The Philippines: “Slip slidin’ away”

By Joe America I love Paul Simon’s work. He was asked once how he developed such rich lyrics and he said they just came out, and he wrote them down and sang them. Sometimes they had no meaning. Well, I suppose they have whatever meaning the listener overlays onto them. I overlay the Philippines onto … Continue reading →

Filed under Citizenship/Patriotism, Literature, Philippine Government

Digitized, shopped, chopped, and hacked

By Joe America Technology has changed the world, and will do so even more in the future. Our simple lives are gone. Our old values are history. Now we must deal with global cyber forces like Wikileaks, Facebook, Amazon, and Google, and State cyber hackers from Russia, China, and the United States, and private hackers … Continue reading →

Filed under China, Citizenship/Patriotism, Foreign Affairs and Defense, Laws and Ethics, Philippine Government, Technology/Internet

You cannot separate the economic from the political (the return of the cowardly technocrats)

By Andrew Lim During the presidential campaign of 2016, then candidate Duterte uttered a pledge to revive the country’s steel industry if elected. This blog, along with others were vocal and unanmious: it did not make economic sense at all, with global steel prices dropping. Not helping Duterte was the fact that one of his … Continue reading →

Filed under China, Economy, Laws and Ethics, Philippine Government

Monica Lewinski and women of the Philippines

By Joe America What in the world does the woman who featured in a US presidential sex scandal have to do with the Philippines? It’s complicated, so let’s first try to gather up some ideas. Let’s take four different perspectives on the gender character of the Philippines and then put them together to form an … Continue reading →

Filed under Crime/Corruption, Education, Laws and Ethics, Philippine Government

Hello, Hell. Thy name is Philippines.

By Joe America We passed two historical milestones this past weekend: (1) another year afer the 1986 People Power rebellion with related pushback against a budding Duterte dictatorship, and (2) the first anniversary of the jailing of Senator De Lima. These celebrations, if one can celebrate achievement and cruelty as passages, good and bad, were … Continue reading →

Filed under Citizenship/Patriotism, Culture and Arts, Laws and Ethics, Philippine Government