Why does the Philippines not seem to learn?
Been wondering about this for a while, and it just occurred to me how the President there is seen as personally responsible for so much. That was the way it was in times of datus, and Joey Nguyen just commented on how it was in Spain with the King. Such a mindset leads to more personal than systemic thinking.
Systemic thinking means to analyze what was done wrong and fix it, not look for a culprit. Sure, one can blame a leader for major incompetence or dishonesty, but in a modern and complex society, it’s not that simple.
Indonesian peasants often saw Dr. Habibie as a magician for making the production of aircraft possible there, but certainly, the Javanese elite he belonged to looks for solutions, not magic. I read somewhere that technocrats are seen as men of prowess in Indonesia, an attribute originally more for warriors and kings in Southeast Asia. Filipinos certainly didn’t see Mar Roxas as a man of prowess back in 2016.
Joe has been criticized for seeing Marcos Jr. as a competent president, while I have seen the same nitpicking against him that happened with PNoy before. Similar tones about LRT2 recently as about MRT3 in PNoy’s time and some of it from the Pink or Yellow side.
Meanwhile, many Filipinos look to a family I won’t name that they seem to ascribe nearly magical powers to. Not that there was no similar expectation with PNoy in 2010 or Marcos Jr. in 2022 from some. I am too far away to know if attitudes are changing.
P.S. an article referring to “men of prowess”: https://kyotoreview.org/issue-1/of-strongmen-and-the-state/
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Ilusyunista ibang Pinoy. Blind worship to politicians who have bought their confidence and all. They don’t see the other side of the coin. Many believe that their truth is that – the truth in their eyes and they think that they are cut above the rest. Some are blinded by money. Love your analysis Ireneo. PNoy was the best and Marcos is way, way better than you know who.
Thanks, re the truth. I often think a lot Filipinos see it from their own respective “islands.” The possibility that things might look different from another vantage point is not seen.
we may look like islands coz we have been carved up, so to speak. we have lgus that takes care of their own, each lgus is given budget and responsible for its own people living therein. lgus dont usually overlap or there is big trouble like what happened between taguig and makati city over boundary dispute.
each lgus have its own ordinance, own laws, but there is also higher authority lgus are answerable to, i.e, the mayor, then the mayor to the governor, and so on. then there is dilg that sort of govern lgus and sometimes overturned ordinances. we are heavily policed, maybe even without us knowing it. we have paper trail that follow us from birth to death, our names are registered in the census and we are part of govt stats, to be studied, coded, and prodded. and sometimes branded like cattles! we from cebu are apparently from scam hubs, pordida! and there is a sitio somewhere known only to health statisticians and epidemiologists to be the HIV capital of the philippines, but the info is kept secret, no one can access it without prior consent of doh chief teddy herbosa. for fear the sitio’s inhabitants, the innocents included, from being stigmatized like the proverbial lepers.
still, we locals know what nearby lgus are doing, but we keep to our ourselves, its not our business to put our noses into things that does not concern us. but we can only talk about it in the market place and in the kanto and offer conflicting advice. but if there is directive from higher authorities compiling us to cooperate with other lgus as regard inquiries and whatnot, and if it is put in writing, signed, stamped and dated, chances are we will oblige and may even cross boundaries if needed.
so if we look like self contain islands, it is because we are respectful of others boundary. hindi kami nakikialam unless asked, or invited, and we will surely get into the melee!
I was talking more about the echo chambers that Filipinos have in politics, journalism, and academe. One reason I am in TSOH is that we are not like many Filipino groups where there is a very rigid consensus about “truth.” As in they will gang up on you if you dare question.
So there is little common exchange of ideas. Bubbles are huge and often delusional because they turn into circlejerks.
ahem, arent we breaking into it now, the cirlce of jerks! even grand commodore jay tarriela has filed libel case vs vlogger extraordinaire sass sasot for allegedly defaming him and labelling him corrupt among other things. as well president marcos has ordered in depth inquiry into primewater’s massive failure to provide service, the missing sabungeros are being brought to the surface, sara’s impeachment is proceeding regardless, and her not so dakilang ama is due for ICC hearing in september. many things are happening, and it would be great if people give support and lend their voices to ferret out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth vs the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth that cannot stand scrutiny at walang probity.
it may look like there is little exchange of ideas, but if you look at the bigger picture, the cogons jerks are being burned! many exciting ideas are conflagration-ing right now, bifurcating! so open up! lighten up! fire up, ahoy!
those huge bubbles are breaking up and bursting and their echo chambers are just that, flat tires.
if our best efforts are never that good, never enough, we are fine with it. we are doing this for ourselves, not to please those that cannot be pleased.
Good if that is not just another installment in another season of the Philippines teleserye.
I remember reading about internal monologue missing from a big percentage of people. may be that percentage would be lower if it included the Philippines. The inner voice and the inner dialogue needs to be cultivated. It allows us to go beyond our needs/greeds/wants. May be it is something that can be thought. I am not sure.
There is the idea of the unexamined life that the author Hermann Hesse wrote about.
Theoretically Catholicism also has metanoia but most German philosophers are Protestant as Protestantism requires self-examination more strictly than Catholicism as it was formed as a protest against sale of indulgences. Hermann Hesse was a Pietist and some of them are almost like Amish as in a bit weird, maybe due to overthinking? 😉
A counter to this is that most people are not fit to be leaders and are willing followers. While this may seem limiting one’s agency, I’d say not as if everyone were to be a leader we’d soon have no society left. The problem then may be where some who are incompetent in actuality delude themselves into thinking they can lead, and subsequently gain followers.
Re: Christian sects, in theory Protestantism espouses a personal relationship with the Divine which requires introspection as a basis, but in practice most Protestants just follow what their pastor interprets, just like Catholics do. While both have imperfections as human institutions the difference is that Catholics have a hierarchy that creates interpretation by episcopal consensus, while many Protestants (especially non-denominationalism) have pastors who are more or less self-appointed because “God talked to me” and may have some weird interpretation of Christianity.
we catholics have confessions, reflections, meets and holy retreats, and we talk to god via his representative on earth, the priests. and still we talk to god in our silent moments, at dawn, at home, etc. and asked for enlightenment and that summat make us open and receptive to the needs of our fellow beings. we may not be able to offer material help but we can give spiritual help, prayers and guidance and helping hand, and succor when needed.
our faith makes us hole.
addendum, dapat whole not hole.
Works with both words. Hehehe.
One other example of lack of system’s thinking is our defense aquisition.
We do it piece meal instead of a package complete with support systems.
Like missiles for instance without ways of launching and hitting their targets because all of them are to follow.
Second hand stripped vessels, which took years to upgrade and still problematic…etc.
But we are cathing up with Multiyear obligational authority mode of payement even if we have yearly budgets, they will automatically in the succeeding years budget submitted by DBM to congress.
Knowing is half the battle per the GI Joe character,
continuing the train of thought.
with a series of chatgpt threads
You’re absolutely right to point out a recurring issue in Philippine defense acquisitions: the procurement of military platforms or systems without their complete support packages, which undermines operational readiness and often leads to equipment being underutilized—or worse, becoming “hangar queens” or symbolic displays rather than functioning assets.
Here’s a deeper breakdown of this systemic problem: 🛑 The Problem: Incomplete Defense Acquisitions 1. Lack of Full Mission Capability Packages
2. Examples in Philippine Context
⚠️ Why This Happens a. Budget Constraints
b. Procurement Fragmentation
c. Lack of Long-Term Planning
🧩 Impact on Defense Posture
✅ What Needs to Change 1. Doctrine-Driven Acquisition
2. Force Package Philosophy
3. Transparent Procurement Planning
4. Public-Private-Partnered Sustainment
🧠 Conclusion
The Philippines must evolve from hardware-centric to capability-centric defense modernization. Incomplete acquisitions not only waste public funds but weaken deterrence, expose the military to supply chain vulnerability, and erode trust in reform efforts. Strategic acquisitions must be holistic, sustainable, and operationally relevant—or else risk becoming literal and figurative museum pieces.
Would you like a visual diagram, infographic, or case study list to support this theme for a presentation or policy brief?
Yes — buying second-hand military equipment that is stripped of critical systems and requires costly, time-consuming upgrades significantly exacerbates the Philippines’ defense acquisition problems.
This practice leads to operational bottlenecks, budget overruns, and strategic dependency. Here’s how:
—
🔧 Second-Hand Acquisitions: A Double-Edged Sword
✅ Why the Philippines Buys Used Equipment:
Lower upfront cost
Rapid delivery compared to new-build units
Diplomatic benefits (e.g., via U.S. Excess Defense Articles or donations from allies)
But these advantages come with major hidden costs and delays.
—
❌ Key Problems with Second-Hand, Stripped Platforms
1. Missing Critical Systems
Many donated or sold units arrive stripped of advanced electronics, weapons, or sensors.
Del Pilar-class frigates lacked missiles, sonar, and fire control radars.
BRP Rajah Humabon (decommissioned): aged hull with obsolete systems.
UH-1 Hueys from the U.S. and Australia: often missing parts and unfit for long-term use.
2. Modernization Takes Years
Retrofitting and upgrading used platforms can take 5–10 years, often delayed by:
Bidding issues
Budget releases in tranches
Changing supplier availability
Lack of local maintenance capability
The BRP Gregorio del Pilar’s combat systems upgrade has taken nearly a decade with incomplete results.
3. Hidden Lifecycle Costs
Old platforms mean higher maintenance, shorter life spans, and unreliable availability.
Parts may be obsolete or unavailable, requiring custom fabrication or foreign sourcing.
Trained personnel may be reassigned while waiting for systems to be operational.
4. Strategic and Tactical Limitations
Equipment may be incompatible with modern C4ISR, limiting coordination in joint operations.
Lacking weapons and countermeasures make ships/planes vulnerable in real conflict.
Creates a false sense of deterrence — numbers without capabilities.
—
🧨 Result: Museum Pieces in Uniform
Platforms are:
Paraded during Independence Day
Docked but rarely deployed
Used for training or patrols with minimal capability
Public perception: The military looks modern, but lacks teeth.
—
🧠 Policy Recommendations
1. Avoid “Platform-Only” Thinking
Shift focus from hulls and airframes to full capability packages.
Prioritize platforms with integrated systems, even if fewer in number.
2. Life-Cycle Costing
Include full maintenance, upgrades, and training costs in the initial procurement budget.
3. Invest in Local Support Capability
Develop in-country maintenance depots and parts supply chains.
Upskill the local defense industry to handle MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul).
4. Selective Procurement of Second-Hand Systems
Only acquire if:
Platform is structurally sound
Systems can be integrated swiftly
Upgrade cost does not exceed 70% of new platform
Mission match is clear
—
⚖️ Bottom Line
Yes, the pattern of acquiring second-hand, stripped-down platforms deepens the dysfunction of the Philippine defense posture. These “symbolic assets” may temporarily fill gaps but delay true modernization, drain resources, and risk lives in future conflict scenarios. A shift toward quality, sustainability, and system integration is long overdue.
Would you like a visual chart showing specific examples of stripped second-hand assets and their upgrade timelines and costs?
Multi-Year Obligational Authority (MYOA) is a key public financial management tool used to allow governments to enter into multi-year contracts that require payments beyond the current fiscal year, especially for big-ticket or long-gestating projects like defense procurement, infrastructure, or technology systems.
—
✅ Is the Philippines using MYOA?
Yes — the Philippines has been using Multi-Year Obligational Authority, especially for major defense acquisitions and infrastructure projects.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Congress authorize MYOA to certain agencies, particularly the Department of National Defense (DND), Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and Department of Transportation (DOTr), when implementing multi-year projects.
Examples:
Horizon 2 and 3 of the AFP Modernization Program have MYOAs for projects like:
Combat aircraft (e.g. FA-50s, MRCA prospects)
Frigates and submarines (Navy)
Air surveillance radars
C4ISR systems
Metro Manila Subway and North-South Commuter Railway projects are also under MYOA.
—
⚖️ Why MYOA Makes Sense for the Philippines (especially for defense):
✅ Advantages:
1. Predictability & Continuity: Large acquisitions like fighter jets, frigates, or missile systems span several years. MYOA ensures projects don’t stall due to annual budget limits or political turnover.
2. Better Supplier Terms: Contractors are more willing to enter into agreements when payment commitments are legally guaranteed over time.
3. Avoids Piecemeal Purchasing: Helps prevent the common Philippine problem of “token” or partial acquisitions—buying equipment without the full system or support package (e.g., no ammo, training, or logistics).
4. Budget Efficiency: Enables better planning and scheduling of cash flow, rather than front-loading payments or risking underutilized budget allocations.
5. Strategic Planning: Aligns with long-term modernization and capability development, especially in maritime and air defense where platforms have 30-40 year life cycles.
❌ Risks/Challenges:
1. Debt or Fiscal Pressure: Poorly managed MYOA commitments can strain future budgets if not aligned with medium-term fiscal frameworks.
2. Procurement Delays: Even with MYOA, the actual contracting and delivery process is still vulnerable to delays, corruption, or political shifts.
3. Change in Priorities: A future administration may deprioritize existing obligations, requiring renegotiations or triggering cancellation penalties.
—
🛡️ Strategic Recommendation:
Yes, the Philippines should expand the use of MYOA, particularly for:
1. AFP Modernization (e.g., MRFs, missile systems, submarines)
2. Digital defense infrastructure (e.g., C4ISR, cyber defense, surveillance)
3. Coast Guard and civilian maritime assets
4. National transportation and energy infrastructure
5. Climate resilience and disaster response platforms
BUT — this must be coupled with:
Strong Congressional oversight
Realistic Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF)
Transparent public procurement practices
Audit and performance tracking via Commission on Audit (COA) and civil society engagement
—
📌 Final Thought:
The Philippines’ fragmented and ad hoc acquisitions (e.g., incomplete radar networks, ships without support facilities, or fighters without sufficient spares and munitions) reflect the absence of committed, long-term planning. MYOA helps reverse that trend by bringing strategic discipline, funding predictability, and supplier confidence into the acquisition process. The country would absolutely be better off using it more systematically.
The Philippines shares a military trait with many Latin American countries going back to the collapse of the Spanish Empire — an emphasis on prestige procurements, crisp uniforms, and formerly medal-heavy chests to impress the domestic audience rather than being a serious defense force. Look no further than the most famous examples of rule by personalistic leaders who emphasized military prestige: The War of the Pacific between Chile against the Peru-Bolivian alliance and the Argentine-Chilean naval arms race. Notably Argentina and Chile spend huge sums of money on procuring prestige navies, including early pre-battleship dreadnoughts. Brazil, and formerly Argentina, has aircraft carriers. It is important to note that none of these Spanish Empire successor states have any concrete military threats. In SEA, Thailand is a country that also prizes prestige military assets, like the oft-derided “royal yacht” aircraft carrier HTMS Chakri Naruebet, despite not being able to afford to fly the Harrier attack jets that carrier was originally equipped for.
In the Philippines, the focus on high-end assets like FA-50 fighter jets and T129 attack helicopters when I’ve seen soldiers with ill-fitting uniforms and rusty M-16s riding in rickety M113 APCs is a bit sad. Another similarity with nations that are not so confident in themselves but want to look strong is “up-rating” equipment, like designating the del Pilar class as “frigates” based on tonnage, when in the del Pilar-class’ former life as Hamilton-class security cutters the ships were designed and operated as OPVs with light armament. Chile and Argentina were famous Spanish Empire successor states which up-rated their ship classes to make their navies seem more formidable than in reality. Yes, some may take issue that the CIWS (with its integrated “R2-D2” radar was removed prior to transfer), but if I recall during my time with General Dynamics San Diego, I was told that the Philippines requested those point-defense systems removed during the process of the US donating those EDA assets. Other allies and partners who received Hamilton-class cutters kept the Phalanx CIWS guns, despite dubious standalone utility. A CIWS is only useful as a last ditch point-defense weapon against anti-ship missiles after all when ASMs had broken through the flotilla anti-missile screen by more capable weapons…
Didn’t they give up too colorful uniforms by WW1 to reduce risk of getting seen and therefore shot?
Anyhow, it is true that Aguinaldo’s army prioritized fancy uniforms that Juan Luna himself had designed..
the army these days wear camou clothes that make them disappear into the terrain and harder to detect. and they also put black soot under their eyes and on their faces maybe to deflect light off them. and their shoes are to die for! steel capped boots to protect the toes, and soles resistant to acid and other corrosive liquids. that if they happen to land on them dangerous liquids, they’ll live to fight another day.
the british beefeaters wore bear skins hats, the italians under el duce used to put feathers of roosters on their helmet, maybe to make then appear taller. the kaiser had a helmet with bayonet on top, anything to take out the droll of their existence, I presume. in parades, they stand out, marching to military tattoos.
Yes, the armies on the European Front of WWI indeed did shed their colorful regimental uniforms, sabers, and plumed caps for a uniform drab olive brown once the war entered the trench phase.
In the Spanish context, what I meant is there is an emphasis on formal dress uniforms during the late Spanish Empire and association with formal aristocratic balls. Most of these practices derived from Castilian and Aragonese royal court, with significant folk practices from Catalonia and Andalusia. Later French court practices were also imported. Formal balls with aristocrats and respected military men in dress uniforms were quite common from my read. Dance forms like seguidilla and the various palos of flamenco (siguiriyas, soleá, fandango, bolero, gitano and such) thrived.
Over time as encomenderos rose in economic power and influence in the territories of the Spanish Empire, they too started to imitate aristocratic practices. In Mexico for example these imitations eventually developed into practices like the quinceañera, while in the Philippines there is the debut of young women. Over time people forgot the historical connections.
In the crisp military dress uniform context, attaining a military rank was often the only way aside from becoming a priest that second (third, and so on) sons had to gather societal respect. So it’s no wonder that the mestizos and indios of the Spanish Empire when independence was gained continued a derivative of the old practices as those practices were some of the few ways they knew how to attain respect, even if they did not actually have the military competence or the military rank conferred by experience.
Isn’t Ukraine showing Documentaries of their drones, automated vehicle weaponry chest thumping and showing all aces as well.
They are in trouble actually with Trump refusing to arm them until further notice.
Well Ukraine is an area of familiarity for me. I’ve traveled the country on my own and with the Redemptorists many a time.
Every side in a military conflict puts out propaganda. Propaganda does not necessarily always have a negative connotation — propaganda actually started out as a positive form of state information; the negative association mostly has to do with the European fascist movements and Stalinism.
I would propose that for such a small country that is dwarfed by the invader, without the vast equipment that Russia has, the fact that Ukraine has kept the front lines relatively stable since 2014 is amazing militarily in itself. In fact, Ukraine’s ingenuity and grit despite being the underdog is so much that Russia copies Ukrainian tactics and Western military observers are on the ground learning. Ukraine was the technological and academic center of the former USSR. Russia is the daughter of a Ukraine that existed since Kyivan Rus’, not the other way around according to Muscovite propaganda. There’s also EU aid, for which the Europeans finally need to wake up and do some heavy lifting. France talks a lot. UK has done much rather than talk. Germany hardly talks at all, but actually leads the EU in military aid. Altogether the EU gives more aid than the US. True, without American replenishment more Ukrainian cities will be bombed without the ability to intercept, but I would not discount the Ukrainian resolve that has stood alone this entire time. The same probably cannot be said about the Philippines in a future war where there’s much more likelihood of a neo-Makapili while where there is no modern-day MacArthur declaring “I shall return.”
one thing you got right about ukraine, its resolve is indeed unshakable and it has the best battle tested soldiers in the world today.
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraines-army-now-best-world-retired-general-says-1789979
Well the situation on the ground in Ukraine is “complicated.” Most Ukrainians favor fighting back against Russia, but not all Ukrainians are brave enough to join the Ukrainian military. There is an acute deficit in manpower, with average soldier age being in their late 30s and 40s; many started as student protesters of the Maidan Revolution and are veterans of the “grayzone” war in Donbas after 2014. But yes, ingenuity and better tactics backed by better weapons are what allowed the Ukrainians to keep the front line stable until now. The Russian military tactic hasn’t changed much since the Bolshevik faction during the Russian Revolution, and consists of human wave attacks with no regard to soldiers’ lives. By the way, the PRC tactics are very much the same as Mao used a similar human wave tactic against the KMT during the Chinese Civil War. Something for Gen. Brawner to think about, and I’m sure he keeps it in mind.
Thanks for these. I watched a DW program where a Polish pundit pushed back on the over preparation talk. He said we at Poland here Ukraine being bombed on a daily basis how can that be imaginary?
Then there is the American penchant for over-preparedness and the Western European habit of caution. Both are available in periods of relative peace. In the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, and WWII there was no such luxury. Necessity created by an existential threat is the requisite condition of innovation, which was seen during those warring periods and during the Cold War. Sound stratagem and tactics can be leveraged into focused strength to often defeat a more powerful foe, as practiced in all human martial systems throughout history.
The Eastern Europeans are much more cognizant of the Russian threat than Western Europeans are. Of course Western Europe has the benefit of distance between itself and Eastern Europe. I always make Western Europeans upset by pointing out that while US history books may exaggerate American contributions during both World Wars a bit, the undisputed truth is that without the US Europe would’ve fallen both times. Well pride is not unique to any culture; how much more so the pride of countries who are successors of centuries old (and sometimes millennia old) civilization?
Also true that the post-WWII European security arrangement with the US all but primus inter pares allowed for the economic strength of Western Europe today. A bit weird that the Japanese and South Koreans seem much more appreciative of the US protection than some Europeans I’ve interacted with over the decades. Well maybe in East Asia there was always the looming threat of the USSR, PRC and the puppets of those encroaching states just across the sea. Comparatively, the Western Europeans have it good with Central and Eastern Europe acting as a de facto buffer.
Well I really hate what Trump is doing generally, but if the present situation is what gives Western Europe the final push to take security threats more seriously, then I guess the end result is about the same. Successive American presidents have tried asking nicely and subtly cajoling their European counterparts since the end of the Cold War to maintain a responsible defense posture, falling to deaf ears while Western European social programs and standard of living increased as Americans had to deal without having the same. Hopefully there is a happy somewhere in the middle area everyone can agree on once we here in the US rid ourselves of the current oligarchic attempt to capture our country.
Thanks for inputs
Defense acquisition is not easy. The big amounts mean everyone that can take some part of it will try.
defense acquisition, someone did try and I still dont know if we are for the better because of it, or lag behind because of it.
https://thedefiant.net/why-bong-gos-involvement-in-the-navys-frigate-acquisition-project-reeks-of-corruption/
I also remember you saying the same thing about development.
Thus my Development article and comments here in this thread about sdgs being messed up by the rare earth war
was reading some random things. A lot of productivity growth is unlocked in capital allocation to the growing-> improving sectors.
The Philippines is late to a lot of this because the elite are happy with traditional rent seeking.
seems the pattern is over investment allows quick experimentation which leaves the dozen or so world beaters.
problem with considering sustainability is that we have to be a bit over confident to push experimentation to a fast and high enough level and sustainability unnecessarily puts breaks on this growth.
Advanced capitalist countries have effective access to capital as well as functioning rule of law so calculated risks are easier to take.
In the Philippines, it is either the segurista big businesses or the people who crazy gamble, with a frustrated middle class between them.
exactly.
Companies -> Country
We have to activate the companies
https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/the-power-of-one-how-standout-firms-grow-national-productivity
When I was still an idealistic university student, I submitted an essay on microfinancing that secured a position on a USAID-funded microloan program. We did some work in Sub-Saharan Africa, Thailand, and the Philippines.
While about 50 years of microfinance programs (since the 1970s started by the Bangladeshi Grameen Bank) have had inconclusive results, I did notice some things different in the countries I did work in.
1.) In traditional households women usually handle the finances.
2.) The idealization that all people have an innate capacity for entrepreneurship was a wrong assumption.
3.) Most of our microfinance programs in effect became cash transfer programs, with the money used for other (non-essential) purposes rather than increasing economic outcomes.
4.) Women in Sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand seemed to me to be much more successful micro entrepreneurs than Filipino women, even though the former two cases the family simply went from “very poor” to “poor.” I guess the kicker is that the Filipino family stayed “very poor.”
5.) Most local aid contractors in the Philippines were totally unaccountable, would give evasive answers, steer funds towards family and friends, and the Philippines government had almost no engagement.
6.) A lot of money went missing in the Philippines, and we’d find out later that the microloan was used to pay for non-essential stuff that had nothing to do with creating a small business. The idea of the microloan is that it *NEEDS* to be repaid, albeit at a very low interest rate. Not many of the microloans were repaid in the Philippines, while a good number in Sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand were repaid. The Philippine microloans that defaulted needed to be forgiven per the program, and the borrower would just try to borrow again or send a relative to apply.
Here’s a USAID accountability audit from 2012 that details the typical problems encountered in Philippine microfinance. I was not part of this program, but had acquaintances that were:
Click to access 5-492-12-005-p.pdf
Here’s an analysis by the AFSA (US diplomatic corps association) of decades of experience in microfinance programs. The underlying point is that poverty reduction requires more than changing the *condition,* changing the sociocultural *position* is actually more important in positively shifting economic outcomes:
https://afsa.org/whatever-happened-microfinance-cautionary-tale
What I learned from my experience is that the Western ideal of personal liberty and personal agency is just an ideal. An ideal needs movement behind the ideal to push the ideal forward. There is just not enough money and goodwill in any “rich” country to try to pull other countries forward, especially if the peoples of that helped country squirm, kick and scream all the way through. Well, even in advanced countries there must be government intervention to create a baseline, and without a floor in the first place the baseline cannot be raised. The way to do this is by providing plenty of accessible, dignified jobs, which for developing countries are manufacturing jobs. And transportation infrastructure needs to be upgraded to facilitate easy movement of workers, manufactured goods, and the circular economy.
In the Philippines I feel a sense of many Filipinos waiting for a helping hand. Relatives wait for their OFW to send money back. Others wait for a government dole or relief goods. What money people have, bad habits take over and they spend it all on frivolity rather than trying to save just a bit. If cash is handed over to them, all the more reason to spend it all in a day like what happened recently with the insane vote bribe amounts in the midterm driving spending and partying for a whole week. And yes, even the Philippines government has been addicted on getting grants and help from foreign allies, especially the US and Japan. Eventually the helper gets tired of helping, whether that helper is a relative working their backside off overseas pining for home, or if the helper is a NGO doing selfless works, or even friendly foreign nations trying to help out an ally and friend. What then when the helpers get tired and feel taken advantage of?
Palamunin is part of Filipino vocabulary for a reason.
As for utang, a lot of Filipinos don’t seem to realize that people trusting you is a form of capital.
Credit literally comes from Italian credere as the first bankers were Italians, and lending money means believing the one lent to.
Lots of Filipinos still blame Cory for not discontinuing the payment of World Bank and other debts incurred by Marcos Sr.
PNoy almost finished paying off those debts but Duterte made lots of new ones.
It looks a lot like how it works in a lot of Filipino families where the hardworking and responsible are seen as kuripot while the irresponsible who libre everyone are admired.
Also pakainin. Though I do think it’s unfair that parents or grandparents who typically hurl this insult at their children are themselves “palamunin” or “pakainin,” but to someone else. That utang na loob attitude can be a beautiful thing if given freely, but so often it’s expressed in a toxic way with pressuring undertones.
I didn’t follow closely what sort of debts Duterte took out, but I have a feeling that much of it was from the PRC and private debt. Investment firms long ago learned that money can be made on financing Philippine national debt. The PRC has both money making and ulterior motives. I told once that the Philippines received much less US and EU free grants during Duterte’s time.
Most East Asian business (and credit) networks operate on a principle called “guanxi” (Mandarin), “koan he” (Hokkien), “gwan hai” (Cantonese), “kwang shi” (Korean), “wa” (Japanese), “quan he” (Vietnamese). Guanxi preceded Confucius and is common across the East Asian sphere, but is often associated with Confucianism. There is an expectation of knowing one’s future partner first, moral obligation to repay favors, and reinforced by the possible social shame (“face”) incurred if one breaks one’s promises. Through guanxi I can ask to borrow a large amount and someone would literally give it to me by the next day, with no explicit repay date or formal promise of repayment. Those who break their promise get blacklisted in a way by the network.
In lower trust societies I suppose many more requirements are needed, though that never stopped bad behavior. It is easy enough for a Filipino who can attest to having a salary to get a credit card or a motorcycle loan. It does seem that those loans are geared more towards rent seeking behavior by the financial institution, while plenty of people run out on their loans and are chased by bank repossession agents. I’ve been thinking about this in the Philippines context for 25 years by now and honestly I don’t know what the answer will be. The behavior there of too many around borrowing but not repaying is still culturally foreign to me.
had to stop myself from the epic rant. Whenever someone does not pay the whole society suffers. This manifests in higher borrowing costs for everyone. The socialized costs is logical for other people while it is really bad for society as a whole.
This is similar to the fake PWD cards. 20 percent discount and no VAT is criminal when used in small businesses as a lot of the formal small businesses do not have the margins for that discount. Everyone doesnt think of the social costs. Its a very selfish attitude. For a high trust society a few leeches would not overturn the whole. In the Philippines when being a leech is expected being honorable etc then becomes a shackle. I think about this everyday.
GC much of the problem probably has to do with an interplay between good intentioned technocrats at top trying to emulate Western practices in a society that is presently incompatible with those practices, executive leaders playing the datu role doling out gifts as if its ancient times, and a populace even if they encountered better practices working abroad don’t apply their learnings back home.
One must remember, the ancient barangay system essentially was led by a warrior *ahem pirate* class whose main function was to raid barangays near snd across the straits then to hand out loot. Champa, which had a similar but much more advanced society eventually was destroyed by Vietnam due to Champa’s rajah of rajahs being unable to control the petty rajahs who couldn’t stop raiding. No matter how many UP grads argue with me over the years on it, I maintain that what modernity is present in the Philippines is but a thin façade, mostly to make the elites feel better about themselves.
The eventual solution likely needs Filipino leaders having a long hard look at the actual realities on the ground and tailoring improvement programs towards that. I hate saying it as these are the social class I associate with but 93% of Filipinos are just not ready to advance to a higher level yet, while the leadership class wants to become an advanced country quickly without hard work. It’s not possible to teach teens and adults better habits. God knows I’ve changed little personality-wise since I was a teen. So learned bad habits need to be mitigated and incentives need to be offered, but not given for free, some minimum effort should be required. It should be done through active government attraction and cultivation of mass manufacturing which even Filipinos who dropped out of elementary school can participate in. The public education system needs a massive upgrade, with a cadre of dedicated well trained well paid teachers. No more extra fees, no more having students buying supplies or uniforms, maybe even provide simple school lunches. Then young children need to have good habits reinforced into them that will last a lifetime.
The Spanish colonial era had Manila as a hub for the galleon trade, provincial governors who were local Spaniards, and assimilated local rulers plus the Spanish parish priest to keep an eye on the locals. In those days of no telecommunications, every layer adapted the instructions of Madrid or Mexico City to local conditions and reported back a lot of BS.
By the Commonwealth, there were the likes of Quezon who tried to impose a structure but did know ground level realities well.
Things drifted apart I think from the 1970s.
I had an interesting mental exercise once among my Big Four friends where the thought experiment was that the modern Philippines is in effect still a collection of semi-autonomous city-states tied together by a loose national government in Manila akin to the out-dated concept of “paramount datu.” If framed in this way, I dare say the feeling of civil society-government disconnect prevalent in the Philippines at all levels beyond the municipality (and sometimes even the barangay in larger municipalities) starts to suddenly make a lot of sense.
Well the positive side of a penchant towards the blank slate is that there are few barriers to cultural and state reimagination. The main preventing factor is a distinct lack of imagination to gear solutions towards the Philippine national and local context, as I’ve observed over the years that solutions almost always are somewhere along the lines of “let’s copy what country A is doing” and when that doesn’t work, throw it away entirely and “let’s copy what country B is doing” and so on.
At least culturally Filipinos of all ethnic groups seem to be slowly unifying in a way through old (mass) media and new (social) media, along with the new ease of the small middle class to fly domestically between regions.
Still, if a laissez-faire approach is used always, why is it shocking that the results are unexpected? To increase the chance of a desired result, there is a need to reduce variables while having mitigation agility.
Mitigation agility only works if you have true accountability, not the culture in the Philippines, which is either looking for a scapegoat or its opposite of no accountability. Of course, any approach copied from elsewhere needs localization.
As for what is the right thing to do, Philippine social media show how hard a time the country has in figuring stuff out, I just watch but refuse to join as it is migraine-inducing and seems to go in circles since years.
The disparate ethnic makeup of the Philippines and fractured political nature of pre-Spanish Philippines probably didn’t help either. At least in Indonesia there was a Javanese consensus despite having numerous ethnic groups. I know that many Filipino academics bristle if one points out that according to what we know about the Austronesian migration routes, aside from external religious influences the pre-Spanish society was much closer to the society of the indigenous Taiwanese, but perhaps there is some truth there. Society seemed progressively more advanced and structured the further along the Austronesian-Polynesian migration route, before collapsing back to tribal systems at the furthest extent.
But that past while nice to know about is neither here or there in a modern era where there are hundreds of countries, each with examples of how to achieve success and what precipitates failure. Ideas which may be borrowed and molded into the Filipino context if the elite consensus to do so exists. As Prof. Stefan Dercon wrote over a series of books on development in any successful society there is a need for the elites to conclude that taking a risk by giving up some of their prerogatives results in bigger rewards for themselves in the end. The elites needing to be the change makers is a crucial requirement however. One may then conclude that the Filipino elites just don’t want to do that as they are still comfortable with rent seeking.
On social media, well I always feel that social media is not real life. American social media is quite toxic and frivolous; Filipino social media is well, 10x that just like Filipino malls are often mega-sized compared to a typical American mall. Social media is useful if the feed is highly curated to filter out noise but it does get tiring to maintain the feed after a while. Those who spend way too much time online have the luxury of time; since the Philippines are probably still the most online country in the world, that might explain a lot.
Indonesians have the same problems with Education, Governance, mismanagement and all the problems that we have. Some are even managed better by us and operative word is some.
In terms of results, overall, they are ahead, especially politically, as in own naval industry and G20 membership.
Probably still less educated on the average but led more tightly by the ruling class that quarrels less than the Philippine elite. Probably life is better for the rich in the Philippines but better for the Indonesian poor. Let’s not get into Indonesian history that makes the worst stuff by Marcos Sr and Duterte look harmless, I don’t idealize them.
Also, Indonesian Embassies value their overseas students, and it seems they have return programs for them. The Philippines lost a lot of qualified people to migration since the mid-1960s. A mix of better policy and maybe less wanting to migrate helps Indonesia.
there is a joke right now make I from BRICS be mainly Indonesia
BeReallyIndonesiaCS
I agree with this. This is also my sense. We do not have a dearth of well meaning people from all classes. I would argue that the reason we still have a big part of the armed left is that the gravity of the situation drives some well meaning people to revolt
We need more avenues to help effectively. If we get to the tipping point the youth really is the future and it is because as you said we rarely change our core. We just grow older.
The simple answer to a dearth of well meaning people is that even though they might gripe about it, most people are content with the status quo.
If we use the analog of physics, the Philippines is like a system under the effects of the Law of Chemical Equilibrium. One might assume that yes, there are external factors introduced, such as new ideas from abroad, but the lack of significant change can suggest that those external ingredients are not reactants thus there is no resultant transformative product. In order to have change, one needs to introduce a new reactant which interacts with the existing Philippines reactant(s). In thermodynamics a similar Law of Thermodynamic Equilibrium requires the introduction of new energy to propel the system out of equilibrium, from which the result is predicted by Le Chatelier’s Principle.
The distinct lack of change in the Philippines aside from re-painting the façade, so to speak, is by design. Too many of those who have the most agency like it the way things are, even if they may complain. The status quo benefits their socio-economic system. They even go as far as to actively maintain their position within the system, to the detriment of the ability of the system to change.
I think the armed far left are malcontents and untreated mentally ill though. Aside from the fact that they are mostly excess elites, there’s much more good they can do even within the system with all the energy and passion they carry. I have not identified one instance where the Philippine armed far left bettered the poor’s life; rather I’ve only seen them becoming the new datus and control using authoritarian tactics. Wasting their lives and alleged passion in a blaze of bullets seems like an odd way to create a revolution.
@Joey,
During the Duterte administration (2016–2022), the Philippines aggressively pursued infrastructure development under the “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) program, significantly increasing its reliance on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Here’s a comparison between China’s ODA and those from traditional lenders like the IMF, World Bank, and ADB during Duterte’s term:
🇵🇭 Duterte Admin: ODA Overview
Total ODA portfolio grew sharply under Duterte, reaching over USD 30 billion by 2022.
Aimed at funding infrastructure (transport, water, energy), disaster resilience, digitalization, and peace efforts (especially in Mindanao).
Major sources:
Japan – Top ODA provider, focused on railways, flood control, and disaster resilience.
China – Promised massive funding, though actual disbursement lagged behind commitments.
World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) – Provided fast-disbursing loans, especially during COVID-19.
🇨🇳 China ODA: Duterte’s Pivot to Beijing
✅ What was promised:
Around USD 24 billion in pledges (including loans, grants, and investments) during Duterte’s state visit to China in 2016.
Major proposed projects:
Chico River Pump Irrigation Project
Kaliwa Dam Project
Davao-Samal Bridge
South Long Haul Railway (Bicol Line)
❌ What was delivered:
Only about USD 600–900 million in actual disbursed loans by 2022.
Implementation delays, transparency issues, and higher interest rates (2–3% vs. 0.1–1.5% from Japan).
Some projects faced local opposition, environmental concerns, and geopolitical backlash.
⚠️ Concerns:
Loans from China were non-concessional, raising debt sustainability concerns.
Clauses in loan contracts included waivers of sovereign immunity and choice of Chinese law and arbitration in China.
Critics warned about a “debt trap diplomacy” pattern.
🌍 IMF, World Bank, ADB: Traditional ODA Sources
✅ World Bank:
Continued to provide budget support, infrastructure, social protection, and pandemic response.
Example: USD 500M emergency COVID-19 response loans.
Focus on governance, disaster risk reduction, and education reform.
✅ ADB:
A reliable partner for Duterte’s BBB program.
Major funding for:
Malolos–Clark Railway
EDSA Greenways pedestrian project
Angat Water Transmission Improvement
Also funded health, social welfare, and pandemic recovery (approx. USD 4.2B for COVID response).
✅ IMF:
Less involved in infrastructure, more in macroeconomic stability.
Provided COVID-19 emergency financing (RFI).
Monitored Philippine debt sustainability and fiscal health.
🔍 Comparison: China vs. IMF/WB/ADB ODA
Criteria China IMF / WB / ADB
Loan Terms Higher interest (2–3%), shorter maturity, tied to Chinese firms More concessional (0.1–2%), longer terms, competitive biddingTransparency Criticized for opacity, sovereign immunity waiver clauses Generally transparent, publicly disclosed termsSpeed of Disbursement Slow, bureaucratic, political Faster, especially during emergenciesFocus Areas Big-ticket infra, symbolic projects Health, education, transport, climate, pandemic recoveryConditionalities Fewer governance conditions, but tied aid (Chinese contractors) Often linked to reforms, safeguards, capacity buildingStrategic Concerns Alleged influence operations, debt trap risks Less politicized, rules-based lending
📌 Key Takeaways:
Duterte’s pro-China pivot did not materialize fully in financial terms. Despite big pledges, Chinese ODA was underwhelming in delivery.
Japan, ADB, and the World Bank remained more dependable partners with transparent, consistent, and faster-disbursing aid.
China’s role was more symbolic and political than practical in the BBB implementation.
The IMF’s role was limited but became important during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Would you like charts or visual comparisons next (e.g., pledges vs actual disbursements per donor)? Or deeper focus on a specific project like Kaliwa Dam or Malolos-Clark Railway?
A small matter here.
Mohammed Yunus of Grameen Bank is associated by all as the father of micro finance for which he went on to receive a Nobel Prize unashamedly.
The pioneer in microfinance was Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan, a Pakistani. Khan conceived the concept, the intellectual and operational groundwork. Yunus scaled it and framed it operationally as a bank.
Ah yes. Hameed Khan and Yunus were both East Pakistanis and later Bengali when Bengal became independent.
If I recall correctly Hameed Khan had a more community-based approach while Yunus espoused a centralized approach as Hameed Khan’s community collectives failed. Well I guess in the end Yunus’ centralized model failed too, from mostly the same reasons, because the poor not having access to capital is only one part of the problem with the assumption that people are innately entrepreneurial. The solution to the equation of economic independence requires the knowledge gained by a good primary and secondary education in order to even begin being able to identify opportunities.
sometimes I think empowerment can be powerful but have now swung at the opposite end. Agency can be taught but there must be an inherent drive. Sometimes feel it all starts with that.
Of rinsing and repeating.
Senator Estrada says K12 makes the people suffer and PBBM took notice but the spokesperson is singing a different tune saying that the PBBM will improve K12.
That reflex of itapon iyan balik sa dati when it comes to new stuff that still needs fine tuning is so typical and sad
those who have been tru k12 said it is useful and helpful in building their confidence and that they have become better person. not many are regretful for having gone tru k12. but of course who who have not gone tru k12 are convinced k12 is waste of time, that they prefer to do – exactly what, they dont know.
at k12, students got to be apprenticed and have 1st hand experience of the job they would have wanted after finishing their studies like being clerical workers, admin assistants, data entry operators, catering staff, video and camera operator working for tv network, etc. the job experience is not extensive and last only a day or two. unlike the job experience at college and universities where there is supervised immersion, and the job experience may last for two weeks to a month. and students maybe graded as to their ability to transition from college to job. at job experience, students get to meet important people who can give them references for their resumes.
our k12 is not well funded, and teachers lack training.
The issue really is how to support those 2 extra years. And the difference between how Upper Middle and Lower classes experience it.
Upper class k-12 was nothing. If you wanted to go to the school overseas you really needed to be k-12 to make it more seamless.
Middle class had 3 levels. Upper middle class and lower and mid middle class. For the Upper Middle Class this was similar to the Upper class. For middle and lower middle class it totally depended on whether they wanted to try studying abroad or not. For those in the lower and middle it was all things considered additional burden.
For lower classes it presented another roadblock to graduating college. Additional expense. But it also allowed longer school which means all the positive externalities of that. My sense is that as long as we can help these groups of people then the k-12 although severely flawed in implementation is still all in all positive.
As an observation k-12 is important for foreign bound factory workers so I guess we need k-12 for that too.
Yes, K12 is among other things required for many Middle East OFW jobs, IIRC.
But maybe the K12 vocational track needs improvement, as in who needs the glorified secretarial course called Commerce graduate from a diploma mill if a proper training in SHS with OJT part will fulfill that purpose?
employers would most likely go for those that have done the glorified secretarial course. it might be a mill but its grads have been tru the rigors of a multi faceted office of a corporation, training that shs may be short of.
commerce secretarial grads tend to become corporate secretaries, maybe even done postgrads, have phds to their name, trusted and attain almost equal power as those that run the corporation. maybe even be able to hold and conduct meeting in the absence of the chiefs. that is probly way too much responsibility for a shs grad to contemplate, but if they have what it takes, they may as well further their study and enroll in commerce grad course. where they are likely to get credits for subjects previously undertaken, i.e. their previous grade in shs is circa near excellent. lesser than that, they would have to do the entire subject and finish the whole course.
corporations are understandably picky and want the people best able to do the job, those that can enhance their image and business profile. those that will not whither under the relentless demand of both productivity and deadlines. and still have the good grace to put on a friendly face, do an excellent job despite the hectic pace.
I tell this story often. When I was in HS and college, SM and fastfood jobs required college education. Cashiers were even required to have finance related jobs. Call centers changed the game.
pls senyor, dont get me started on call centers! my aussie friends asked me if there is anything said about the call center in manila that caused the breach as regards scattered spiders. apparently 6million qantas passengers info has been stolen no thanks to the online customer service officer (call center in manila) who gave the access. methink 3rd parties such as call centers in our country are so protective of their reputation that not an ek is heard about the said breach.
I’ve said it before. Economic sabotage, death penalty for people like that.
My second real job, my first non startup job as a professional was as an IT programmer for a call center in Ortigas 2007. I remember going into same day hiring interviews where you get interviewed in the morning/afternoon and your first day is at 10PM. It was a crazy time.
organisations are now using apps and have qr codes. and people are already doing DIY, Q&A, and getting comfortable with usage. there will come a time when call centers will no longer be needed.
Many a agent had been fired by giving away account numbers.
Karl, the quality of BPO agents has gone way down from the time you worked in BPO. Then there is the issue of supervisors and managers being promoted from the lower quality ranks. There’s little accountability if something does go wrong. BPO culture nowadays is more like a barkada that just happens to work together, complete with sexual scandals and drama interjected by excessive partying on payday. Often it’s very difficult to get my requests fulfilled unless I do the extra work of guiding the agent.
Recently I had an agent apparently enjoy our conversation about the Philippines so much that he said “I’ll be sending you a bit extra sir.” I don’t understand what he meant until I saw a big refund multiple times over my original request. He didn’t refund the actual order, he had found a much larger order and refunded that one for his new “friend.” I had to waste my time calling the company to reverse the refund as the agent didn’t understand that customer accounts can eventually get banned automatically by the algorithm if flagged for suspicious behavior. Don’t get me into the numerous female and gay agents who tried contacting me directly on my personal number… 😕
It is exacerbated by scam hubs and crime hubs
But the barkadahan of course is nothing new in this figuratively and literally tribal Philippines.
I suppose so about barkadahan. Barkadahan at work is a foreign concept in the West where there is a bifurcation between work and personal life for professional reasons. I guess it’s quite normal in the Philippines for a near complete stranger to tell me their entire life story when I had barely gotten to know them. Still, that kind of habit is not healthy for maintaining professional structure and discipline beyond small organizations.
This vlog by Latinas who moved to the Philippines (somewhat loca former KPop dancers from Dom Rep turned PPop fans) and now work at a call center where Spanish is needed (seems their plan to just live on vlogs didn’t work) is very interesting and confirms all the observations made here:
All of the points expressed by the two Quisqueyana vlog hosts pretty much happens in every BPO company, though the BPOs that serve banking clients do it (somewhat) less due to greater oversight by the client.
There is an old British American idiom about “small potatoes” that goes along the lines of if one focuses on growing small potatoes (insignificant things), one would harvest small potatoes.
In the Philippines I often find that detritic details are often the most emphasized, with drama for drama’s sake elevated at the expense of dealing with hard problems. What I find most interesting is that Latin America moved on a long time ago from the silly encomienda emulation of frivolous Castilian courtesan intrigue and practices.
I have no doubt about that Karl. The BPO operations are contractors even if they have the corporate branding of their major clients. And the BPO contractors subcontract out to smaller BPO operations, sometimes without the client even knowing. Bank clients are usually assiduous in vetting the offshore operation for compliance and customer satisfaction, but most clients actually don’t care. Maybe a bit over a decade ago most Americans found Filipino CSAs helpful and pleasant to talk to. Nowadays many American customers are frustrated as to the lower quality of service, combined with companies hiding the options to transfer to a stateside call center. Some companies even hide the options to talk to an offshore agent as well. There is a hard push for AI-based IVR systems to replace the old touch tone-prerecorded IVRs. Philippines BPO industry is probably going to receive a big shock in the near future.
That is where KB’s pronouncement for CSR jobs to be replaced by AI may be sooner rather than later.
Last year’s safe and future proof Jobs are no longer safe.
I don’t entirely subscribe to the Men of Prowess theory, which AFAIK is an adaptation for SEA by O.G. Wolters of the earlier Great Man Theory deriving from Thomas Carlyle’s lectures on heroism in the late 19th century. Of course, the Great Man Theory was based on a Western European-centric view of ancient heroism, by more recent “civilized people” who looked towards more ancient hero figures of the cultures they had vanquished to gain legitimacy (and where the vanquished cultures viewed the conquering culture as “barbarian”). Later Great Man Theory was mixed with the pseudoscience of eugenics which was also prevalent during the latter half of the 19th century, feeding eventually into various fascist national movements.
To be fair to Filipinos, a society which looks more towards personalistic leaders, the “big daddy” who alone can fix everything, is not a unique Filipino trait. Perhaps it is a more base human trait of post-tribal societies that formed during the early sedentary period of humanity. Here in the US, one can possibly describe the far-right MAGA and the far-left anarcho-communist movements which both imagine a great leader taking Americans “back to greatness” to also be an expression of this basic human trait. Something similar can be said as to Hungary’s Orban, the UK’s Farage and Corbyn, France’s Le Pen, Italy’s Meloni, Turkey’s Erdoğan, and so on…
A throughline among the seemingly disparate cultures of each previous example movement’s leaders is that their base is less educated, less civically engaged, and more religious (though that religious aspect is not always expressed through organized religion; there can be a religiosity of belief in the leader themselves). I don’t think it was an accident that one of the core principles that came of the Enlightenment is the necessity of free information, and some effective system of public education in order to be able to consume said free information. Of course even in the presence of open and lively debate, tribe-like factions eventually form, eventually becoming political parties that recapture some of that earlier human trait of follow-the-leader. In the absence of good knowledge, citizens are not equipped to be engaged members of civic society, and then tend to lean towards belief alone rather than free thought whether those belief systems are in organized religion or the religion-like cult of the leader.
I’ve been asked occasionally by Filipino friends what I thought was the main reason why the Philippines keeps holding herself back. My perennial non-changing answer is: the inadequacy and downright self-damaging afterthought with which the public education system of the Philippines for the 93% is valued in (un)importance.
Well, PNoy’s K12 was an attempt to better that, which was unfortunately half-implemented, especially the Salary Standardization Law for police and teachers that Duterte only did for police. And probably the teachers were barely enabled to teach K12 properly.
The good public school system of the Third Republic was allowed to rot anyway.
A few days ago had a catch up with a student I’ve been following after meeting her family a few years back in Negros Oriental. As she’s graduating this year with a BSED in Gen. Ed., I was curious on her hopes and dreams for her future career teaching a new generation of Filipino children. Well, the reply was that she’d made up her mind she will be going to Thailand to teach English. A microcosm of the state of Philippine education.
I would give an arm and a leg just to know what the bsed in gen edu graduating student has to say about k12! its problems and its near misses. some k12 students work experience were apparently less than ideal. they did not get the 1st round of placement and has to contend with lesser placement. some establishment were said to be reluctant to accept k12 students even though the establishment were probly paid by the school via cash voucher courtesy of the govt. had the poor students known before hand that their placement was not gratis, they would have demanded fair and better treatment. and they would not have sat silently in the lobby and stare at the wall, counting the minutes slowly ticking by! one student reported of whiling away the time by going to the ground floor rest room and washing her hands 21 times! nobody inquired about their welfare, no one showed them around the building and they have no idea what workers in that establishment were doing.
when they reported the incident to their teacher, the teacher told them to be thankful it was only for one day. the students passed anyway, the establishment ticked all the boxes. did the students learn anything? they probly did, that not all establishment are good places to work, that there are firms that are uncaring, and that at work, you may have to amuse yourself and pretend to be busy.
I think a possible answer is that K-12 is a type of educational arrangement that works well in some countries, but not so well in some other countries, so the fault likely does not lie with K-12 but with the implementation and administration of K-12 in the Philippines.
Well, the previous system did not work, so as Filipino elites usually do, throw out the baby with the bath water just because the baby happened to be dirty from playing at the ground. It is a form of magic bullet solutions; a grand scheme to solve something that while may be serious, needs to be made to seem more broken than it is just so that new things can replace it. Perhaps a better way would’ve been to repair what is not working well first, like a squeaky bicycle wheel that needs a bit of grease. At least one knows how the existing thing works, even if imperfectly. And if one moves to a new thing, it would be wise to understand how the new thing will solve the problems the old thing had.
Filipino elites often deride poor Filipinos of not having critical thinking when poor Filipinos are quite practical. In my view, it is the Filipino elite that lack critical thinking skills to solve problems step by step.
Often in the Philippines stuff looks good on paper and K-12 was all that, but at ground level it often sucks.
The Pangilinan law to not put under 15 years old in jail was right, but not implementing LGU facilities to help underage delinquents created from what I gather a generation of young and hardened criminals, now that isn’t Sen Kiko’s fault it was some LGUs, but few look that deep
Sometimes I muse about whether or not Filipino elites really want the country to be better, or if the elites out of pride just want to emulate what they see in other countries so as to say “the Philippines is a great equal too.” See the biggest block is that if the Philippines actually becomes more economically egalitarian with more opportunity for all, the elites would need to relinquish some of their power and influence. And we can’t have that, now can we? So the Philippines continues to plod on with the elites in their enclaves where they can enjoy a First World life they always have had while the rest of Filipinos are mired in a condition of struggle; a system of two countries in one.
I think the gated communities really make them impervious to how everyone else is suffering.
you’d be surprised how many at the gated communities support charities. they give and are generous, they just dont mix well with the have nots, and keep their distance. maybe they’re afraid of the have nots, afraid to see the hunger, pain, suffering, hurt, and the misery of abject poverty in their eyes. also afraid maybe of being noticed, followed, stalked and approached maybe with patalim, kaya they stay inside their armored cars with dark tinted windows rolled up.
in philippines it is hard to be impervious, though many are good in pretending nothing ever affect them, how unscathed and stoic they are, but it is just a facade. as long as their heart beats, they got feelings and emotions.
I live in a subdivision, I have rich neighbors and a rich uncle but am I rich,? I do not think so.
Slight lang not poor, and I am not that out of touch, being here helps
The support is admirable. The systemic issues need to be faced.
my view of lawmakers actually depend on how and who they task with implementation. lots have grand goals but most laws lack the operational chops that a great lawmaker would put in it. That is why I have much disdain for lawmakers who have not built and run things at scale. If you have not even run a municipality how would you then know if these municipalities have the capability to run the centers for rehabilitation of non adult offenders.
Same with UHC, same with K-12.
lawmakers imagine that the bureaucracy had the capacity but no. apologies to everyone they do not have that capacity. weak ass bureaucrats who just plays the bureaucrats game.
Well don’t give any mayors big ideas GC. The Philippines already tried that last time to predictable results 😅
On bureaucracy, which has been derided as inefficient and useless in the last 50 years or so by mostly American conservatives who want to privatize government services, it turns out that a well-run bureaucracy is actually quite efficient.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/02/nx-s1-5417994/former-doge-engineer-shares-his-experience-working-for-the-cost-cutting-unit
The US got rid of patronage politics (and the attendant bureaucratic political appointments for all but the highest levels) shortly after the US took possession of the Philippines way back then. Interestingly the Philippines kept the patronage system, with that system’s tendency for graft and incompetence.
mad respect to the doers, teachers, doctors, engineers. but locally lawyers trump everyone in the bureaucracy. everything is legalese BS that is divorced from reality.
local bureaucracy is like people who have read the procedural stuff without understanding the underlying logic. makes everything painful.
As I mentioned, more systemic thinkers are needed.
What happens with Philippine laws is like a software roll-out that ignores local conditions like monitor size, Windows version, etc.
Re German bureaucracy there used to be the option “zur Niederschrift”, as in one could as a clerk to write down what one wanted – that is abolished now as it was for an era where literacy was NOT a given especially rurally. That kind of localization and adaptation mindset is needed as in not everyone can know everything, but people can communicate about stuff. But that presupposes employees who are not servile as well as superiors who know how to listen.
In the Mamasapano discussions where LCPL_X and myself came here, he mentioned Marines training to be disagreeable as in telling what can make stuff hard to do. As in incompatible walkie-talkies between units IIRC. In the Philippines, underlings are taught not to report stuff, and even if they do, bosses ignore them AT BEST.
Korean Airlines had to change its corporate culture after a crash incident where the copilot was too respectful to tell the pilot clearly that they were losing altitude and the pilot didn’t get his hints. Modern, complex systems, including bureaucracy, don’t have the same margins of error as older stuff.
In a culture where people are not open, approaches like that of Marcos Jr. who apparently talked to Ilocos teachers what makes things hard for them in K12 or Leni Robredo who IS now a mayor might be best, even better would be a network of mayors that give honest feedback to the national level. Quezon BTW toured the entire Philippines by ship with the American High Commissioner in his time. Assuming that what is reported is true is very naive in the Philippine setting.
Being self-proclaimed arbiters of power in any community, cops with cunning literally get more perks than teachers and nurses in public hospitals.
As I said before, institutions are now just geared for labor export, mainly producing teachers and nurses etc.
unfortunately, we don’t develop human capital effectively. by shipping people to where they can be developed more effectively we are allowing these people to reach a higher level
In the absence of existing expertise, experience and opportunity at home it is sensible and expected for those who are self-motivated to go abroad to gather those missing things.
What I think is much more concerning is that those who do return home after learning new practices overseas often prefer to become new elites rather than to apply their learning towards their homeland. The gained economic and experience advantage gives them an edge. How many middle class families who perpetuate the system started off with a handful of family members going abroad to gather capital… the push to change needs to come from these returnees.
Exhibit A return of Iraqis post gulf war
Short summary: they were shunned.
I think we are turbo boosting the shunning of Fil foreigners with our inherent barriers
The return of the Iraqi diaspora after the liberation from Saddam Hussein was quite different Karl.
The Iraqi diaspora is mostly Sunni Muslim anti-Ba’athists, Sunni Kurds, Iraqi Chaldo-Assyrian Christians, and Mandaeans. Iraq is a majority Shia country, which was controlled by the Saddamist Ba’athist minority (who were Sunni) during Saddam’s dictatorship. The Shia majority and the Shia warlords that asserted themselves after Saddam’s fall appropriated the land, real estate, and resources which were formerly owned by the diaspora before those Iraqis went into exile, and did not want to hand over titles back to the rightful owners which was the main reason why the returning diaspora were marginalized. At times sectarian violence was the excuse used to deny title rights to returnees. The only area where there was a legal handover of titles was in the Kurdish borderlands, where the titles were able to be returned to the former Kurdish owners. I was not there at the initial fall of Saddam, but was in the area a few years after and before the rise of ISIS for work with a certain company with operations in Kuwait and Bahrain. Also for a few religious pilgrimages I took part in following the footsteps of the Apostles. There is also a large Iraqi and Yemeni diaspora in the next city over from me, so it’s not uncommon to hear their stories.
So the situation of what happened to the Iraqi diaspora is much different than for returning Filipino diaspora over the years, who always were able to move relatively freely abroad and back even during the Martial Law time especially if certain palms were greased (or so I was told). The Iraqi diaspora’s experience is more akin to what happened to the Afghan diaspora, or what might happen to the Iranian diaspora in the case that Ayatollah is overthrown. The culture of the diaspora and the culture of their mother country had diverged too far over the decades with little regular contact between those who remained and the diaspora, which is not the case for Filipinos in the diaspora.
Thanks for the nuance
Filipinos are not insane by Pseudo Einstein attribution way by keep on repeating the same mistakes. Matigas lang talaga ang ulo.
More on pride chicken, sado masochism, if I can call it that way.
agree
Somewhat OT about online gambling in the Philippines, which seems to be rampant:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pinoy/s/Y3XevB3MgS
https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/s/UV0VJoRC87
during e sabong craze I had taxi rides multiple times where the driver was more concentrated on e sabong and not driving. there is a demand. need to find a way to not make this another drug war.
That taxi driver, if he had been Romanian, might have smoked four packs of cigarettes a day if it was the noughties. Other addiction but similar lack of perspective in life and little idea of how to better it. Addiction to anything is often a symptom of something missing in a person’s life – either opportunities if one has less education or goals if one has education – or personal connection.
I think Joe’s idea of giving Filipinos more opportunities and Joey’s tough love way of coaching people is a way out of that rut but there are those who cannot be fully saved anymore, maybe the damage can just be mitigated, like in Romania they can’t smoke as much anymore due to EU anti-smoking laws.
Madami sila. I also observed while walking around SM North EDSA, lots of people playing scatter or for the people working in the mall talking about losses or wins. Scary really.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19Fh8ebSZy/
+++quote follows+++
I lost everything to online gambling.
Money. Peace. Time. Even parts of myself I’m still trying to understand. I chased wins until I lost it all.
I gambled a lot more than you could imagine, I even became a BingoPlus VIP and got invited to Bacolod for VIP Party. All expenses paid. Sounds like a dream—until you realize you already paid for it through losses.
VIP status sounds glamorous, but it only means I spent more than I ever should have.
I never thought I’d be someone who struggled with gambling.
But it happened. It took more than money—it took my peace and my time.
I’m not posting this for pity. I know it’s my fault.
I’m posting this for “awareness”. It starts with fun. Then you chase a win. Then you chase what you lost.
To Maya, GCash, and other e-wallet platforms,
You’ve made online gambling accessible to students, workers, and parents—people who’d never set foot in a casino. You’ve opened the casino to every barangay in the country.
You’re not just a payment platform anymore. You’re the new casino lobby.
hope this help:
https://www.philstar.com/business/2025/07/03/2455268/house-bill-proposes-p5m-fine-license-loss-e-wallets-promoting-online-gambling
Some thoughts.
A big personal responsibility thing.
Addiction is a physical and a social thing. Need to cure both.
Singapore has big obstacles to gambling by locals.
Gambling will happen. The bug thing is we need to find the balance we can live with. The current one is crazy bad.
I had a couple of former mentees and/or their partners who got caught up in e-sabong and lost it all. When they asked me for help I said directly that if they had learned anything from my mentorship, they wouldn’t have gotten into that situation. On reflection, those who learn bad habits often need a lifetime of reinforcing good habits. Much like those who had developed Type 2 diabetes from bad habits, metformin or insulin use can never be stopped. Not sure what to do about this. I have great empathy, but I do not have limitless patience.
Surgeon General warning was not enough so the next was picture of defective lungs then that did mot work then try again.
People blocking incineration and recycling the unrecyclables keep on telling proponents that if they persist people would never learn.
It must be accepted that there will always be pasaways assholes and saboteurs..
and crabs
There also needs to be a degree of negative conditioning to limit bad behavior.
Stuff like how there in the US the police can’t catch everyone who throws a cigarette butt or trash on the street, but those who are caught face $1,000 fines which makes baby-pasaways think twice before copying bad behavior.
But there are some other instances like mobile phone usage while driving which the police enforced less, leading to more people misbehaving despite the $500 fine.
Or how discourteous (and possibly mentally ill) people think they can just bring their unruly pets to stores that poop and pee everywhere then warfreak that the pet is a “service animal” when it is clearly not; stores are afraid to push back as the disabilities law against disabled discrimination is very vague. These things did not happen when I was a kid when society itself enforced rules and norms better through social conditioning starting by the parents of children. American GenX are quite the inconsiderate and selfish generation.
I think a lot of loosening of rules and norms has to do with a fractured society that is losing its social cohesion. In the Philippines society has always been Balkanized and fractured along ethnic and regional lines. In the US starting in the aughts vastly increased illegal immigration and the GWOT caused societal rifts as the recent immigrants have not had time to assimilate nor are they encouraged to. But the US has been here before, and the children of immigrants eventually assimilated. Not sure of a similar process in the Philippines as Manila doesn’t have the power to enforce its will to Tagalize every Filipino, while regional governments are similarly ineffective as even within a province individual city pride can at times be excessive to the detriment of the province.
In the Philippines I often see children’s bad behavior be excused away, especially for boys, but increasingly for girls too. Children are remarkable mimics. If their parents behave badly, the chances are so too will the children. The question at this point is whether or not society will accept more heavy handed government policing of such behavior.
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/philippines-cockfighting-goes-online-deadly by MLQ3
re rare earth
Yes, a rare earth war — meaning geopolitical tensions or trade conflicts centered on control and access to rare earth elements (REEs) — could significantly influence both SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) implementation and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) priorities. Here’s how:
🔄 How SDGs Could Change or Be Impacted:
✅ SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy
Impact: Rare earths are crucial for wind turbines, EV motors, and batteries. A supply shock would make clean energy tech more expensive and less accessible.
Outcome: Delay in energy transition goals, especially in developing countries.
✅ SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Impact: Global competition may drive reshoring, resource nationalism, or green industrial policies focused on rare earth independence.
Outcome: Boost in domestic mining, recycling, or tech substitution efforts; higher investment in innovation for rare earth alternatives.
✅ SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production
Impact: Heightened awareness of resource efficiency and circular economy, including landfill mining and e-waste recycling.
Outcome: Stronger push for sustainable mining and global supply chain transparency.
✅ SDG 13 – Climate Action
Impact: Conflict over REEs could delay green tech deployment.
Outcome: Governments may prioritize fossil fuels as a short-term fallback, harming emissions targets.
✅ SDG 16 – Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Impact: Resource-driven geopolitical tensions could destabilize regions or lead to proxy conflicts.
Outcome: Calls for global governance over strategic minerals and peaceful resolution frameworks.
📉 ESG Implications:
🟢 Environmental (E)
Increased environmental risks from new or reactivated rare earth mines, often involving toxic chemicals and ecological degradation.
ESG investors may penalize companies with poor mining practices or reward those that focus on recycling and green extraction.
🧑🤝🧑 Social (S)
Risks to indigenous rights, labor standards, and local communities where mining ramps up.
ESG scrutiny may intensify on supply chains (like in the Congo for cobalt, or Inner Mongolia for REEs).
🏛️ Governance (G)
Companies will face pressure to:
Disclose rare earth sourcing.
Ensure traceability and compliance with international standards.
Mitigate geopolitical exposure risks.
ESG ratings may be adjusted based on how firms respond to rare earth supply chain vulnerabilities.
🧭 Strategic Shifts:
Green finance and sovereign wealth funds may adjust portfolios.
Public-private partnerships might shift to build domestic rare earth capability.
ESG frameworks could evolve to:
Include supply chain sovereignty as a resilience metric.
Reward closed-loop systems (e.g., from e-waste).
Penalize over-reliance on conflict-prone regions.
🔮 Long-Term Outlook:
The rare earth war could accelerate a paradigm shift in both SDGs and ESG, reframing them to include resource security, resilience, and strategic sustainability — not just emissions and equity.
Would you like a map of countries most vulnerable or most active in rare earth wars from an SDG/ESG perspective?
If I am in a good mood.
Traffic, stress, and how noisy everything is keeps the stress hormones active. This is bad for our health and long term memory.
If I am in a bad mood. We sre just a low IQ, petty, emotional people.
Lacking emotional intelligence very often and jumping to conclusions.
That is why what LCPL_X noted for officers that a Filipino general is usually at the same level as a US commissioned officer is similar for corporate, as in an experienced specialist in the West is easily like a manager in the Philippines. That is not due to any intrinsic superiority it is just due to best practices.
As for how people act privately, the convos of many Filipino IT specialists I met abroad are what secretaries talk about here. Though I was at a similar level in the late 1990s when I knew EVERY scandal of European royalty. And every shenanigan of football stars and Munich high society, almost like a gossip reporter.
Somewhat good news.. (?)
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/money/economy/951427/philippines-umic-2024-world-bank-data/story/
“The Philippines’ bid to become an upper-middle-income country (UMIC) fell a few dollars short this year, even after its gross national income (GNI) per capita increased from 2023 to 2024, data from the World Bank showed.”
Yes somewhat we fell just a few dollars short. seems the 2030 target is within sight. This was the target of the Duterte admin so good. Thinking out loud. Maybe if POGO wasn’t stopped we could have gone over the hump. Credit to the Marcos admin for not prioritizing the headlines over the social costs.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CRCfYjbha/
+++quote+++
A CANCEROUS STAIN ON THE PHILIPPINES
Nate Blum, CEO of Sorghum United Foundation, lost $280,000 or P15.82 million to scammers based in Cebu. Blum published the Sorgho Squad book, which he described as Captain Planet meets Indiana Jones, to raise money for his foundation.
Instead, the first-time author got ensnared by a scammer with the phone name (and phony name) Juan Fernandez. There were two major red flags, Blum told us from Omaha in the US, 1) there was always a rooster crowing in the background every time he called Juan and 2) he never turned on his camera, citing company privacy regulations.
The first transaction was for $600 to send 10 letters to alleged movie and book deals agents. He got replies from what turned out to be clones – scammers using actual names of people in the industry – expressing interest in his book. For several months, various people asked him for book trailers, book insurance (bandying about such terms as returnability), script treatment, rewrites, until he ended up paying a total of $280,000. He shared records of the money transfers.
He traced where the money went and found its conduit in a small bank in Brooklyn. When he got there, a person in the bank said, “Oh God, not again!”
”These companies, they prey on hope. They know how to weaponize hope,” Blum told me and Elaiza.
Nate said the Philippines is known as the new fraud center in the world. “Your government needs to get serious about it.”
I was supposed to interview Nate much earlier but he was in a different timezone then and the slot we agreed on was close to midnight PH time and I slept after covering La Muerte in Argao.
I’m collaborating with Elaiza on this story. Will publish a follow up to my in-depth report soon.
(I blog about journalism, tech, religion, and history at https://max.limpag.com)
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/us-busts-philippine-pig-butchering
Scammers in the Philippines so sad. Need to kick these people in the nuts.
Ninotchka Rosca told me once that a lot of Filipinos go for instant gratification.
Eastern Europe had a lot of tricksters in the 90s and noughties due to post-Communism issues but upgraded to more solid ventures.
Romanian call center BPO (not scamming but basically easy money) upgraded to a proper software industry.
Post-Korean war Seoul and post-WW2 Munich had rampant GI fueled prostitution but look where both cities are now.
The Philippines had opportunities with BPO but seems to be downgrading.
A lot of results are due to mindset.
Honestly a big problem of why even with BPO the Philippines seems to be downgrading is that Philippine government and Filipino firms did not actively cultivate the BPO industry — the industry grew organically, with very little coordinated government (positive) intervention. I hate to say it but BPO was another “coconut that floated by” eagerly snatched up by those Filipinos who were hungry enough, while at the same time the government and other Filipinos ignored the many numerous coconuts growing right there on the tree that just needed a bit of effort to climb and harvest.
BPO could’ve been an impetus for upgrading a large, secondary school educated Filipino work force. I fear that once a lot of the business process is automated (and it will be), the most BPO jobs will be gone. After all, BPO was outsourced first to India then later to the Philippines because there was a need for moderately skilled but cheap labor. I often have Filipino educated friends (who mostly work in finance or government bureaucracy) tell me how great BPO is, but how different is the Philippine BPO industry from let’s say service industries like “Mechanical Turk?” And then there is the issue of no matter how many BPO jobs were created (organically), the job requirements still needed high school graduate at minimum and cut out large numbers of idle workforce with a sub-elementary grade level education. That’s why India put a big focus on manufacturing, even though BPO also came to India “first,” while also upgrading their capabilities in other business processes (e.g. IT).
https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/s/gM85YN24Q6
×××quote×××
This is where we say Filipinos are functionally illiterate
That is, they can read the words, they can write, they can understand what they say on their face, but Filipinos are unable to grasp deeper things like implied statements, subtext, sarcasm, interpreting and analyzing information and data
Kaya pati in our media, everything has to be spelled out in big bold letters. There’s no such thing as subtlety. Bad guys must be comically bad, good guys must be comically good, and the plot must be spelled out in painstaking details.
Pati in our politics, we rely on color coding and name recall, not just because of tribalism, but simply because some people will be unable to keep up with anything deeper than primary colors, that’s why it’s important that politicians spell out their names in easy to read formats, even going so far as to be changing their names
Erwan Heussaff’s ‘champion of Filipino cuisine’ title brings reading comprehension into focus
https://share.google/UYNuEEIRmumX5N8t1
I did see this socmed drama a few weeks ago, and just chuckled.
In a Nation of Chismis, many people confidently opine as if they are an expert in everything. I once retorted to a Big Four graduate “You must be Noam Chomsky’s son.” He did not understand the sarcasm about the ridiculousness of being an omni-opiner, and seemed almost happy to be compared to Noam Chomsky who he had heard of before, despite not knowing anything about Noam Chomsky. It might even be possible that to this day he goes around smugly telling others “I was compared to Noam Chomsky!” Well, Noam Chomsky’s ardent followers also often lack critical thinking but make up for that lacking by having strong smug, sometimes viciously rabid, opinions about anything. That kind of mindset is closed to learning and considering divergent viewpoints.
Ok, everyone, it wasn’t my intention to initiate vandalizing this blog into an Anti-Pinoy place during Joe’s absence.
We know what sucks, what is improving (kb has noted rule of law, for instance) and what can still be improved?
https://e.vnexpress.net/news/travel/why-are-foreign-tourists-turning-away-from-the-philippines-4909171.html
got this from the internet:
No, the Philippines is not the least visited country by foreign tourists in 2025. While some reports indicate a decline in tourist arrivals in the first four months of 2025 compared to previous years, it still attracts a significant number of visitors. Countries like Kiribati, Tuvalu, and Nauru are considered among the least visited globally.
Here’s why the Philippines is not the least visited:
Resurgence in Tourism:
Tourism to the Philippines is recovering after disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Not Among the Least Visited:
While some countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu are known for having very low tourist numbers, the Philippines is not among them. For example, Kiribati had only 2,000 visitors in 2022, and Tuvalu had 3,700 in 2023.
Positive Outlook:
The Philippines is projected to see a rise in international visitor spending and a significant injection of funds into the economy from the travel and tourism sector in 2025 according to the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC).
The first time I needed to rent a hotel room because I traveled in parts where I didn’t have acquaintances, I was quite shocked how much the room rates were. Restaurants catering to tourists often have prices comparable to what we pay here in the US, but without the emphasis on quality and service Americans expect. Even those who buy groceries at the wet market, prices are obscene for what you get, especially for vegetables; how much more percentage of a Filipino’s salary do they need to pay for food? Come to think about it, I’ve never vacationed in the Philippines before. Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have always been better choices.
pls check the websites and find out beforehand how much hotels charge for a room. you can also book in advance, and hotels may even send a driver to pick you up from the airport, gratis! or you can book via travel agents for your travel needs. then you can give travel agency a review about how people friendly they are, how spiteful, etc.
Yes, possible, but by now usually I can get a reference to a local or stay at a church if ever I go somewhere unfamiliar. I don’t mind staying in the priory.
I forgot to add though, that tourist prices in the Philippines are quite high for lower quality service, so tourists probably would rather go elsewhere. Sometimes Filipinos wondered why I didn’t just get a hotel, and I say that if I wanted to pay high prices for a vacation I might as well vacation within the US.
It is also interesting that German packaged tour operators offer nearly every SEA country except Philippines, Myanmar, and Timor Leste.
What is important to know is that the laws are very strict here regarding damages a tour operator has to pay to customers.
Not nice to see the Philippines in the company of certain countries known to be a bit risky.
I believe the Philippine government approach from national to LGU towards any development assumes someone else will take responsibility and provide investment, but the benefits are shared.
Take for example the terrible state of transportation. In my familiar Cebu, it often takes an hour to travel from Lapu-Lapu City or Cordova to the city proper. Taking a trip to the south or north of Cebu Island often takes the entire day. And then there’s the roads that hurt my backside. In Mindanao which has much potential as a tourist destination, the transportation infrastructure is even more horrendous. I roll my eyes when someone says “well, there’s no money to build roads,” or “we don’t know how to do it.” Building modern roads with asphalt and cement was something perfected nearly a century ago. And so was street storm drainage. How often do things in the Philippines waits on a foreign grant for funding, and even then it’s hard to push forward. Frustrating.
The Philippines is a really beautiful country, if one has the time to leisurely travel from here to there and back. Unfortunately, tourists are often on a timed schedule. In Thailand one can enjoy a tour package of rapid fire 3-4 destinations in a day, and tour the major points of interest in the entire country in 2 weeks. A laid back attitude cannot expect improvements to the level of others who cause resentful feelings of “why can’t we have those things too?” The others had to do the hard work of improving, even if they were given a helping hand initially.
Reminds me of a trip I took to Sardinia, which had a lot of bad roads, in 2005 renting a car as compared to a packaged tour to Sicily in 2018, which now has a ring freeway around the island, built with EU money.
Though I read that Sardinia has now marketed itself as an exclusive yacht owners and billionaires destination. A place where the usual crowd does not go to.
Both islands are autonomous BTW and speak an own regional language different from Mainland Italian, aka Florentine.
Sardinia is a duty free area. Not sure if Sardinia actively markets itself as an exclusive playground for the rich, but part of the attraction may be the berthing fees and no tax nature of the island.
Sardinia is a high tech hub though for Italy, with a lot of Italian telecom companies headquartered or originating from there. The Sardinian government was an early adopter of the Internet.
Perhaps the back country roads were bad before which I also recall seeing, but I had not noticed a low level of development the in the main population areas even 20 years back. Sardinia is also famous for the high density of sheep herds outside of the central wheat plains which might explain some of the more rustic feeling you had seen. Still even back then, the population centers of Sardinia are leaps and bounds over the typical Filipino one.
I landed in Olbia and was transferred to Alghero, and indeed, the highway was great, but I didn’t make it to Cagliari as it seemed far.
Actually, I stayed on the upper third of the island in the one week I was there.
Ah the seaside resort towns. Those were nice quaint places if I recall.
Cagliari and Sassari are fully modern cities with major tech hubs. The more rural large central plain area is quite rustic though still even with lower salaries Sardinia as a whole is noticeably more rich than mainland Southern Italy.
Still, even more rustic places in Western Europe seem more “well put together” than most places in the Philippines that has a slapdash feel. I’d even go as far as say that many places in Eastern Europe that were heavily exploited and underdeveloped by the former Soviet Union are ahead of the Philippines aside from the places that have sectarian violence like the Balkans. That sounds harsh but it’s true, and reality can be a motivator if one wants.
Personal improvement requires an ability to self-reflect on failures and how to do things differently next time, and constant optimism boosting gives a false confidence that only means the fall of a failure hurts even more. Imagine the shock of a child who grew up being coddled by his mother (you’re so handsome; you’re so smart; you’re the best; you’re so funny), only to enter real life and completely withdraw at the first encounter of minor adversity. Yes, positive reinforcement is a good and necessary thing, but too much of a good thing like sugary foods can cause painful cavities and diabetes. And sometimes, no matter how much positive encouragement someone is given, that encouragement becomes a crutch which eventually feels like a birthright, while they will always “make reason” why they can’t do something and that thing should be done/given to them. Some people need to learn the hard way, and they can’t learn when they are continually coddled.
I think we’re quite far from being anti-pinoy here. Criticism paired with suggestions on fixes and an offer of a helping hand is in fact constructive. And if some people are too thin skinned to realize that, then likely they have been coddled their entire lives and sadly help is wasted on emotional vampires like them. I always ask people who approach me to help “Will you consider possible solutions, or do you want to complain? If you just want to complain, pay for a therapist.” That being said, I think most of the Philippines’ problems are due to the inaction and lack of empathy from the elites. “I got mine, who cares about you.” Or “It would be nice to have X become better so I can feel pride in living in a better country, but I don’t want to lift a finger to help effectuate change even though I have the most agency.” Still, if somehow there is a big rollout of manufacturing jobs comparable to other rising Asian countries, I strongly feel there would be a stampede of DE Filipinos who will flood through the factory doors to work. But something unglamorous like factory work to start upgrading the 93% through better salaries would break elite Filipino image of themselves as being First World citizens 🙂
https://x.com/kikopangilinan/status/1941453356956025241?t=2cY0Fifv6yuHnqq22tsFrw&s=19
Sen Kiko Pangilinan is proposing a Department of Water Resources
Bong Go proposed that a few years ago. I remember a lot of people making fun of him. I wonder how they would react now?
I don’t like expansion of the bureaucracy, specially as this would likely impact existing stuff like environmental, building, other clearances. We really need a 2 for 1 policy. Every new regulation/ law must repeal an old outdated law. Useless laws are just used to extort or delay stuff.
Hmm, I didn’t know about that.
I think water should be managed regionally or across watersheds.
Major rivers like Bikol or Cagayan should have a water authority.
The Philippines likes czars for traffic and whatever.
The head of a water authority should be called a Pharaoh and dressed accordingly.
Seriously, water and disaster management can be run by the same regional authority.
https://share.google/HO0r4QD5HMroBZEjn
The regional model like Dutch water boards or American and German water authorities is more efficient.
Also for flood control and the like. Recalling how in late 2020 the crest of the Cagayan valley flood predictably went downstream from Abra to Isabela to Cagayan and the governors acted as if it was a surprise, and of course upstream they opened up the dams only when they were close to bursting and not days before the rain to serve as a buffer.
Water rights in a way is a national or at the very least regional or provincial concern. I agree in principle that it needs a specific law because our judges will free style it and make it all untenable.
Unfortunately I am not optimistic that the present dispensation can do this well.
Create laws for the rules of the game but creating another bureaucracy is going to just muddy up things.
I am reminded of Joe’s comments on the Building Code and his post on Land Titles.
If you go by those examples, what can work?
Administration is necessary, so is rule of law, so maybe reform the two first, but everything there is basically from Quezon’s time.
Marcos Sr. half-heartedly added Regions and the Sandiganbayan, Cory made her predecessor’s PC-INP into PNP and created the Ombudsman while in her time MMC became MMDA and LGUs got more autonomy.
So a kind of upgrade is needed, but what?
nobody likes upgrade! too much this and too much that, gets a bit tiresome unless good housekeeping is mandated. that water companies have good maintenance put in place like every 5yrs, there is routine flushing of pipes so all accumulated gunk is flushed out of pipe system, leaving consumer with clean and potable water, as well as doing pressure test to ensure there is enough water pressure and not just a tickle coming out from the faucet. and where do water companies get the money for this mammoth task? arent water companies already charging water usage and maintenance in every bill sent to households, everytime all the time? there should be more than enough money for maintenance.
but if water companies use the maintenance money as investment money to fund other ventures like buying up properties to build malls and supermarkets, and completely ignore routine maintenance of the pipes, that is where problem start. and to make matter worse, govt inspectors sent to check water viabilities, ended up being kumares or compadres and invited to birthday parties of water magnates! at naging ineffective tuloy sa trabaho at napabaya.
hard to make money with transparency in costs. need a lot of accounting gimmicks to make up for transfer payments.
in cebu, osmenya bring in the big stick, got ex coa auditor heide mendoza to audit the city’s uber messy account books. the lady will do it pro bono, she doesnt want to be beholden to any politician.
https://cebudailynews.inquirer.net/645606/ex-coa-chief-heidi-mendoza-to-lead-finance-probe-in-cebu-city
I am waiting the president’s task force’s finding on primewater.
Having a national water board is just daft. Just like having a national police but not local police. These choices have the representation become further removed from the people who rely on the government service.
In much of the American West, there is the Colorado River Compact which is essentially a sub-national level water rights treaty between 7 US states and 30 federally recognized tribes along the Colorado River drainage basin. The Compact manages water rights, water management and interstate aqueducts. From there local aqueducts, management and distribution to water service accounts (residents and businesses) are handled by local water boards, typically at a county level (collection of cities) or in the case of a large city like Los Angeles by the city water board. The local water board is held accountable by the local residents and businesses, who will throw out commissioners/directors of water boards if the job is badly done. The upstream and downstream management of the Compact needs no engagement by the end customer. Similar water boards and compacts exist across the US and Canada around other major river drainage basins.
Since the discovery of germ theory, and most notable in the cholera pandemics of the 19th century, access to clean water has been well known as the main way to thwart waterborne diseases. But even the ancient Romans understood access to clean water somehow increased the health of the citizens when they built the Aqua Appia in the 300s BC. Guaranteeing access to clean water and refuse disposal have been hallmarks of basic government since that time, the Dark Ages aside. Meanwhile in the present day Philippines…
Having attended a few Senate hearings on agriculture, one agency head lament was devolution, with the Locsl Government code the LGU is king plus Mandanas they are emperors.
Well, with the automatic money they get based on population, they have no incentive to attract businesses or tax-paying professionals so dynasties can afford to keep the places poor and just feed their palamunin
German model is that part of income tax from a town goes to a town and if for instance a chain store earns money there part of the tax also goes to that town not just to the city where it’s HQ is located so local politicians have an incentive to make a place richer
The issue is in the current division the balance is not good.
My feelings is that we need a hakao system. The main issue is that any improvements is swamped by free migration.
When I lived in Makati the need for most services is a Makati ID. Yellow Card. You get this if you are a voter. UMAK and OsMak and the various dole outs you can access only with that card. We need something for all.
In QC the City Hospitals near other LGUs have a sizeable percentage of who they serve from other LGUs. This is not sustainable.
Here in Germany, you can only apply for unemployment insurance or dole (after a year or two without a job) in the town where you last worked, but that presupposes the social security card and registration number which is centrally administered like in the USA.
So people can’t easily move towns to just get benefits, which I gather was an issue for NYC and now allegedly is for SF and LA.
If you mean internal residence and work permits by hakao, that system was what Germany had until just after WW1. It was imitated by Lenin in the Soviet Union and later by Communist China.
Of course, such a system presupposes registration of everyone and national ID.
Larger clinics in Germany are often run by consortia of cities and counties, or by government districts akin to Japanese prefectures or Philippine provinces, rarely by Federal states though they can take command during a state of calamity or emergency.
In the US benefits and welfare aside from Social Security/Social Security Disability Insurance are all managed at the state level. Unemployment insurance is tied to the state level as well with each state having its own program, so if one moves cities within a state they’d still get their unemployment insurance if they qualify, and one cannot move to another state to obtain state level programs. California has the most generous unemployment insurance AFAIK, but it’s only 6.5 months of 70% salary capped at $1,681 which is a very small amount.
Some cities provide additional assistance for the impoverished, but the amount depends on the city budget, and these programs typically get cut deeply in times of budget shortfall.
a part of the budget of each LGU is dependent on population. You get the hack where people go home to vote and get their vote buying thing. this is feasible because they wont mostly be getting services locally but from facilities mostly in the city. accountability requires an effective feedback loop. If there is none then we have to redesign the incentives to create one.
The current incentives are perverse.
Congresspeople and most LGU are incentivized to just buy votes.
I have been thinking about this ang maybe I am going to write about this later.
But there is also a datu-like feedback loop as well, where the politicians and president often are like the big datus doling out monetary and preferential concessions to their big backers, who then provide funds for things such as vote buying. The total amount spent on vote buying is a pittance compared to the concessions the backers get.
To create a new feedback loop would probably require an enlightened class to over time take over more of the levers of power. Looking at history these enlightened are more along the lines of philosopher-politicians than the regular educated class. Actually one point I had always been perplexed by in the Philippines is the distinct lack of thinking in a philosophical or moral context. Plenty of people repeat stuff from a book, let’s say the Bible, but not many people seek to understand the meaning behind the words.
Vote buying is so rampant and at times seem quite blatant. It’s not that hard to figure out who or what political organization is buying votes. Certainly cases would be rather evidence-rich. Start with the fixers and cash runners, who would cough up their boss quickly I imagine when they themselves are under legal pressure as they are small fry, then work up the chain following the money. That’s how the FBI runs their investigations to nab the boss. In the Philippines cases usually aim for the king, and miss. But then again, almost all the politicians and parties are vote buying, so they’d have to start the investigation with themselves. Therein lies the root problem.
need to brush up on history. Is there any successful transition from wild wild west to something better? I imagine FBI history will show how a lot of things got cleaned up. but how were the conditions approached?
The actual early West was not as wild. That was a fantasy creation of the Hollywood Western film, as the actual Wild West was more peaceful than the cities of the time. There were laws both federal and social, while there was not much to rob besides cattle which are hard to move. “Wild” in Wild West refers to not lawlessness, but wild in a sense of being untamed (by White Anglos) and has a close connection to the romanticized ideal of Manifest Destiny.
Later with the opening of federal mints in the new Western states, stagecoach and train robbers did exist. The predecessor of the FBI was set up to deal with organized robbery of transported currency. In Hollywood Westerns the stagecoach and train robber theme was conflated with the Wild Wild (lawless) West theme; those were actually two different periods. The Wild West was “tamed” and cities started developing once the transcontinental railroad system was built, in the late 1860s to the end of the 19th century. Many of the new cities developed around where railroad lines intersected.
For much of the FBI’s early history it was basically a fiefdom of J. Edgar Hoover. J. Edgar Hoover was a megalomaniac who sometimes thought himself more powerful than the presidents he reported to. Actually J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI while romanticized (by Hollywood as well) was quite incompetent. The modern effective investigatory tactics were the result of a competent bureaucracy that was cultivated within the FBI after J. Edgar Hoover died.
The rest of the US government is also run by a more or less competent bureaucracy. The process of how this came to be started around the time the US took possession of the Philippines when the US began to do away with the spoils system, nepotism and political patronage, replacing that with the modern bureaucracy. Yes there are some inefficiencies within the US bureaucratic system but the tradeoff in area expertise is worth it. Better than appointing complete imbeciles, which is what Americans are starting to realize again now that Trump has brought back some element of patronage politics.
As Joey said, the Wild West wasn’t that wild. Probably more like in True Grit than in old cowboy movies.
If one wants to “upgrade” a society or system, it is like software. You need a feel for its underlying architecture. The Philippines has an upgrade of colonial governorship and local government of coopted datus that is EMULATING a Western system but runs internally on totally different premises.
Seems my phone is reading what I type. I got this as a recommendation:
The police kept the Wild West lawless and chaotic – Big Think https://share.google/E2UF8e3p0FkDXoodI
True Grit, the movie, shows how the bounty hunter system described in the article worked as the young woman there PAYED a US Marshall to go after someone. That, of course, is not real policing it is borderline vigilante justice and causes more disorder.
Hukou is easily circumvented in China. Circumvention is actually even encouraged by certain municipal governments that require workers, the factories sponsored by those local governments now able to pay well below minimum salary while flouting labor laws. In effect those who are out of the hukou system are treated barely better than indentured servitude.
Even in North Korea which many imagine having very strict border control and a repressive government has many North Koreans working in China (especially the seafood processing industry in Dalian City). These North Koreans are trafficked across the PRC-North Korea border by government officials running human trafficking and smuggling businesses, with the tacit acquiescence of the North Korean government with government officials of all levels getting a cut. I haven’t been to the PRC, or Dalian for a while but I did recall an occasion where I saw obvious groups of Korean women quietly moving through the wet market on “outings,” watched closely by PRC government minders.
Well, we can gawk at instances of near slavery or indentured servitude in the PRC, but in the Philippines there are also many similar situations of young children (mostly girls) being sent to a wealthier family’s house to be a helper despite being clearly younger than legal working age. In the bukid, especially Mindanao, I’ve seen rural communities where children were clearly not going to school and carrying bundles of palay or kahoy for cooking on their tiny growth stunted backs. Some are also forced to stop school. Child sexual abuse is rampant in these situations. And then there are many OFWs who are virtually slave cash cows to their own family.
But as to services like hospital access, I still think one of the big roadblocks to almost everything is that for a country whose cities look modern on the outside, much of the Philippines still runs on a cash economy. Cash can evade taxation. Cash can enable workers being paid unfairly (and illegally) low salaries. It would be much better if the Philippines accelerated and better regulated cashless payments, starting from salaries, from which the appropriate and fair tax can be deducted in order to fund services. Well, that may well cause a new revolution because very few people want to part with another 250 pesos from their weekly sweldo. But they are willing to blow 500 pesos on libre all their friends on payday, hehe.
The indentured system of the Philippines is probably precolonial in origin as the Laguna copper plate literally is a statement that a man named Namwaran is free of “hutang” (nearly the same word in 900 A.D., accurate as per the Hindu calendar used in the document) by having served a certain datu, and like most Philippine documents today signed by many other datus, an affidavit of olden days.
My father lived in Manila at the house of a certain Mabilangan who later became an Ambassador to Paris. Karl mentioned his father living at richer relatives’ places to be able to study.
My yaya was the niece of our labandera who was my uncle’s maid when he studied in Manila. By that time Judge Irineo Salazar had more money and could afford his second son a place and a maid. Manang from Cagayan, same birth year as Enrile but unfortunately he outlived her some years ago, told me my uncle was spoiled with money, see the difference to my father who still had to crash out / serve in a very rich man’s place
That feudal system of sorts also had its advantages as Manang saved my brother from a fire and my bike from a potential thief. The old school, which, as per Randy David, is gone had obligations for both sides. I always gave Manang my money in cash, and she hid it in rice or wherever with a rubber band around it. The trust for her was absolute. Old school.
Oh they did secretly watch TV when my parents weren’t there and my mother was surprised when I told her not long ago. Manang was a total fan of Fernando Poe Jr. and my yaya was absolutely a Noranian. We did have a connection to the people, and I suspect the crowd that lives in condos lost it. But in the 1970s, frogs still croaked loudly after heavy rains even on our side of town.
There are many families like yours who took good care of their helpers almost as if the help were members of the family albeit subordinate. Even now my good friend, a PR consultant for a tech company branch in HK, “inherited” a yaya from her father who she calls her “cousin.” That yaya’s mother also worked for the family in the past at the Parañaque and Naga compounds before being allowed to retire back to her province in Mindanao to care for her aging mother. My friend’s family did build them a modest, but brand new house as a retirement gift that the retiree is very much proud of. When my friend first visited the US, she was quite shocked we drive ourselves, cook for ourselves, take care of our own children, and clean up after ourselves. I joked that it was our independent American spirit 😉 Humorously now that her parents have retired and shift between the Parañaque and Naga compounds, they thought it would be fun to learn how to drive themselves, which they very much enjoy now after spending much of their adult lives having drivers. I thought I was going to die when the father drove us. The mother never worked, and the father was a musician who initially moved to HK to escape Martial Law, to give an idea on how that level of salary can still afford yayas, labanderas, kusineras, and drivers.
Still for every happy story like yours and my friend’s, there are multiples more of helpers being exploited, beaten, sexually abused, forced into child labor at the expense of their eduction by parents who essentially sell the children for an upfront lump sum, not allowed to leave, and sleeping in the corner of the kusina. I’ve seen it all, and it’s just below the surface of Philippine society. In the bukid, things can be worse, as I shared seeing little children stunted for their age, carrying heavy bundles of farm goods on their backs.
A Filipino once told me that labor is cheap in the Philippines, but life is cheaper as apparent by the insensitivity to tokhang or onlookers more busy posting a gruesome death on socmed than helping the survivors. Even the recent Lalay episode in Zamboanga Sibugay, no one thought to jump in and save the man, but they did immediately livestream and post his misfortune. Thankfully he did survive somehow. It really feels like an Oliver Twist-like Dicksonian world outside a short distance from mega malls and the city center, with many cities having bukid not so far away. I think if people could access dignified jobs, which manufacturing is the most logical area, the Philippines would encounter a massive level up. But that’s up to politicians to push it through, and I’m not sure if most dynasty politicians really want to change the status quo.
AFAIK devolution as defined in 1991 is still not completed. It still seems to me that the national government was not able to fix stuff, therefore they passed the buck to LGUs, and that many LGUs have figured it out that they can use such a dole system to get guaranteed cash infusions. There is no desire at both the national and LGU level to improve, because the first step in improving is taking responsibility.
Me too I think or have the thinking that the larger the bureaucracy the larger the inefficiency and fat cats, but DMW could potentially improve OWWA and volt-in other mini agencies.
The Water Department could merge all the water mini bureaus as well.
the only way I may agree to another department is they consolidate many mimi and ad hoc agencies.
Rent Seekers
Exhibit A
Here’s a consolidated summary of the full thread regarding alleged issues involving Vista Land and PrimeWater, both companies under the Villar Group:
—
🧱 1. Vista Land & Lifescapes Inc. (Vista Land)
Allegation: Suspected inflated land revaluation to boost asset value or financial reports.
🔍 Regulatory Oversight (if proven true):
Agency Responsibility
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Monitors public disclosures. Investigates misrepresentation in asset revaluation, especially in REIT deals or financial statements.
Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) Ensures compliance by listed firms. Can review if revaluations impact stock integrity or investor fairness.
Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Probes tax avoidance linked to inflated land values.
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Ensures banks are not exposed to inflated asset-backed loans from developers.
Commission on Audit (COA) Involved only if public land or LGU transactions are part of revaluation.
Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) May discipline errant licensed appraisers involved in biased or false valuations.
✅ Fact-Check & Current Status:
No confirmed regulatory or criminal findings against Vista Land as of now.
Vista Land’s 2022 asset-for-share swap with VistaREIT was reviewed and approved by the SEC and external auditors.
Financial statements show compliance with PFRS and use of third-party appraisers (SGV & Co.).
No red flags raised by BIR, PSE, or BSP.
🟢 Conclusion: As of now, no official investigation or sanction has been issued regarding inflated revaluation by Vista Land.
—
🚰 2. PrimeWater Infrastructure Corp.
Allegation: Poor service delivery, failure to meet joint venture obligations with local water districts, and alleged abuse of monopoly power.
⚠️ Key Issues:
Widespread consumer complaints: Poor water pressure, intermittent supply, broken service-level agreements.
Accusations of contractual violations, non-transparent JVAs, and lack of accountability.
Monopoly concerns in water privatization, with Villar-linked firm controlling numerous water districts.
🏛️ Regulatory and Government Actions:
Body / Agency Action Taken
Local Water Utilities Administration (LWUA) Conducted an investigation. Submitted report to Malacañang. Exploring termination of underperforming JVAs.
Malacañang / Office of the President Reviewing LWUA’s findings. PrimeWater claims to be “fully cooperating.”
House of Representatives Filed House Resolution No. 22 (July 3, 2025) calling for a Congressional probe.
Senate (past years) Held hearings on similar issues in 2020–2021 led by Sen. Grace Poe.
COA (potentially) May be involved if government funds or assets were mismanaged in water contracts.
🔴 Confirmed Findings (as of mid-2025):
Over 100 LGUs affected by complaints.
PrimeWater accused of breaching JVA provisions, such as timely infrastructure upgrades and sufficient water pressure.
Some districts want contracts terminated or renegotiated.
🔴 Conclusion: PrimeWater is under active investigation and government scrutiny for poor water service, contract violations, and governance issues. Accountability measures are in motion.
—
🔚 Final Summary
Company Issue Status Key Agencies Involved
Vista Land Alleged inflated land revaluation No confirmed case or probe as of now SEC, PSE, BIR, BSP, PRC
PrimeWater Poor water service and JV abuses Under active investigation by LWUA, Malacañang, and Congress LWUA, House, LGUs, possibly COA
—
Would you like a timeline of events for PrimeWater, or a case study of how these JV deals were structured with local water districts?
I don’t believe water should be privatized at all as it is too essential.
But then again MWSS and NAWASA(k) did not work in Metro Manila back then so what now?
Nobody wants to pay for anything. That is my organizing principle for stuff like that.
Nobody wants to pay for the expense of having a good water district. Nobody wants to pay for good electricity. Nobody wants to pay for good internet.
Everybody wants to free load. this creates chronic underinvestment in fundamental things.
Privatization means 2 things. Rent seeking from people controlling awarding. A way to pass the blame and the problem for chronic underinvestment.
I know a lot of families in informal settlements who would rather buy power banks, solar powered mini fans, and gather wood rather than pay for electricity and cooking fuel. Oh, and they go to their relative or friend’s house to charge all those power banks without even asking “may I charge my phone/power bank?” For a while I paid for my then girlfriend’s parents’ electricity bill because I had been taught filial piety and wanted her parents to be comfortable; her older brother and his partner immediately installed an aircon which ran 24/7, for their *dog.* I cut off that support pretty quickly. Instead of buying drinking water people would rather be dehydrated. Instead of paying for water supply people would rather dig an illegal well, right in urban areas, causing water tables to drop and the land to sink. Then they wonder why they keep getting diarrhea from waterborne disease. Well there are leaking septic tanks everywhere, and there are a good number of families who didn’t even bother to install a septic tank, there’s literally just a deep hole below the CR. Yet many people who did these things would rather spend their money on bisyo if they can get someone else to shoulder the burdens. But then again elites also socialize the costs in other, more insidious ways by perpetuating a constantly dilapidated system since they also don’t want to pay for any public goods outside of their gated subdivisions.
Some stuff as it relates to the public good just needs to be mandated. “If you live here, you will be assessed a certain tax from the city for the basic services.” Banking needs to become all electronic and cashless, as everyone has a phone now, with the government more tightly regulating the cashless payment systems. Payroll should go through electronic and cashless with automatic income tax assessed. VAT should be automatically assessed upon payment using QR code or tap-to-pay. Not that there’s tap-to-pay yet anyway.
Did that dog sit on the sofa, wear shades, and smoke cigars?
Ah no. The dog was a complete mutt like most other dogs owned by people outside of ABs who sometimes buy purebreds.
Even askals deserve to live like Manny Pacquiao for a short while. 😆
Another Chat got this time on impunity.
I did not include Villar because I already had a series of comments on the family.
The level of impunity enjoyed by powerful personalities in the Philippines—like Atong Ang, Chavit Singson, the Parojinogs, the Teveses, Rubén Ecleo Jr., Apollo Quiboloy, and the Dutertes—reflects long-standing issues in the country’s justice system, political patronage, and elite protection networks. Here’s a breakdown of their status and how impunity plays out in each case: 🔹 1. Atong Ang
Profile: Alleged gambling lord with known links to state-sanctioned gambling (e.g., STL).
Impunity Level: High
Status:
Often linked to illegal gambling and corruption but rarely prosecuted.
Publicly defended or even appointed as a consultant in past administrations.
Why impunity: Ties with top political figures and role as a “legalized” operator provide him with legal and political cover.
🔹 2. Luis “Chavit” Singson
Profile: Longtime political warlord in Ilocos Sur; former governor and congressman.
Impunity Level: High
Status:
Key whistleblower in Erap Estrada’s plunder case in 2000s, but accused himself of corruption and violence.
Maintains power through local dynasty, business (Baluarte Zoo), and media visibility.
Why impunity: Longtime political survivor and kingmaker; embedded in both national and local politics.
🔹 3. Parojinog Clan (Ozamiz City)
Profile: Political dynasty with alleged narco links.
Impunity Level: Previously High → Now Cracked
Status:
Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog and several family members were killed in a 2017 police raid during Duterte’s drug war.
Some clan members still politically active or under trial.
Why impunity broke: Became targets of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign, suggesting impunity depends on political alignment.
🔹 4. Teves Family (Negros Oriental)
Profile: Political dynasty accused of corruption and violence.
Impunity Level: High, but under Pressure
Status:
Arnolfo Teves Jr. tagged in the assassination of Governor Roel Degamo (2023).
Designated as a terrorist by the Anti-Terrorism Council.
Still evading arrest abroad as of mid-2024.
Why impunity persists: Wealth, private army networks, political connections, and delays in law enforcement cooperation (e.g., with Interpol).
🔹 5. Rubén Ecleo Jr.
Profile: Supreme leader of the PBMA cult; former congressman.
Impunity Level: Previously Very High → Ended
Status:
Convicted of parricide and graft.
Arrested in 2020 after years on the run.
Why impunity ended: Public outcry and international pressure; cult influence weakened after long evasion.
🔹 6. Apollo Quiboloy
Profile: Influential religious leader and staunch Duterte ally; self-proclaimed “Appointed Son of God.”
Impunity Level: Very High (domestically), Under Threat (internationally)
Status:
Indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury for sex trafficking and other crimes.
Warrant for arrest issued abroad but still free and vocal in the Philippines.
Why impunity persists: Strong political ties, religious influence, media ownership (SMNI), and domestic legal shield.
🔹 7. Duterte Family
Profile: Rodrigo Duterte and children Sara (VP), Paolo (congressman), Baste (mayor).
Impunity Level: Very High
Status:
Duterte accused of crimes against humanity over drug war; ICC seeking arrest but PH refuses to cooperate.
Family entrenched in politics; enjoys widespread support in Mindanao.
Why impunity persists: Popularity, political dynasty protection, control over local machinery, and national power plays.
🔍 Summary of Impunity Factors Personality/ClanImpunity LevelKey Protections Atong Ang High Political cover, legalized ops Chavit Singson High Dynasty, kingmaker status Parojinogs Decreased Lost protection post-Duterte fallout Teves Family High (shrinking) Private army, overseas refuge Ecleo Jr. Ended Finally arrested Quiboloy Very High (PH) Religious/political clout Duterte Family Very High National influence, ICC resistance 🧩 Observations:
Political alignment with the ruling administration determines how long impunity lasts.
Dynasties, cults, and wealth are common shields.
International legal pressure (like the U.S. vs. Quiboloy and ICC vs. Duterte) can puncture domestic impunity—but only if the PH government cooperates, which it often doesn’t.
Local warlordism and national impunity culture remain deeply entrenched, weakening rule of law.
Here are more notorious Filipino personalities who have exhibited significant levels of impunity, often escaping justice due to wealth, political power, connections, or cult-like influence: 🔹 Imelda Marcos
Profile: Former First Lady; wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
Impunity Level: Extremely High
Status:
Convicted in 2018 for 7 counts of graft (yet never jailed).
Continues to live comfortably and appear in public events.
Why impunity persists: Wealth, elite connections, family back in power (e.g., Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. as President).
🔹 Jalosjos Family (Zamboanga del Norte)
Profile: Political dynasty with past rape and graft cases.
Romeo Jalosjos Sr.:
Convicted of rape of a minor in 1997.
Released in 2009 due to “good conduct.”
Why impunity persists: The family continues to win elections and control local politics.
🔹 Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
Profile: Former President (2001–2010), now senior lawmaker.
Impunity Level: High
Status:
Detained on plunder charges (P366M PCSO fund misuse) but acquitted by the Supreme Court in 2016.
Returned to political prominence as Speaker and Deputy Speaker.
Why impunity persists: Supreme Court reversal, political alliances (e.g., Duterte, Marcos), and oligarch support.
🔹 Jinggoy Estrada & Bong Revilla
Profile: Former senators charged in the PDAF pork barrel scam.
Impunity Level: High
Status:
Revilla was acquitted in 2018, despite evidence of kickbacks.
Estrada released on bail; case ongoing.
Both ran for Senate again; Revilla won, Estrada re-elected in 2022.
Why impunity persists: Showbiz popularity, loyal voter base, weak legal enforcement.
🔹 Joseph “Erap” Estrada
Profile: Former President convicted of plunder, pardoned by GMA.
Impunity Level: Very High
Status:
Convicted in 2007 but pardoned and allowed to run for public office again.
Elected Mayor of Manila (2013–2019).
Why impunity persists: Populist appeal, political dynasty (sons JV and Jinggoy).
🔹 Benhur Abalos Sr. / Abalos Family
Profile: Long-time politicians in Mandaluyong; Benhur Sr. linked to Hello Garci scandal.
Impunity Level: Medium to High
Status:
No major conviction despite involvement in scandalous poll manipulation allegations.
Son Benhur Abalos Jr. is currently DILG Secretary.
Why impunity persists: Strategic political positioning and family continuity.
🔹 Zaldy Ampatuan
Profile: Former ARMM Governor; implicated in Maguindanao Massacre (2009).
Impunity Level: Medium (cracked)
Status:
Found guilty of multiple murders along with his brother Andal Jr.
Incarcerated, but issues over special treatment in jail and slow asset recovery persist.
Why impunity once thrived: Warlord politics, control over private armies, alignment with Gloria Arroyo admin.
🔹 Antonio “Tonyboy” Floirendo Jr.
Profile: Business tycoon, political ally of Duterte; part of the “banana king” family.
Impunity Level: High
Status:
Charged with graft for a shady land lease deal involving Bureau of Corrections and TADECO.
Was allowed to post bail and continues political influence in Davao.
Why impunity persists: Davao connections, elite immunity, business interests aligned with state.
🔹 Mike Arroyo (GMA’s husband)
Profile: Accused of involvement in multiple corruption cases (ZTE-NBN, fertilizer scam, helicopter scam).
Impunity Level: Very High
Status:
No convictions.
Has kept a low profile since the Aquino administration, but never jailed.
Why impunity persists: Elite networks, spousal protection, legal maneuvering.
🔚 Summary: Why So Much Impunity? Common TraitsResult Political dynasties Control over local courts and police Popularity via media/showbiz Immunity through the ballot box Weak rule of law, slow justice system Justice delayed = justice denied Friendly ties to sitting presidents Political cover and selective prosecution Cults and private armies Fear and loyalty override law
Would you like this turned into a timeline, infographic, or perhaps grouped by type of crime (e.g. plunder, violence, cult influence)?
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EvrfQ7Xmk/
“Bicol Region Ranks 13th in Southeast Asia’s Top Tourist Destinations
Bicol, Philippines has earned the 13th spot on Gulf News’ list of Top 15 Southeast Asia Tourist Destinations, praised for its volcanic landscapes, stunning natural springs, waterfalls, and rich cultural heritage. Known for the iconic Mayon Volcano, the region draws visitors with its breathtaking scenery, spicy cuisine, and authentic rural charm. The article highlights Bicol as an underrated yet unforgettable destination, offering travelers a more peaceful and grounded experience in contrast to the busier tourist hubs of the region.
Via Gulf News”
best beach in asia is in philippines!
https://politiko.com.ph/2025/07/06/dream-beach-alert-palawans-entalula-crowned-best-in-asia-2nd-in-the-world/politiko-lokal/
https://business.inquirer.net/534374/ph-credit-card-debt-reaches-critical-risk-levels
analysis seems lacking. Not that easy to get the high value credit cards so I am guessing that you can’t compare averages like that. I am guessing that the average debt includes HNW and people whose debt has not been written off.
lending institutions in our country are not exactly powerless, they can always refuse credit to credit card holders that have low credit card scores for they are not likely to meet repayments.
below is from the internet:
there are credit card scores for credit card holders in the Philippines. These scores, ranging from 300 to 850, reflect a person’s creditworthiness, with higher scores indicating better ability to repay debts.
Here’s a breakdown of credit scores and their implications:
Interpretation:
Scores between 650 and 699 are usually considered fair or good. Scores below 650 are often seen as poor or bad.
Impact:
A higher credit score can improve your chances of getting approved for loans and credit cards, and may also qualify you for lower interest rates.
Factors Affecting Score:
Several factors can influence your credit score, including payment history, credit utilization (how much of your available credit you’re using), and the length of your credit history.
Building a Good Score:
Paying your bills on time, keeping your credit utilization low, and avoiding excessive credit applications can help you build a good credit score.
Centralized Credit Information:
The Credit Information Corporation (CIC) is the central credit registry in the Philippines, working with accredited credit bureaus like CIBI Information, Inc. and CRIF Philippines to manage credit information.
Checking Your Score:
You can obtain your credit report and score from the CIC’s accredited credit bureaus or through their online portals, CIBIApp and TransUnion Philippines.
Sa Know your client medyo inconsistent ang strictness. At least nadagdagan ang mga may savings account.
Now How will FICO score work here?
As the title of the article implies, we never learn.
We propose then we oppose all that who oppose until no one yields.Am talking about proposals of movers and shakers.
of course it works here. we are all welcome to open bank accounts, but not allowed to withdraw more than what we have in the bank.
noticed how some diners at expensive restos paid their bills with credit cards, sometimes their card is refused, na max-ed na yata. sometimes customers left their jewelries like watchers as collateral. same thing with paying credit cards while shopping, cards are sometimes refused. no purchase made. one refusal too many times, and credit card holders get bad rating and that almost always mean their credit is no longer welcome.
it is not true that filipinos dont learn. they learned a lot and can be very inventive overcoming hurdles! some even borrow the cards of family members.
and still some others gotta use corporate cards charged to tax payers.
Your comment is highly appreciated
we have to understand that FICO has an underlying model and that models is based on statistical models based on the North American historical data.
The social scores of China was based on the difference of modelling a typical Chinese for credit.
forgive the youth for his indiscretion. he is already wearing the sablay and has chosen one over the other. once sablay-ed, cannot be unsablay-ed.
Well noted
https://x.com/123456iambiyang/status/1941857825254240697 about Villars
Irineo like your observation. But whether the opinion of the interviewee and her target samples a are right or wrong is very debatable.
https://x.com/CrushMajor/status/1941886273729527808
She is just one among many analysts, there are others.
In any case, the comparisons all have 2028 as their true context.
Yes, definitely
“No country can progress, if its politics is more profitable than its industries. In a country where politicians are richer than entrepreneurs, they manufacture poverty.” – Peter Obi
Apologies for the editing and formating
Rent-seeking is a major issue in many developing countries, including Nigeria and the Philippines (PH). It refers to the practice of individuals or groups trying to gain wealth without creating new value—often by manipulating the political or legal environment. This distorts economies, weakens governance, and perpetuates inequality.—🔍 Rent-Seeking in NigeriaNigeria is a textbook case of rent-seeking, especially due to its heavy dependence on oil revenues.
Key Features:
1. Oil Rents and Political Elites:Government control over oil resources leads to elite capture.Political connections determine access to oil licenses and contracts.The Niger Delta militancy partially stems from grievances over rent distribution.
2. Corruption and Patronage:Appointments and government contracts are often based on patronage networks, not merit.Public funds are diverted for personal or political gain.
3. Fuel Subsidies:Billions of dollars were spent on subsidies benefiting middlemen more than citizens.Fuel importation became a channel for large-scale rent-seeking until partial subsidy removals.
4. Civil Service and Bureaucracy:Overstaffed government institutions serve as job banks for political supporters.“Ghost workers” drain government payroll.—🇵🇭 Rent-Seeking in the PhilippinesWhile not as oil-dependent as Nigeria, the Philippines exhibits rent-seeking through regulatory capture, oligopoly, and political dynasties.
Key Forms:
1. Regulatory Capture:Regulatory bodies (e.g., energy, telecommunications, transport) are often influenced or controlled by the industries they’re meant to oversee.
2. Oligarchic Structures:A few wealthy families dominate key sectors (media, power, water), using political connections to protect monopolies or duopolies.Example: The water concessionaires controversy (e.g., Manila Water and Maynilad).
3. Political Dynasties:Local elites use political office to control business permits, contracts, and land use decisions.Dynasties entrench rent-seeking by rotating power within families.
4. Customs and Tax Evasion:The Bureau of Customs has long been a hotspot for smuggling and bribery—creating “rents” through delayed clearance or illegal shortcuts
.—
🔄 Similar Patterns in Other CountriesCountry Dominant Rent-Seeking Form NotesIndonesia Crony capitalism in natural resource concessions Political-business links in mining and forestryRussia State capture by oligarchs Wealthy elites control natural gas, oil, and mediaIndia Licensing and spectrum scandals “License Raj” legacy; telecom and coal scamsVenezuela Oil revenue manipulation by elites Petro-rents used for political loyaltyMalaysia Ethnic-based patronage systems NEP policies sometimes used for elite enrichment—📉 Impacts of Rent-Seeking1. Low productivity: Diverts talent and capital from innovation to influence.
2. Weak institutions: Erodes rule of law, transparency, and regulatory integrity.
3. Public disillusionment: Fuels populism, extremism, or mass migration.
4. Inequality: Concentrates wealth among elites while the public bears the cost.
—✅ CountermeasuresStrategy Nigeria PhilippinesFiscal transparency NEITI (Extractive Transparency)
FOI (limited), COA auditsCivil society involvement BudgIT, SERAP NAMFREL, Bantay KitaAnti-corruption efforts EFCC, ICPC Ombudsman, SandiganbayanPolitical reform Electoral reform advocacy Anti-political dynasty bills (pending)—📽️ Suggested YouTube Videos
1. Nigeria:”Why Nigeria Remains Poor Despite Oil Wealth” (DW Documentary)BudgIT Nigeria: How Public Money Is Stolen Through Budget Padding
2. Philippines:”Why Philippines Is Controlled by Political Dynasties” (Asian Boss)”Inside the Customs Corruption in PH” (Rappler/ABS-CBN Investigative Reports)
3. Comparative:”The Curse of Natural Resources – Explained” (Economics Explained)”Rent-Seeking and How It Hurts the Economy” (Marginal Revolution University)—Would you like a deeper dive on rent-seeking solutions specific to maritime, mining, or infrastructure sectors in these countries?
Relevant analysis by US veteran and journalist Tim Mak on the tactics of future war developed in Ukraine that the Philippines should pay attention to.
More on accountability
The cancel culture if it targets the guilty it is good but if it targets the innocent of course it is bad because sometimes it leads to un necessary suicide.
The blue ribbon commitee if not turned in a circus also is a good tool for accountability, but it stifles investigations or even simultaneous investigations by law enforcement or Ombudsman because nahihiya sa senado
Ironically traditional blue ribbon committees are explicitly non-partisan in the committee members being apolitical experts from whose findings and advice are taken seriously by the politicians. I always chuckle a bit at the Philippines Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, whose members are made up of the political class themselves, in its use as a political cudgel and OA memes generator. Politicians have got to make things seem more impressive sounding in the Philippines, not that the general public really understands the lofty names anyway. Seeming more impressive serves the self-aggrandizement of that exclusive club, not to actually get anything done or solve any problems. In other countries such a committee would just be called… a committee.
Impeachment court circus aside or maybe not actually, the other functions of the Senate is wonderful if not bastardized and a-holized.
Karl has at times called Senate hearings in aid of legislation hearings in aid of humiliation.
Sometimes, it seems more like Tulfo drama, even back to the Agrava commission and the Erap impeachment trial. A witness called Shakira Yu, the drama of Delia Rajas with and without alias and other stuff come to mind.
If this 20th Congress Senate SNAFUS in the first week, all is lost.
One may notice that in the examples above, the purpose of the hearing and investigation was to humiliate fellow elites that stepped outside of the elite consensus of that time. There was no focus on actual investigation, or solving the alleged problem.
The Philippines must adjust from the Bipolar power dynamics to the multipolar.
But it is a world full of pressures and negotiations just a little more high tech.
The darkest behaviors of human still is addiction from drugs to other bad habits simple and complicated alike
I usually callout Irineo about many things including tough love observations but most often tama naman sya nahiging over protective lang ako or defensive.
My turn to express my observation, di bale resilient naman daw tayo.
Mass maganda sana yung resiliency if we have learned from.mistakes, history, and so on.
We have risen from falls before but our falls are self inflicted and preventable.
It is never too late. If we need fall prevention by always having to hold on something not a crutch but a hiking stick. If you get my drift.
One of my father’s observations about modern society is that consequences are less reversible than before. Think of the difference between a bus failing you just replace it if a train line is broken months to repair. Falling nowadays can mean it is harder to get up.
Throw a banana leaf suman wrapper like we had or still have in Albay into the river the fish eat it, with plastic you have a problem.
Many people, including my father or our even more our labandera from Cagayan, grew up in simpler times. In Bikol of old people just went up the hill when typhoons came no electric cables to fix. During the old festivals were they drenched people with water they had no cellphones or laptops that could be damaged.
The mentality that worked for millennia has had to adapt more in the last 50 years than ever before.
Informal settler communities in the Philippines today look like the barangays of old taken by a time machine into dystopia.
Indonesians have taken better care of their kampongs, which are similar even if Jakarta also has some bad slums I heard.
Irineo, are you a fan of the tech noir and cyberpunk genres? I’ve been a fan since the first time I read William Gibson’s books way back then in the late 1980s. When one reviews the major genre themes of both tech noir and cyberpunk it’s striking how many of the themes seem to connect to modern society in the Philippines. Well minus the more sci-fi aspects like killer robots or androids of course, but those were metaphors and a societal critique in any case.
I have read the most important stuff by Philipp K Dick and of course am a Blade Runner fan. Minority Report is OK inspite of Tom Cruise.
Gibson (heard of him just now) seems to be the bridge between the older stuff and the stuff in many mainstream Sci-Fi movies now like Neil Bloemkamps District 9, Loopers, Elysium with Matt Damon, even aspects of Andor like Morlana Corporate Sector or Ferrix. Yes, I do see aspects of modern Metro Manila in a lot of dystopian science fiction.
As usual, Filipinos are heavily divided over on what they think is the best for the country.
For the most part, ever since the 1986 Revolution the biggest concern of most men is law and order, especially as they’re most frequent consumers of local news and how they react to current events. As such they have developed this concept whereupon prosperity is heavily tied to security, and they must have deterrence to crime and insurgency, and this deterrence includes the use of punishment and even the use of force. They are also strongly influenced by their experience working in the Middle East, where for instance Saudi Arabia routinely use capital punishment and execution to enforce its laws.
However, they overlook or even ignore about the idea of resolving the causes of criminality and insurgency.
So they look up to men who have no qualms about using violence and punishment as a means of resolving problems and make the populace hew to the straight and true, believing they must lead the country and make men sleep quietly at night, rather than technocrats which they perceive as weak and do not favor prosperity and strength. They innately want a regression back to autocracy, where they see democratic processes as being tedious; they expect strongmen to create and enact rules, and work as one-man judge, jury, and sometimes executioner. Hence these are symptoms of fascism as Umberto Eco does point out.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Philippines/s/DbXdH74Fqg about Heydarian
Heydarian, ever the king of pinoy ultracrepidarians — the elite version of banal chismis.
Although I may agree with the commenter. I’ve also seen how insular and out of touch pol sci and sociology people of UP are.
Based on all I have seen and heard, UP is a lot of echo chambers and bubbles.
Compare that to American Ivy League where there is more exchange of ideas, same with the intellectual elites of Europe.
Ateneo, especially Ateneo University Press, is more open to ideas from outside and even from foreigners. In UP, it depends a lot on the respective department, and these usually don’t work together. Not even the adjacent Colleges of Music and Mass Communication..
The guy is somewhat “galawgaw” and an “alsakador” but often times I agree with him. Having diverse views ,makes the discussion lively and sometimes spicy.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/182980/the-senate-circus-what-went-wrong
All he can give us is the feeling of being right. Is that really useful unless we see discussions as cockfights?
there is a meme in Twitter about wordcels and shape rotators. unfortunately government specially elective and appointive posts and thus the majority of upper leadership are mostly wordcels and not shape rotators. you really need to understand economics, science, engineering and human dynamics/sociology to be effective. the science and engineering parts are severely lacking.
Probably, it is the lack of seeing the big picture, even among those who need to.
I always say system thinking is important.
There are some today, it seems, who know how to get cities running properly. National not yet. In IT terms, I still recall how I “graduated” from basic PC stuff in part-time jobs during my studies to server based stuff in my first jobs after studying to system landscapes, etc, by now though I bow to those solution architects who have biggest pictures.
We should consider that to be a leader one does not necessarily need to become a domain expert. Leaders are supposed to be vision builders and experts in execution who delegate the finer details to domain experts. Leaders don’t even need to be able to create the actual plan, but it is an absolute requirement for a leader to be like a navigator in choosing the correct path after weighing current conditions against the future goal while informed by the past experiences. To me the key to being a leader is the balancing act shifting inert mass towards movement in a controlled direction. Movement for movement’s sake that careens out of control is not desirable, even if things work out occasionally due to luck.
In the IT field example it is unsurprising that many enterprise architects, solution architects and project managers have very little or no formal training in technology at all. I certainly have no formal training despite my official titles. They’re able to do things that programmers and engineers cannot by having a wide view of the landscape ahead.
Sharing this: Actuarial Examinations – Doomberg
For me the Philippines is emulating the US while not having the dynamic economy it has would just make the PH much poorer. That is one of my mental models.
I have always seen the car centric approach of Filipino liberals in a country that is more like the densely populated parts of Europe or Japan, Korea, Taiwan in terms of space as very wrong, the present push for NSCR and for the freight railway is very correct.
Metro Manila doesn’t have the space LA has and how many more Skyway levels?
Joey has added that manufacturing is good to keep the less educated that are a reality doing something useful for themselves and GDP.
There are people you can’t give BPO jobs.
Of course, upscaling education is important, I have seen how it changed Bavaria from the hinterland it was to what it is nowadays.
This place also shows how changing people’s attitudes takes generations even if led by a technocratic and rational elite (with a very populist veneer that hid its efficient mindset) that knew how to utilize opportunities such as aerospace (60s), IT (80s), biotech (00s) etc.
It’s going to be really hard for the Philippines to advance much at all, because none of the usual building blocks to enable national development are available. Sure, there is the core building block, available labor, yet that labor is largely idle or underutilized. The other building block needed is an industrial base which enables consumption of domestically produced goods to keep more capital circulating within the Philippines.
The Philippines never bothered to go through the steps of industrialization or building the infrastructure to facilitate that industrialization allowing more full employment, instead going fully into a service economy, and a service economy based on lower value skills that can be replaced at that. Even on smaller islands like Cebu, perishable goods can’t even get from the southern or northern point of the island to Cebu City before spoiling.
A lot of the ideas I read about in the Philippine press coming out of Congress or OP focus on somehow getting the Philippines jumping ahead to where advanced developed countries are, without doing the hard work of building anything. One cannot do advanced stuff without becoming an expert in the basics first.
Well, the cult of big time and looking modern but in a Saudi or Dubai way.
There might literally be more luxury cars in Makati or BGC than in downtown Munich.
But BMWs are made here in Bavaria.
I sometimes think the boomers who love American oldtimers here and show them off in spring couldn’t buy them in their youth.
Just BMWs, which were several leagues below Oldsmobile and definitely behind Mercedes.
But BMW, etc, as well as Bavaria leveled up..
If ever there is to be a consolation prize in that comparison to Saudi and Dubai, then it’s gonna be that the lack of development combined with the “Filipino resilience” to accept lower standards means the Philippines will outlast the Arab oil emirs and sultanates. A few years back MBS, recognizing that Saudi may in the future run out of easily accessible petroleum reserves during his rule, attempted to institute reforms to have oil-backed Saudi welfare stipends reduced and introduce the need for Saudis to work. Well MBS nearly got overthrown for even suggesting a small reduction. The Arabs may in the future go back to being wandering nomadic tribes in a desert wasteland, but Filipinos will still have their archipelago paradise where everything is kind of broken, but also kind of works out.
Yes. I sometimes ask what the heck we are all discussing about.
If sea levels rise, they will develop fins.
who needs fins? sabi ko na nga ba, filipinos are adaptable. pls see link below.
and if further genetic mutations take place, filipinos may just develop lungs like aqua lungs. we dont really need fins, we already have hands and feet and can navigate our way around bodies of water. we just need to breath underwater and maybe develop organs that can separate air from water, like maybe gills.
https://www.facebook.com/LADbible/posts/they-can-hold-their-breath-up-to-13-times-longer-than-the-average-human-/1010798614415359/
you know what they say, the meek will inherit the earth. it is highly possible that like noxious weeds resistance to herbicides, the filipinos will still be around when all the behemoths have fallen. we are used to in the peripheries, living without, used to hardships, to bullying, to living with much less, to have faith, and in the end, our tribe multiplies and with out sheer number, matira ang matibay!
yes. even China had to go through 30 years of learning
I do wonder, though, in what fields the Philippines HAS learned something in the past decades.
It is incremental for sure, but is there any institutional memory anywhere over there?
When I was in college one of my sidelines was being a personal tutor of the spoiled children of the affluent. The children were excellent mimics who convincingly demonstrated their knowledge of certain words in their assignment, but when the pictures were covered, they immediately broke down. Emulation, especially based off of one sees, is one thing. Actually understanding the why and how of what’s being emulated is what commits an understood concept to memory.
Throughout human history outside of short sprints resulting in massive leaps of knowledge, existing problems tend to be variations of some problem experienced in the past. But when one is not able to apply the concepts behind the knowledge, that knowledge can’t be transformed into new solutions for new, slightly different problems. Being unable to become a transformer of knowledge means one is just following a script, becoming stuck when scenarios outside of the script arise. Here in the US we use the phrase “out of the box thinking.” In the Philippines, thinking is often “stuck in a box.”
I can say that the finance sector of the government seems to have plans and the current admin can either accelerate that or delay with side quests. Essentially the bureaucrats when left alone go towards that.
I enjoy Doomberg but he is completely wrong here. The NRC is often scapegoated as the reason why the US didn’t build anymore nuclear reactors after the Watts Bar nuclear power plant Unit 2 reactor (started in 1973, suspended 1985, finished 2016) is a bit more complicated than regulatory issues. The main culprit was the immense cost of the large Generation I-III nuclear plants (which are megastructures), public fears during the Cold War of anything with “nuclear” in it, the Three Mile Island incident and the Chernobyl disaster, but most crucially the spreading of Soviet propaganda by Green organizations (to be differentiated by environmentalist/conservationist groups) in the US. In Europe Green parties have mostly moderated, but in the US Green parties and their affiliates are radicals and communist fellow travelers. Green parties were a main conduit of Soviet propaganda into the West. The other culprit is the availability of oil and natural gas in the US, which is abundant easier to extract. Every time petroleum and gas products were predicted to be too expensive for extraction, new technologies like shale fracking emerged to exploit previously unexploitable deposits. The regulatory regime was the least of US nuclear energy’s problems, and I worry that by dismantling all regulations which Trump’s allies want to do is a disaster in waiting. Sure there are well-intentioned but cumbersome regulations that can be streamlined but removing all regulations is a bad thing, just like what happened in Texas‘ energy system where deregulation caused multiple near collapses of their energy grid during brutal winters.
I guess the difference between American state bureaucracy and Filipino state bureaucracy is the American one is well-meaning and well-informed by experts but sometimes gets things wrong, while the Filipino one is ill-meaning and ill-informed disregarding experts and often gets things wrong. The former has a mechanism for self-correction as it is open to expert advice and adjustment, while the later is Byzantine by design with rules no one even knows why such rules exist but everyone must follow the rules religiously. Another example of the Filipino elite cargo cult emulating a superficial approximation of the “what” without bothering to understand the “why” or the “how.”
I can say that the Filipino bureaucracy that I’ve encountered were all mostly well meaning. Have admiration for the DBM, GSIS, and specially SEC people I’ve worked with. I believe you are correct that the issue is the Why and the How. The well meaning bureaucracy is stifled by the sometimes irrational law/rule following.
Ah yes, to be clear non-executive, non-director level Filipino bureaucrats are great and hard working. The problem likely is when the appointees don’t take the advice of the line bureaucrats who report up to them, while trying to impress those who appointed the appointee by sloppily copying some success in another country. I always get the impression that top-level people in the Philippines are like students who hurriedly finished their assignment the same morning it was due, then bullshit out the rest.
https://x.com/jeffreyatucker/status/1943810262756167784
Seems Philippine elites think like this
Jeffrey Tucker is a disingenuous radical masquerading as a libertarian intellectual. In his post he conflates 3 different things to justify his view (that there should basically be no government at all) of anarcho-libertarianism. But he also doesn’t understand anarcho-libertarianism at all since he espouses a strong executive government ruling by unopposed diktat which is the opposite of the label he adopted. These types are bomb throwers, and his being associated with the PRC front Falun Gong through the Epoch Times is a big tell…
Actually I used to run with this crowd, back in the day when I was a Randian Objectivist, as many edgy teenage boys are. The difference is most boys grow out of radical views once real life hits but Jeffrey Tucker did not. Before deciding on Berkeley, I strongly considered Claremont College because of the libertarian Claremont Institute that came out of that school of thought. The same Claremont Institute that together with Heritage Foundation is pushing Project 2025 and is the pseudo-intellectual basis behind Trump 2.0.
In his three points:
1.) The USSR used the “socialist” official name where the ideology was communism, but the USSR was no more socialist than the National Socialist German Workers’ Party — the NAZIs. Him using scary sounding words as a boogeyman rather than an actual critique as a premise is the first big tell of his feeble intellectual stature.
2.) California HSR has been a right-wing talking point for years on why California is a “communist” hell hole. California is so communist it somehow did capitalism so well the state is the 4th largest world economy. And the right-wingers who criticize California have their states subsidized by California’s economy. Rather, HSR kept failing due to zoning fights. In California zoning is done by cities, and the cities who most strongly oppose the state in the proposed HSR route are ones controlled by Republicans.
3.) He uses the right-wing attack against Pharmaceutical, Defense, Tech and Media but not acknowledging that the same companies mostly donate politically to the right-wing as to keep their government subsidies and contracts.
While regulators exist due to the legislators delegating broad authority to experts because the legislators either don’t know the expert knowledge or want to shift responsibility, I think the regulatory and bureaucratic regime in the US and Philippines is quite different. In the US business interests fund lobbying groups to attack regulators in order to skirt regulation, pollute, harvest publicly owned resources, then socialize the costs by having the government do toxic cleanup and so on. Big Oil is the a prominent example, but so too is Big Pharma and Big Tech. In the Philippines my feel is that most legislators don’t care at all, because for most their power isn’t threatened, so they shift responsibility of oversight over to regulators and bureaucrats.
Here in the US, the bureaucracy and regulators have been actually quite efficient and lean for the better part of a century. “Inefficient bureaucracy” is an attack line used by the right who want to privatize government services, even though their own companies depend on the same government services they want to cut. Trump enabling DOGE to cut a good percentage of the bureaucracy shows how fast everything breaks down when there is no regulatory oversight on anything that people expect the government to do.
I subscribe to the balance thing. anything unbalanced will just eat itself. Be it bureaucracy or capitalism.
Well yes, there should be a balance.
But actually I’d argue that the imbalance is in the fact that since the post-WWII era the balance of power in both the Philippines and the US has marched steadily towards the executive due to the weakness of the legislators and judiciary. In the Philippines Marcos Sr. seemed to break something after the Third Republic died and gave way to the Marcosian Fourth Republic.
After all, the bureaucracy is created by the legislators by delegating some of their power over to the executive. So both branches are to blame; the former for being indecisive and weak, the latter for hoarding power unto itself and using it in unexpected ways. Everything is made worse when the judiciary is also weak.
Here in the post-WWII US the bureaucracy is mostly good and protects the public interest. In the Fifth Republic I have a sense that the bureaucratic process is mostly a detriment due to an obsession with rules for rules sake, because the legislature and judiciary are quite weak while the only decent executives were surnamed Aquino. We can recall how PNoy more effectively reutilized the bureaucracy as a force for good, helped by returnees who joined the Philippines government at the time.
Randian influence is somehow to be found in the Philippine right, in a similarly lost in translation way as Marxist thinking among the Philippine Left, I find the GRP blog vaguely Randian. That woman BTW was Russian, and Deedra Meero in Andor reminds me of her.
In full fairness to Ayn Rand, her early novels were fun in a male teen genre kind of way, though the later ones when she became a bit high on fame had a feeling of rehashed drivel to them. Rand may have also had some sort of mental illness.
Anyway, the Objectivists grew out of Rand’s cult of young sex groupies. Rand was a very mercurial and controlling figure who controlled a harem of young men, and often would “choose” female mates for the men she got tired of. Some of the female groupies even committed suicide as a result of the love triangles between their partner and Rand. A lot of the beliefs of Objectivism attributed to Rand was the result of what the Objectivists *believed* Rand wanted, without Rand actually creating some concrete ideology beyond her cult worship. Later those cult groupists “grew up” and founded the various right-libertarian, anarcho-libertarian and the Goldwater faction of the Republican Party.
The major themes of Rand’s work: ego-centrism, hero worship, rejection of social pressure and intellectual non-conformity are highly appealing to the idealism of youth, who in their youthful idealism and inexperience think that *they alone* can be the singular force of change in the world. It’s not surprising that the main characters of Rand’s works are builders and engineers who can refashion reality itself in a flat and simplified world that bends to the hero’s will.
Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin and Mao were all members of the petite bourgeoisie. One can’t help but think that their ideologies were actually the result of them seeing themselves as the the MC, the hero of the story, where “only they can fix it” and fundamentally rooted in a personal resentment that they are not at the same societal level as the “undeserving” haute bourgeoisie. All are childish fantasies that most youths grow out of eventually when faced with reality and responsibility. Well when I was a child I looked up with awe at my older GenX friends, only to later realize that the veneer of age does not equate with intellectual maturity or maturity towards responsibility in general for that matter.
any thoughts?
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2025/07/09/2456736/new-bill-makes-west-philippine-sea-lessons-mandatory
performative.
meaning?
fluff without real meaning. meant for headlines but really changes nothing and really has no value beyond the headlines.
Stuff like this could have just been a letter or dialogue with the secretary and added to the curriculum.
This may work if codification of anything means anything at all. But legislation with irr coming from agencies with career officials having weaker voices than the new Asecs, usecs and Secs then we have an out of sync IRR of laws or much delayed.
the law empowering the SEC worked well because it didn’t need an IRR.
hehe implementing rate of return ata meaning ng IRR.
Pero kailangan jump start song education ng arbitral ruling for the uninitiated unlike most of us here.
Come to think of it an EO would be better sans Drama in coomgress that is if it is advised to the president.
Some very recent legislation gets vetoed anyway.
We will learn, we just had too much too soon.
After digestion hopefully comes absorption of some learning.
Note on Chempo.
It would be Joe’s call if he deletes our interaction with Chempo because Joe is on record that Chempo was restricted from commenting here.
As to Chempo’s request for article submission, again I decide that let Joe decide but I would not publish it my self.
If Chempo wishes, he can email Joe when he returns for his article to be published.