based on what I’ve observed in INC leadership’s objectives are (it’s probably not political), but as this is a religious issue I shall keep my opinion on this matter private.
INC is a non-geographic dynasty, seems to me.
Well INC is nicknamed the Church of Manalo for a reason I suppose. The Philippines is replete with organizations centered around personalities, for better or for worse.
only politicians fear INC bloc voting, not laypersons like me. so we keep on chipping away at INC and chip away even more in a hope that its grip on politicians is lessened, warped and made tenuous.
Count me in. I’ll oil my chipper.
that’s the spirit! cheers.
Duterte out of the Senate is a very uplifting idea. INC reaps what she sows, and members obviously like belonging to the church. No complaints from me.
My replies keep multiplying good thing I can delete them. Second time this week.
Hmm. Except now my reply has fallen out of the thread. My reply has fallen! 🤣
Sorry about that if that reply was in reply to one of my multiple replies deleted.
No worries Karl, I was just simply confused when the comment reply didn’t attach to your comment. The brain works more slowly with age… hehe
It would be good to see what the senator hopefuls propose.
Filipino youth mental health can be alleviated quite a bit by regulating socmed’s addictive algorithms. Yes, even small countries like the Philippines can demand foreign companies to comply with local regulations.
Teen and young adult unexpected pregnancies can be addressed with actual sexual health education. Building confidence in young girls so they don’t get easily pressured. Teaching young boys to respect themselves and others. In the US teen pregnancies fell drastically once men started being held accountable as one half of making a baby. Unsurprisingly, the threat of needing to support a child or else receive a prison sentence causes many men to be a bit more careful 🤣
I’m curious as to the Magna Carta for the poor. Though as DE’s are 93% of the population, it might as well be a Magna Carta for all Filipinos.
Education Secretary Angara today issued a statement requesting suggestions as to how to best deal with sex education. So it appears to be one of his recognized priorities.
This is a good thing. Filipino teen pregnancies cut off a lot of routes to opportunity.
Read about this ngo, its name sounds like how I pronounce routes:
In addition to greater governmental action, there are various organizations that are working to increase access to sex education and services in the Philippines. The Roots of Health is a nongovernmental organization that provides sex education to women in Palawan and Puerto Princesa. Started in 2009, the founders, Dr. Susan Evangelista and Amina Evangelista Swanepoel, initially provided reproductive health classes at Palawan State University in Puerto Princesa and have since expanded into free clinical services for young women. The Roots of Health provides services that assist with birth, reproductive healthcare, contraceptives, prenatal and postpartum check-ups, and ultrasounds. By 2018, they served 20,000 women and adolescents in the Palawan and Puerto Princesa communities, demonstrating that there is a growing grassroots movement towards reframing reproductive health in the Philippines.
Sex education will remain a controversial subject in the Philippines. Nonetheless, it is a developing matter that is expected to evolve with continued conversations between governmental, faith and nongovernmental actors.
It is mentioned in this blog article by Cha. Sue is my mother’s former Ateneo colleague, a former Peace Corps volunteer from Michigan who married a Filipino historian.
Amazing story. One would hope that someday it would be Filipinos returning from abroad to do this good work of advancing the country.
Irineo, is she the “Cha” who used to chime in here at TSOH. Cha was one of those who posted on the 2015 siphonopore article. Others include (in alphabetical order):
bert
bing garcia
(cha)
chempo
cortyinjp
david murphy
dzandueta
fed-up
giancarloangulo
hackguhaseo
jameboy
javier gris
john dyte
josephivo
juana pilipinas
mariano renato pacifico
mary grace p. gonzales
mercedes santos
micha
neo canjeca
nherrera
sonny
wilfredo g. villanueva
Wow!Thanks! I love this treasure chest opening or kodak moment photo album viewing.
Serendipity. (c) i7sharp
And there is always a connection (c) LCX
has it bright and up side
Just don’t bring can openers to let the worms stay inside.
Sorry the worms went out on its own.
https://www.rappler.com/entertainment/celebrities/vic-sotto-darryl-yap-gag-order-issued/
This is really good news and good work. Thanks for sharing Karl!
Pleasure.
plus the photographic memory of Irineo as a bonus.
I said photographic Irineo and not you know what hehe
Oh no 🤣
hehehe
when I was in senior high school at st paul’s school, the best sex education I got was from ‘no birds and the bees’ sr clara. sabi, girls, your boyfriend’s love will not protect you from being pregnant! dont be one of many. dating and falling in love are normal parts of being teenagers, pregnancy is not. experimenting with the mechanics of sex with your boyfriend is – we all screamed, sin! – and sr clara rolled her eyes, sure way of getting pregnant even if done only once! of course, your boyfriend loves you and he can prove just how much by waiting! you wait, he waits, remember most babies are accidents. and accident are best avoided. and if your boyfriend leaves you because you are frigid and unwilling to experiment sex with him, arent you glad he did not leave you with a baby! having sex with your boyfriend is no guarantee he will stay and not leave you. cry if you must, you are not the only pretty girl left crying.
and if you finish your studies, have a good job and steady income, you are likely to attract a better quality of boyfriend. have a better and fulfilling life. and if your better quality boyfriend turns out to be a rake of a husband and left with a baby, this time, you can support yourself, and your baby. cry if you must, but not for long.
yeah, we told sr clara, we’ll wipe our tears and get up and boogie and eat ice cream! and we high fives all around. sr clara must have thought we were immature then. but the lesson she gave us stayed with us.
p.s. contraceptive pills were not officially talked of at our school. such pills apparently encourage promiscuity and loose behavior. and with them comes sexually transmissible diseases as AID and HIV.
Wise words by Sr. Clara. I hope she is in good health if she’s still around.
I had explained to friends in Cebu quite some years ago that in the US, men are held accountable for helping to create babies (well now, women are held accountable also if the single father is the child’s sole caretaker). My friends were shocked to find out that a.) the federal government provides care and welfare for single mothers and the child in advance b.) the child support bill gets sent to the MIA father c.) if the father doesn’t pay his salary gets garnished directly from his bank d.) if the father continues to be recalcitrant, it’s straight to jail to teach him a lesson.
Then I was shocked to learn that since 1987 in RA 8533 otherwise known as the Family Code, this requirement of child support existed in the Philippines as well, yet not many single mothers seem to know about it. I was further shocked to learn that unlike the US that deploys district attorneys and federal attorneys to assist mothers seeking the father’s duty to help support his child, in the Philippines morhers must avail their own private attorney and pay for the DNA test themselves. No wonder no one knows about the law that protects their rights.
sr clara died a few yrs back, I was one of her pall bearers.
in philippines, even if a single mother have completed all requirements, she often has a hard time locating the recalcitrant father who mostly go aground, gone. probly has an assumed name. ahem, I heard that even ms kris aquino, the queen of all media and sister of ex pres noy aquino has hard time going after ex basketball cager james yap, the father of kris’ son bimby. it was alleged james yap rarely pays maintenance despite court order.
many of errant fathers say they cannot afford to support their illegitimate kids, and some already have families.
Has it really been that long since we were in school? Most of my teachers have also already died. I’ll remember Sr. Shirley’s dry sarcasm forever. Fr. Joe is no longer around to remind me that I nearly burned down the church after serving in morning Mass, though I’d remind him it was actually Scotty who eventually admitted to playing with matches in the rectory. Then there was the angelic Sr. Mary, who eventually doubted her vows when her eyes met the eyes of the handsome Br. Timothy. They received permission to leave their vows and had 3 kids, who I used to help babysit, though she still ran her fingers on the cloth of her old habit fondly. Sr. Mary passed away from cancer some years ago.
I tend to think it is that simple. One school assembly a year, for one hour, including one testimonial from a 15 year old, grown, whose boyfriend left her with a 20 year “gift”, no job opportunities, and a lot of expense and tears.
the affairs of the heart are never easy, that is why the head is located above the heart. if only the heart follows the dictates of the head, things would not have been so bad.
My heart was placed too close to my stomach. 😂
That makes you weak to a woman who can cook. As for me, I’ve never met a woman who could cook, so I had to fend for myself 😅
Well, cooking is not what attracted me to my wife, but arrived as a bonus. And I agree she is the boss.
In all fairness, one can’t go wrong with a Filipina’s common sense. The food is indeed a bonus.
Many Magna Carta’s already= for the poor, women, seafarers, disabled, scientists, homeowners…….
Magna Carta translated to Great Charter
Yet we already have the bill of rights.
In our Very Great charter our constitution.
Ah, I didn’t at first connect what you said with what was in my mind. My fault, but it is connecting now!
Now I’m curious as to why Filipino lawmakers decided on calling these various laws a “magna carta” as the original Magna Carta had the “Magna” to denote that that particular charter was greater and superseded the previous royal charters. I’m also curious towards whether these laws ended up being effectively messaging bills or if the rights enclosed are actually evenly enforced.
Filipinos also have the habit of calling coordinators for something Czars, for instance, traffic czars. Are you surprised in the land of OA?
Wait are governmental “czars” an official thing in the Philippines? Here’s a bit of the history of using “czar” in the US sense of a high-level executive branch official with a defined, specific portfolio under a particular Secretary.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._executive_branch_czars
In the US, the term is informal and originated in the media being OA to sell more papers. No one in professional government service actually uses the term as there’s no title of czar. US czars are usually not even Assistant Secretaries or Undersecretaries, but the American public has come to see czars are very powerful and can fix things with the snap of the fingers (see the attacks over Kamala Harris supposedly being “border czar,” which she was not).
So in this case, it seems to be another instance of Filipino politicians hearing about a crazy cool term from abroad and brought the term home, where everyone repeats it, yet I don’t think many Filipinos would know what a czar or Magna Carta is. Sounds super important though, so that’s good enough in the Philippines hehe.
Joey, I often times LCX and i7s lateral, random thinking, but to eventually find the connection, you must not look for it. LCX overly explains and over justifies the no connect. i7 proceeds and comes up with another serendipitous connection and implies everything is connected .
Now that is out of my chest, but unfortunately and almost inevitably will soon return, let us move on.
Czars are the unofficially official temporary trouble shooters.
They try to coordinate and make inetragencies cooperate.
That thing I mentioned about Transportation agency adjusting a masterplanned project for an adhoc project of another agency.
It is not a question of no masterplans, it is a question of too many masterplans like this magna carta this and that.
Now a czar coordinates after the trouble, a johnny come lately attempting to remove the shite from the fan.
The best way to make unenforceable a masterplan is to have many master plans
The best way to unenforce a magna carta is to have to many magna cartas
The best way to make laws unforceable is to have too many of them.
Now NEDA already has an ineragency coordinating function.
It is already chaired by the president and under it other agencies.
But now it is proposed to be another department to have more teeth.
The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is an independent agency of the Philippine government, not a separate department. However, there have been proposals to reorganize NEDA into a department.
Explanation
The NEDA is responsible for economic development and planning in the Philippines. It’s mandated by the Philippine Constitution.
The NEDA’s responsibilities include coordinating the development of policies, plans, and programs for the country.
The NEDA’s Secretariat is responsible for macroeconomic forecasting, policy analysis, and research.
The NEDA’s board is chaired by the president of the Philippines. The Secretary of Socioeconomic Planning serves as the vice-chairman.
Some proposals have been made to reorganize the NEDA into a Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDEV).
NEDA seems to me to be the only “western” thinking organization in the whole government. Well, maybe BSP and Defense tend that way, too. They think objectively. All other departments are bogged down catering to the entitled. It must be frustrating for the entitled to deal with an objective agency.
What do you think about NEDA becoming an official agency? To me it seems that NEDA already has all the authority as a non-departmental cabinet office. It seems also that Congress has dreams sometimes of creating new departments based on their own pet ideas, like a department of culture or sports, just like dictatorships have. It might be better to leave NEDA as is as NEDA seems to be highly effective?
I am for streamlining not adding agencies.
Even adhoc czars are not needed. Neda is already powerful when it comes to responsibility on paper why should it have to be a separate Department?
What works shouldn’t be changed. But then those senators and congressmen would look like they had nothing to do so they’ll rename this or that and shuffle some papers around.
Or a change to a department might be an excuse to put in own appointees. What a pity for an institution that is directly descended from Quezon’s National Economic Council.
Though if one looks at the architecture of the Philippine state it is mainly a Quezon construction, I think Karl did not like my analogy to a stately mansion run down with squatter style annexes when I first brought it, I agree that was possibly a bit elitist.
I’m not as familiar with the appointee process of Philippine department and agency secretaries, but I presume the secretaries still need to be confirmed by Congress?
And Karl is a principled gentleman who sees the best in people. I’m a bit more cynical in human faults.
Since every Secretary is appointed and the carreeer executives competes with Secretary or the President’s people for the Under Secretary and Assistant secretary position,
an additional layer like advocate Interagency coordinator might have been to fulfill a pre election promise but whole new Agency as a pre election promise, I don’t think so, but everything is possible, it could be because someone finished their term and while waiting head a department.
When it does not work people resist change.
But another scenario or analogy is…forced change.
There is a so called mass obsolescence or induced obsolescence in tech to make everyone upgrade and render your hard earned consumer goods almost useless and you are forced to buy a new one. This results to more ewaste.
As for Congress…
It is made or built to be unrealistic if its mandate is to pass or at least deliberate every law filed
It is impossible not to archive more or less 90 percent of the reycled bills Another election another campaign promise and credit grabbing of past sponsored bills passed into law or not.
Instead of being forever a cynic we accept things the way it is and rinse and repeat
“Instead of being forever a cynic . . .” Boy, that’s the challenge. To understand the legitimacy of the way it is.
Thanks for that Joey.
Yes the Commission on appointments.ErwinTulfo had been bypasses twice even if handpicked by Duterte.
He must have ruffled some feathers in Congress
@Joe
My comment was defeatist and from the last discussions in the latest blog about cynicism and pessimism, I do not want to be part of the problem and have more positive outlook most of the time.
I have a blog on the topic coming up. Someone has to stick up for the Philippines or we walk around heads down in misery. I’m not doing that.
Thank you Joe for continuing to stick up for the Philippines.
LCX overly explains and over justifies the no connect.
LOL, karl! i’m trying to be more like i7sharp.
This endless tooth adding will make the philippines go to the orthodontist to have braces for hyperdontia. Then if the braces won’t work, an extraction, root canal, and the works will follow.
You know what the solution to this is Karl: eat more sweets! Then when there are no more teeth, there are no more problems 🤣
One classic of mine.
The land conversions will reduce hypertension and diabetes because of less salt mines and sugar plantations.
But I forgot we are a net importer, so pfffft.
Haha! I had always thought that cases of diabetes in the Philippines is more related to the excessive amounts of rice eaten per meal. I’ve seen people eat 2-3 cups on their plate, and they assume I’m on a diet when I just have 1/2 cup. Well I like to eat more gulay.
Dates are supposed to be really good for diabetics.
Yes in moderation, due to high fiber and low glycemic index. Dates are also good in moderation for constipation, another common Filipino health ailment.
But alas, the rice fields are the mostly converted into subdivisions or cities.
In Luzon this is very true. I was shocked how much Tarlac and Nueva Ecija changed in just a short time.
In Mindanao there are still many rice fields and farms. Old growth forest gets illegally cleared to make more rice fields. Illegal logging as well. I love catching ulang in the river, and it’s harder now to find untouched rivers where huge ulang live. But without good infrastructure, it’s hard to transport food to other parts of the Philippines from Mindanao. Even in Cebu, by the time vegetables from Boljoon halfway to the southern tip of the island arrives in Cebu City, the vegetables are already not that tasty looking.