The Anti-Dynasty Bill: Congress Finally Agrees to Maybe Stop Being Itself
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
After 38 years of constitutional foot-dragging so impressive it deserves its own museum wing, the House of Representatives has passed an Anti-Political Dynasty Act. On final reading. With 267 votes in favor. Pause and let that sink in: a chamber where eight out of ten members belong to a political family voted, by a landslide, to regulate political families.
Haha, but it’s not exactly nation-defining reform. It’s a bit of magic trick. Watch closely while the rabbit disappears into a hat it was never really in.
The bill does not allow spouses and relatives within the second degree of consanguinity or affinity to hold or seek elective posts in the same jurisdiction at the same time. Translated from legal nosebleed into Tagalog street math: a husband and wife can’t run for mayor and vice mayor together anymore. Parents and children can’t tag-team a province. Siblings can’t double up in the Senate.
It is, in other words, a rule against the cartoonish version of dynasty building where the whole family photo ends up on one ballot. It says nothing about succession or rotation. Nothing about a governor stepping down conveniently so junior can step up, or a senator term-limiting out only to walk next door into the House seat vacated by mom. The talent for musical-chair politics in this country is not going to retire just because Congress finally drew a family-friendly line around it.
Eight in ten congressmen are part of a dynasty, according to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. So when 267 of them vote yes, the honest read is not “courage.” It’s confidence that this particular bill regulates somebody else’s dynasty, not theirs. It’s the legislative version of a buffet where everyone agrees dessert should be rationed, right after they’ve already had three plates of it.
Credit where due: getting any version of this bill to a floor vote, after the Constitution ordered it done back in 1987 and nobody bothered for over three decades, counts as movement. Section 26, Article II has been sitting in that document like an unredeemed pawnshop ticket — everybody knows it’s there, nobody’s gone to claim it. House Speaker Bojie Dy and Majority Leader Sandro Marcos — yes, that Marcos, from that family, sponsoring an anti-dynasty bill, which is either deeply ironic or deeply strategic, possibly both — pushed this through and deserve some applause for it. Just don’t hold your breath. The Senate still has to act, and the Senate is where ambitious bills in this country traditionally go to nap forever.
Meanwhile, Filipinos are not waiting politely. The Dapat Isa Lang Movement is out gathering signatures for a people’s initiative, aiming for seven million names by October and a referendum by early 2027 — a plan to do via direct democracy what 38 years of elected officials wouldn’t do for themselves. There’s something almost touching about it: the public reaching past its representatives to write the rule the representatives keep declining to write. Almost touching, and entirely predictable, because asking dynasties to legislate against dynasties was always a bit like asking the fox to chair the henhouse safety committee.
So here’s where things stand. The House passed something. The public is organizing around something bigger. And the families who’ve run provinces like inherited sari-sari stores for two generations are, for now, calmly watching to see which version survives — the weak one they can live with, or the strong one the people are signing up for.
Merit over lineage makes a fine headline. Whether it makes it into law with teeth is the part of the story Congress hasn’t written yet. Filipinos have learned, the hard way and the patient way, never to applaud the opening act.
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I used Claude to write the core article, in JoeAm style, and tweaked it a bit. I hope it helps readers understand what is happening on the anti-dynasty front. Strengths and weaknesses. The cover photo was done by the Word Press image generator. AI is da Boss. JA
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Thanks for this Joe, I missed your writings.
I like the analogy of the buffet table, and the rationing of the dessert.
I enjoyed the process. The House bill takes care of some of the greater abuses, like Cayetanos, Villars, and Tulfos unduly packing the Senate. Hard to see them voting for the bill though. Power is like a river. Hard to change its course.
Exactly, Joe!
For dramatic results let’s wait another two generations. Unless a reformer with gloved fist leap-frogs the democratic stumbling block (with the people’s approval of course) with radical changes.
Ha, yes. Let’s wait and see the results.
Off topic, but consistent with my current effort to highlight positives in Philippine development. We obsess too much about shortcomings for my liking. Yes, yes, progress requires criticism. Peace requires understanding.
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/philippines/philippines-power-generation-gathers-pace-with-multi-billiond-dollar-investments-in-clean-energy-1.500584091
“We obsess too much about shortcomings for my liking.” – JoeAm
A good friend of mine in my college days was Leo Dominguez. He is the younger brother of Sonny Dominguez, one of Duterte’s people, I believe in Finance. Leo always focused on the positive side of Duterte’s presidency. We kept in touch mostly through Facebook, though we did meet up once here in the US. On Facebook he frequently posted on the best things ever happening all over the Philippines thanks to the Duterte presidency.
In person, I discretely fished for even an ounce of negative from him on Duterte….never happened. In college (early 70s), I recall he was very proud of how Duterte ran Davao City. Leo was from Davao. Back then I had no idea who Duterte was.
When he visited here in the States for a few days, we hooked up together with another fellow from our college years. I don’t remember if it was still during Duterte’s presidency. True to form, never a mention of anything negative about Duterte…and he had a way of making you not want to bring up anything negative. He probably would have made a very good Ambassador. He was a terrific charmer.
He was divorced and would not talk about his marriage, or even about a daughter that he had. On that I actually asked a few of the usual polite openings like “what’s she doing now?” or “did she go to school in Manila?” etc. etc. He would answer in such a way that you did not feel encouraged to ask further. He did not come across as rude, or impolite…it was an uncanny skill that I have rarely encountered in anyone else, but I can think of a few people I’ve crossed paths with who come close.
Sadly, he passed away a few years ago from cancer. May he rest in peace.
There are closed minds and uninformed minds. The first is most people. I’m working on the second.
An over-emphasis on positive reinforcement also has significant drawbacks:
While the benefits are more short term:
Personally IMHO it is better to have a balanced approach; using initial positive reinforcement to cultivate and root good habits, paired with actionable constructive criticism to course correct. A variant of the 80/20 rule, if you will.
Yes, balance and objectivity are important and focusing only on positives risks creating a halo effect. My view is that the tilt is the other direction because media draw clicks for dirt. and people enjoy dirt and criticizing because they can stand superior by offering their relentless (negative) insights. Well, the fact that the Philippines needs manufacturing and is going to get a billion peso yogurt manufacturing plant, and a whole lot of airplane services manufacturing at Clark, stand as they stand. One can nod appreciatively. It’s not creating a halo to nod appreciatively at meaningful events that are factual.
I agree with you broadly. My cautioning is against overly rosy views that could’ve come out of a PNA release (which a lot of Philippine media simply reprint verbatim). Making things seem like it’s going great creates a disincentive against action since a sense of urgency becomes diminished.
Taking large numbers out of context is one of the oldest tricks in the marketing book. The truth is that ₱1 billion = $16.3 million which is a miniscule number for a billionaire. Lucio Tan’s net worth is $3.5 billion and Asia Brewery’s market cap is about $13.93 billion; certainly Tan could’ve afforded funding this himself (it appears he did do so, licensing the Spanish Calidad Pascual’s yogurt line). Amusingly in my list of random life experiences I have had some experience in the dairy business as well. Nowadays much of dairy processing is automated. The AB Pascual joint venture is estimated to generated jobs in the low few hundreds. Great news of course for those who can get those jobs but it doesn’t make a dent overall in the nation.
Point being, it is my personal belief that accomplishments that are achievable and repeatable by relatively “normal” Filipinos who put in the work and effort should be elevated instead. Otherwise highlighting stuff like the AB Pascual joint venture can end up being pro-dynasty, pro-oligarch propaganda. An appearance of “something being done,” and indeed something is being done but the effect is not as large as seems at first.
The New Clark and Pax Silica stuff is really interesting. There will be tens of thousands of well-paying jobs there to start with more jobs to come later, skills transfer that can jumpstart native Philippine firms in the future, initial investments paid fully by US and US-aligned companies with (so far it seems) relatively minor concessions. I had an argument with a lefty Filipino the other day about Pax Silica, who seemed to think the US should 1.) invest fully 2.) give everything over and have no say. Preposterous. Yes, the US side did ask for certain concessions that seemed a bit too high but ended up meeting somewhere closer to the middle with the Filipino side.
Biliran island grows citronella, ships the oil to China who puts it into consumer products that are shipped back to the Philippines and sold. The value of the Yogurt plant is not just a few hundred jobs. It’s the dairy product business chain being held entirely within the Philippines. Why dash it with cold water rather than say, yes, more more!?! Exactly what we should be doing!
Here’s another positive sign that the Philippines is emerging from its provincial malaise.
https://mb.com.ph/2026/06/27/philippines-is-tired-of-selling-cheap-commodities
Every bit helps, but international trade is tough and very competitive. Wimps won’t survive. “Puede na” won’t cut it. And it does take teamwork between government AND the private sector.
I find it hard to buy Philippine products for a number of reasons. My wife and I prefer “patis” (fish sauce) from Thailand. We find the Philippine “patis” too salty. I think my wife also prefers coconut milk from Thailand vs. the Philippine brand. For a while I used to buy Philippine wine, but it tends to be too sweet. I remember patronizing Philippine coffee some time ago, but honestly it was almost twice as expensive as other brands and not any better or worse. There are some Philippine food products that we do buy, like Jufran and Datu Puti vinegar.
I recall during the Erap Estrada years I met a Filipino who exported Philippine products to the US, but he said Erap wanted too big a cut that it was not profitable for him so he stopped, at least until Erap was gone.
I once had dinner in Tacloban with the late Tomas “Buddy” Gomez, a Filipino writer who effectively “escaped” to the US from the Philippines to avoid some kind of Marcos threat. “Sisig?” I asked? “No thanks” he said. Then I discovered his appetite was totally Americanized. He did have a San Mig though.
Filipino products will either make it on their merits or won’t. Dried mangos do. And 120 million Filipinos is a big market, as well. I love my Philippine coffee. And chocolate dipped dried sliced mangos. Are they pricey? I don’t know, one reason the Philippines tops a 2026 ranking as the best country in the world to retire to, lol.
I regret not buying more bags of Redland Farm’s Peanut Butter Banana Trail Mix at Costco when they went on clearance for $2.77 a bag late last year. Redland Farm is a sub-brand of Canadian Trophy Foods. When I ate some for the first time I thought “this tastes Filipino.” Sure enough when I flipped the package it said “made in the Philippines” right there. This particular trail mix was manufactured in the Philippines using Philippine ingredients. Sadly I found out the trail mix was discontinued upon inquiring Trophy Foods. Not sure why.
https://www.instacart.com/products/56065826-redland-peanut-butter-flavored-banana-snack-mix-32-oz
Bummer. Trail mix is an essential food group in my book.
“Why dash it with cold water rather than say, yes, more more!?!” – JoeAm
I didn’t see Joey as dashing it with cold water. He did say it was great news.
“The AB Pascual joint venture is estimated to generated jobs in the low few hundreds. Great news of course for those who can get those jobs but it doesn’t make a dent overall in the nation.” – Joey N.
I did see Joey as saying “yes, more more” but he is thinking a little bigger, as in “more, more but in larger sizes so we make a dent in the economy and in employment.” He then mentions the New Clark and Pax Silica stuff, which incidentally I find exciting too. Joey can correct me if I am reading him wrong.
My wife has a relative who is in his 20s, single, and has a Masters Degree I think in Marketing, but could not find work in Manila, so he went back to his hometown of Calapan in Oriental Mindoro and started a cyber café until something better comes along. At my prodding we are encouraging his father to have his son look into the possibility of finding work in Clark or maybe Subic because I read things are starting to pick up there.
Okay, thanks. I read it as “no big deal”. Which I suppose it’s not by nation-building standards. The Clark air services hub could be a big deal, indeed. Nation defining.
Yeah, I think the yogurt joint venture is a great thing — I’m cautioning against pwede na by saying “now aim higher,” to which I pointed to the New Clark developments and Pax Silica as a template for future developments at other former US base complexes.
It might not be obvious from the Philippines but here in the US policymakers in both parties are quite serious about continuing the Biden trajectory of moving the global supply chain away from China. In essence there are many elements of the TPP, which Trump 1.0 killed, now back in play.
The Philippines has, and has always had, an extraordinary advantage compared to other SEA countries; arguably the Philippines has always had an advantage over even the likes of Taiwan. That advantage is the stable relationship with an immense ally and benefactor — the United States. Friendly Asian countries like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and Oceanic countries like Australia who are building relationships with the Philippines are in fact doing so with the tacit agreement and encouragement of the US. I have heard as much directly from relatives and acquaintances in the US government, specifically State.
As I’ve said before the Philippines was always the logical choice when it comes to being a main anchor of the US alliance network in Asia, along with the string of countries from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia/New Zealand. Perhaps the Philippines might not “catch up” with the other ASEAN economic powerhouses in the near term, but the Philippines has a real chance to rapidly close the gap.
Yes, agree. There are rumblings of money and investment seeping into the nation. Ship building, air services. Arms manufacturing. The US gives it wind. Big companies in the PH as well.
Tangentially related is the G-Cash IPO: https://insiderph.com/gcash-lines-up-wall-street-giants-bdo-and-bpi-for-record-pse-ipo
A year and some months into Trump 2.0, yes democracy is at risk back here in the US but underneath the rage-inducing actions it becomes quickly clear nearly every move by Trump and his cronies is in singular pursuit of corruption. So in a way the US is holding onto democracy by the fact that Trumpworld is 1.) stupid 2.) greedy 3.) lazy. The backlash is building.
Within the bureaucracy itself civil servants are still executing previously crafted plans unless they were explicitly directed not to (usually due to some culture war issue to throw red meat at MAGA). Even when directed to stop there have been many more cases of resistance and throwing of sand in the gears than of giddy compliance.
The inconvenient truth is that at the political-bureaucratic level in the US, Western Europe, and Asia, nothing much has changed from the post-Covid consensus that liberal democracies need to get away from the reliance on China as the manufacturing capital of the world. Yes, for example in Canada PM Carney or in Germany Chancellor Merz need to sometimes use “strong language” to allay their domestic audiences, but all I’ll say is look at actions, not words. Canada and Germany are moving closer to the US, and likewise the US is moving closer to allies. The Russia and China threat which potentially can be catastrophic transcends Trump’s bad behavior which will be temporary. It appears the Rubio wing is winning over the Vance wing. Well, in the end Rubio will be blown out of the water in 2028 as well. I don’t think the MAGA movement can recover at this point.
So yes, I would expect further investment into the Philippines. After all, Pax Silica is basically a rebranding of Biden’s Minerals Security Partnership which was already far along in process; the only difference is the current buzz word of “AI” was tacked on.
I find it useful to go beyond the surface level. For example on this topic of yogurt one must understand why Asia Brewery embarked on the AB Pascual joint venture with Spain’s Calidad Pascual.
It all started when Fil-Ams who experienced the Los Angeles Koreatown “Tart Boom” in the late 2000s and brought it home.
Of course frozen yogurt being a luxury in Metro Manila malls, the more accessible Japanese single-serving Yakult became a stand-in for non-elite Filipinos. Yakult is marketed in Japan as a live-culture probiotic drink, the “Probiotics Wave” which reached the Philippines by the first half of the 2010s.
In the second half of the 2010s due to rising family disposable incomes from the BPO explosion urban Millennials and older Gen Z gravitated towards health-conscious lifestyles which were driven on social media, especially the debut of TikTok by the late 2010s, so the market favored “natural” yogurt like Greek yogurt with fresh fruit and low sugar.
In the post-Covid era, younger Gen Z’s are into “body hacking” so have moved beyond probiotics into “preimmunization.” Shelf stable, single serving yogurts from Nestlé, Arla, Pascual, and so on are cheap enough to experience “affordable luxury” or so-called “micro luxury” which suits the aspirational lifestyle of Gen Z’s.
Corporations are not charities. No Filipino tycoon embarked on making a yogurt factory until now because the market was not big enough to be profitable rather than the same tycoon using their import license to import (such as Asia Brewery being the exclusive sole importer of Calidad Pascual’s products). Well it’s great that now the Philippines will have local production of yogurts to be enjoyed by elites and aspirational Filipinos. AB Pascual will still be importing the raw ingredient (i.e. milk), likely from the US, Australia or New Zealand, but okay a value-added product is created.
My original point is that I think stuff like the New Clark and Pax Silica developments are way more impactful across a broader swathe of Philippine society. The tens of thousands more workers in the BCDA developments would then be able to buy as much yogurt as they want to eat, expanding the Philippine yogurt industry.
That makes good sense. It inspired me to inquire how much cows milk is produced in the Philippines. 43 million liters a year, or about 1% of demand. 99% is imported. The announcement of the yogurt factory did talk about the importance of the plant for Filipino dairies. You are right about the social demand for yogurt moving up, so the timing makes sense now. Not earlier.
A lot of the lack of market also has to do with the fact that just barely half (50.7% according to PSA) of Filipino families have access to refrigeration at home.
The Japanese post-War industrialization model, which completely fascinates me, was modeled after the American industrialization model but adapted to Japanese sensibilities.
Something to look into are the Japanese “Three Sacred Treasures” appliances which were considered on the level of the right of every Japanese to own and the connection to that phase of industrialization.
Original Three Sacred Treasures (1950s)
Three C’s (1960s)
New Three Treasures (2000s)
Later Taiwan and South Korea adapted the Three Sacred Treasures into their own countries.
Need to give people a concrete goal to work towards, which is true aspiration, rather than something one could never reach no matter how hard one tries.
we had a refrigerator at 1970s/1980s UP Diliman of course – but brownouts were so often that we couldn’t safely store fresh milk which was quite expensive anyway for us who were middle class but definitely not rich, so the milk we drank was mostly made from NIDO powdered milk.
That it was Cory’s period where there were so many brownouts is the story that stuck – because they weren’t REPORTED in Marcos Sr. times, BTW..
When you have a chance to visit you might be amused to find out that “brownouts” are still quite common outside of Metro Manila. Most of the time the reason for the brownout doesn’t make much sense, or because apparently the entire town is on the same substation. It’s part of the Philippine charm I suppose.
I don’t think most Philippine thinkers, much less regular Filipinos, even understand “why” a modern society requires refrigeration. It seems to me that refrigerators are seen mostly as a luxury, aspirational appliance (as it was in the Japan example), which gets one halfway to understanding but not all the way.
Refrigeration has some obvious benefits such as in food storage and reducing the foodborne illnesses prevalent in the Philippines.
However the main application of refrigeration is to allow cities to develop further away from the agricultural land. With refrigerated transport (truck, rail, sea), industrial scale farming can be done even further away, even across countries.
Instead in the Philippines we have cities encroaching on the traditional lowland ricelands, since cities need to be relatively close to the agricultural producers in order to be supplied with fresh food. Otherwise diets lean heavily into instant foods, delata, dried preserves (e.g. daing), overuse of vinegar, salt, sugar to make food last longer.
Interestingly in Japan before widespread refrigeration, the Japanese also ate a lot of preserved foods. The (relatively recent) ancestor of sushi was Lake Biwa carp preserved in cooked rice and salt. I’ve tried this “narezushi” in Kansai and it’s not very pleasant. The famous long lifespans of the Japanese is actually a post-War phenomenon, linked strongly to the refrigerator component of the original Three Sacred Treasures.
UP was definitely on one substation before and we didn’t have any electricity for what felt like over a month (I was a kid then so my memory isn’t that clear) because the transformer there had been hit by lightning and the replacement had to be delivered from Germany by ship..
seems the topography of networks that deliver currency has become way more fail-safe in the past decades based on what I was checking out just now, even as big blackouts can still happen when everything goes wrong at once, but these are then events that become historical like the November 2006 European blackout or the November 2012 Munich blackout, not regular occurences. I wonder where the SLA for electricity lies here, probably at 99.999% or something similar.
The heat has been hot the past few weeks and electrical supply across the Visayas has been stretched to the max. That’s a problem when too many well-off people turn their air conditioners on all at once. The permanent solutions would be to make people poor again, or increase power generation. Or move it from AI to people. Cebu works on a rolling brownout scheme, one part of the area this hour, another the next, and so on. In a way it’s good not to be so perfect that we forget about the days before refrigerators. My wife is a superb cook because she survived her childhood without a refrigerator. She’s inventive and now the refrigerator is packed.
If you’re not ready for a full rooftop solar install that might cost $20,000-30,000 depending on yes/no battery backup, have a look at “balcony solar” which costs less than $5,000, usually closer to $3,500-4,000. It simply plugs into your standard outlet, no need to replace your circuit breaker panel, find a place to hang or deploy the 2-4 flexible solar panels, then enjoy about 1.2 kWh offset to your energy use. My converted shed which is my workshop has a window air conditioning unit that’s about a decade old. I measured it at one time and confirmed it uses about 900W. Well below what a balcony solar unit can supply. Typical oscillating fans and air circulators that can move large amounts of air (think 900-1,500 CFM) use about 60-75W if it has an AC motor; DC units use less than 50W even on turbo mode.
Yes, although from what I’ve read you need to install a switch into the house circuit, you can’t just plug into a wall circuit. Or you can plug individual appliances into the AC outlet of the power bank. They are great for brownouts but long duration outages post-typhoon require solar panels. And sunshine, lol. Our Biliran home does not require air conditioning. A fireplace would be a more sensible investment. We run a refrigerator, a water pump, a microwave, and 10 light bulbs. None is essential. We cook on gas. Life in the Philippines is good, if a tad rustic in some respects.
Oh, and I-pad, wifi router, and 4 cell phones, 10W each. oopsie
With balcony solar there is no need to change anything on the electrical circuit and the generated power does not backflow to the electrical co-op since there is an (included) microinverter that goes in right before the outlet hookup.
There are many interesting uses for the solar panels. Early models a decade ago were just hung off of balconies, hence “balcony solar.” Nowadays they are mounted as a type of awning to provide shade, installed on lawns, incorporated into the balcony side cladding, and so on.
Just interesting since I have been playing with solar and wind energy for decades. I used to have to design my own micro-solar system. Later on with EVs that were totaled/salvaged I built from schematics shared in enthusiast forums a couple of battery backup systems based on Tesla and Nissan Leaf battery packs (which are just standard lithium ion batteries once disassembled). Much easier now with balcony solar. It’s just plug and play. It looks like you can offset a large portion of your electricity needs by investing a few thousand bucks in such a balcony system.
Yes, low needs, clean and simple solution. Thanks for the helpful tips.
As always the true answers in the Philippines are “it’s complicated.” The National Electrification Administration funded and backed by the US did rapidly roll out electrical infrastructure even to the furthest provinces starting in 1969 under the program commonly known as “rural electrification.”
Retired Engr. Leonardo Guttierrez explains more on his Quora answers, which I found to be fascinating. I hope he is well since he hasn’t answered for over year… that “Builder” generation is fading fast:
https://www.quora.com/profile/Leonardo-Gutierrez-23
The electric cooperative model made sense back then due to the fragmentary nature of the archipelago that at the time lacked modern transportation, but the islanding design became brittle when it was expanded. Co-ops that are better funded by members and better managed basically don’t have brownouts while a great many electric co-ops which run on 1970s era baseline power plants struggle. Outside of Metro Manila and until the last decade in Metro Cebu “peaker” power plants to handle higher than normal demand was unheard of. Transferring power was and is still limited by inadequate transmission capacity, especially undersea power cables.
Well the Philippines is (better late than never) has begun the process of creating a unified national electrical grid under the One Grid Philippines initiative launched in 2024 and managed by the National Grid Corporation.
Since the Philippines grid is so behind, a planner can either look at the situation as “damn we suck” or they can see opportunity to make an entirely new electric grid architecture. The AI startup I’m working on deals with resource planning. If I were to have some ideas to contribute, I would aggressively push for co-ops to be transformed using renewables for more local resilience, create more incentives for rooftop microgrids and commercial rooftop generation, then link it all into a national “electric backbone.” I now have a traditional rooftop solar here at home but I have also been watching with interest European-style “balcony solar” that is popular in the Germany. Typically such units (with 2 lightweight solar panels) generate a maximum of 1.2 kWh, a relatively small amount of electricity for Western homes which takes care of baseline needs but would be a huge amount for most rural Philippine houses. Excess generation can be battery stored or even sold back to the grid.
@Joey,
Because of your views
I have several drafts on capacity vs ambition, good pilots announced only to have scaling up problems later, etc.
Still improving and consolidating some scheduled articles.
But generally so long there is no halo effect, good announcements are basically good, what happens next is up to all stakeholders led by a good leader.
Culture is not destiny.
Thanks Karl! I think any win is a win. I just want to get away from making small wins appear to be so huge that a normal Filipino starts viewing it as unachievable by a regular person. The aim should be to replicate wins broadly.
I get where you are coming from
Huh? Knowing of a billion peso yogurt factory will cause people to get discouraged from trying to go into business? It’s a small deal but too big to announce? I think it’s more likely to cause people to try yogurt or look for the “made in the Philippines” brand. Wins should not be feared.
Joe, sometimes I think we talk past each other. I did not say or imply any of this.
“I just want to get away from making small wins appear to be so huge that a normal Filipino starts viewing it as unachievable by a regular person.” JN
Then I misunderstood this statement and don’t know what to avoid in publishing links to progress. I have to add small print to say the Philippines is still backward in many respects and don’t be afraid to go into business for yourself (where odds are you’ll fail)? Good news is good news and need not be shaded to fit some master narrative, in my opinion.
For example, this is positive. Small yet big. An oligarch shifting focus in later years. Expanding his acreage for palm oil and investing in processing infrastructure. Employs 1,200 today.
https://bworldonline.com/corporate/2026/06/29/759642/consunji-plans-oil-palm-expansion-to-20000-ha/
Or this, a humdinger as the bond between the Philippines and Japan builds.
https://www.philstar.com/lifestyle/business-life/2026/06/28/2538371/uniqlos-new-cavite-logistics-hub-puts-spotlight-japanese-concepts
Note as well Jollibee’s optimism about Philippine markets. I tell you, there’s more money here these days. Note also the company’s modernization (digital) and diversification plans as it grows.
https://business.inquirer.net/597820/jollibee-sees-long-runway-for-growth-in-provinces
And it’s not just me seeing the Philippines as something other than a dismal, poor thinking, corrupt, lost backwater. It’s shifting. Not moving fast. But shifting. And President Marcos has been a facilitator.
https://bworldonline.com/bloomberg/2026/06/25/759161/philippines-thailand-primed-as-next-supply-chain-rising-stars/
I don’t think there’s anything bad in sharing links. All I’m saying the links are practically copy-pasted press releases that serve a certain purpose. It is a pattern I noticed almost immediately in Philippine media when I first started including Filipino news into my daily media consumption about 30 years ago. And that purpose probably isn’t explicitly to further the lives of ordinary Filipinos.
Nor am I implying that stuff we share or consume needs to fit a greater narrative. But I am saying let’s be away of the narrative the “news” itself is attempting to set. In the Philippines it tends to be pro-oligarch, pro-dynasty. Heralding “huge” developments that are not felt by most Filipinos. It can eventually become “magic” in a way, something to watch passively rather than to believe one can be an active participant.
My preference are things that will affect more people positively. So that’s why I said the yogurt plant is good, but the development in New Clark and Pax Silica are better. That is all.
My view is that good works need to be published broadly so people stop seeing the Philippines as a zero, a tired horse only good for flogging. On the scales of truth and accuracy, I can say unequivocally that the negative has tilted the scale wrongly, so I’ll add a few micro-milligrams to the other side now and then. If they uplift me, maybe they’ll uplift others.
My observation over the years is that people who can only see the Philippines as a near-failed state, who wallow in the failure narrative, tend to be elites or elite aspirants more invested in cultivating a martyr complex than in looking toward positive outcomes. Certainly there are nationalist and communist strains, but the technocratic projection of cosmopolitan shame (as compared to highly developed countries) is modern version of what liberal ilustrados did over a century ago.
I look instead to regular Filipinos, who are probably more like your wife. Practical. Grateful. Open-minded. Eager to learn. The real constraint for the masa isn’t attitude as elites often claim — it’s access. Many simply don’t have the educational tools or the financial means to advance beyond their immediate circumstances. So I’m interested in solutions that address those two concerns: better educational access and good salaries that open up real possibilities for families.
That is very keenly put. Lack of access, no flaw of character or intent. Thanks.
@Joey,
We too had a share of talking past each other.
In the case above, I almost reacted differently to the phrase unachievable to a normal person.
It is true that capability should match goals, aspirations, ambitions but that can not always happen.
No worries Karl. I try to make myself as clear as possible. We all have our own opinions. The important thing is progress towards goals.
Thanks.
“I’m working on the second.” – JoeAm
And you get a hearty amen from me on that. I agree that there is a lot of bad news on the Philippines, and that is not a matter of focus, but a matter of choice out of frustration because of the reality of all the bad news.
I remember that the Soviet Union’s citizens dealt with the tsunami of bad news that was their lives with consumption of vodka. We use humor to get us through the day. Certainly better for our liver and kidneys, eh?
Leo Dominguez was neither closed nor uninformed. A closed mind usually reacts with anger, defensiveness, or rigid dogmatism when challenged. Leo reacted with an uncanny skill and charm that left people comfortable yet redirected. I believe he was a positive for the Duterte brand, a brand that I believe you have learned to detest.
In any case, I sincerely encourage you on your crusade to bring good news of the Philippines to our attention. In other forums, I have openly asked for it. Leo did a good job of it and they were stories of real action and results, not promises and visions of a future Philippines. That is one reason he was so disarming…it was tough to deny concrete results.
Why thank you CV. I could of course also mention that banks here are undergoing capital stress from Trump’s war combined with corruption fall-out boosting their bad loans, and BSP is shoveling sand on the fire rather than let them lapse into undercapitalized mode on the path to collapse. But that’s not uplifting. The Philippines needs to be uplifted, in my view. Or seen matter of factly, rather than as a horse lying on Roxas Boulevard and beaten upon relentlessly because it can’t get up.
Dropping this link.
Passing the Anti Dynasty Bill should be accompanied by a campaign funds reform.
https://www.abs-cbn.com/news/nation/2026/6/27/anti-political-dynasty-law-won-t-be-enough-analyst-says-1656
My opinion is; watered down or not, the Anti-Dynasty Bill must be passed and then improved in a future date, first by having a good irr.
Party reform, campaign funds are also perrenial problems, that desrve their own legislation time.
Yes, that’s where I come down on it, too. The Senate unfortunately is about half lunatic and undercover anti-constitution.
Yes, I agree.