President Noynoy Aquino (PNoy) will be giving his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) soon. Like his first SONA, his speech will most likely be full of motherhood statements similar to all the previous speeches he had delivered since he announced his plans to run for the Presidency in 2009. There is very little hope that his speechwriters will come up with something more substantial or that has something we can use as a basis for clinging on to any kind of hope that this current administration could bring about real “changeâ€. You can bet your hard-earned Peso his second SONA will be filled with a long list of the former administration’s “faults†as usual.
What PNoy has to say is likely to be something that we’ve all heard before. There was nothing to indicate in his first year in office that he plans to advocate any changes in the country’s institutions, systems or culture, that can actually help move our country forward. As mentioned in my previous article, PNoy is “from the pampered oligarchy†and therefore part of the problem. This fact seems to escape most of the people who voted for him even after a year of seeing mediocre performance on the job. PNoy has become so predictable that it is hard to imagine what motivates him to report for work nowadays.
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In a 1987 article published on The Atlantic, James Fallows described how PNoy’s late mother, the former President Corazon “Cory” Aquino gave a performance exactly the same as how her son is performing now. Here is what he had to say:
[…] “on my second trip to the Philippines, in the summer, many Filipinos told me that Aquino had become strangely passive in office, acting as if her only task had been to get rid of Marcos and ride out the periodic coups, rumored and real. As long as she did those jobs–that is, stayed in office–she did not feel driven to do much else.”
When I realized that Fallows wrote his article in 1987, I felt a little bit disgusted that once again, it seems that another Aquino and the family minions are taking Filipinos for a ride. In retrospect, it is not hard to imagine Cory or PNoy acting “passive in officeâ€. Rumor has it that neither of the Aquino Presidents were actually in control because it is alleged that their loyalty to their family and friends who benefit from the status quo must come first before the welfare of the people. To believe that PNoy can really make a difference in the next five years is to believe in the Tooth Fairy. The prospect of PNoy realizing what he has to do and then set out to give an above average performance one day is very dismal, indeed.
Fallows’s almost three-decade-old article had a lot of wonderful insights into the recent history of the Philippines that remained relevant over the subsequent three decades after former President Ferdinand Marcos was ousted. It would serve PNoy well if anyone from his administration would bother to take the time to read Fallows’s assessment of the Philippines then and see where the author was right about our economy and our culture. Practically everything he wrote about us is true. PNoy needs to take what he said into account and acknowledge that something has to be done to prove that he is serious about tackling our problems.
In 1987, the population of the Philippines was only 55 million. Fallows’s foreseeing that Philippine population growth would sustain its two-point-five percent clip to bring the population to over 100 million in two decades was dead-on. The Philippines was as predictable then as it is today.
China, whose citizens Fallows described as “human beasts of burden†was still considered poorer than our country. In this paragraph, he made comparisons between the conditions of the poor in communist China and that in “democratic” Philippines:
“It’s not the mere fact of poverty that makes the Philippines so distressing, since some other Asian countries have lower living standards. China, for instance, is on the whole much poorer than the Philippines, and China’s human beasts of burden, who pull huge oxcarts full of bricks down streets in Shanghai or Beijing, must have lives that are among the hardest on the planet. But Philippine poverty seems more degrading, for reasons I will try to illustrate through the story of “Smoky Mountainâ€.
Fast-forward to today; China just passed Japan in the second quarter of this year to become the world’s second-largest economy behind the United States after three decades of growth. The Chinese are no longer the “human beasts of burden†Fallows described ealier while the Philippine economy is still stuck in reverse with a population of almost 100 million and growing. Of course, it has to be mentioned that China applied economic liberalization, which helped them achieve unprecedented growth in such a short amount of time.
Again, Fallows’s description of the Philippines in 1987 is how anyone would describe the Philippines now:
“The government reports that about two thirds of the people in the country live below the proverty line, as opposed to half in the pre-Marcos era. There are technical arguments about where to draw the poverty line, but it is obvious that most Filipinos lack decent houses, can’t afford education, in some areas are short of food, and in general are very, very poor. The official unemployment rate is 12 percent, but if all the cigarette vendors, surplus bar girls, and other underemployed people are taken into account, something like half the human talent in the country must be unused.
Still, for all the damage Marcos did, it’s not clear that he caused the country’s economic problems, as opposed to intensifying them. Most of the things that now seem wrong with the economy–grotesque extremes of wealth and poverty, land-ownership disputes, monopolistic industries in cozy, corrupt cahoots with the government–have been wrong for decades. When reading Philippine novels or history books, I would come across a passage that resembled what I’d seen in the Manila slums or on a farm. Then I would read on and discover that the description was by an American soldier in the 1890s, or a Filipino nationalist in the 1930s, or a foreign economist in the 1950s, or a young politician like Ferdinand Marcos or Benigno Aquino in the 1960s. “Here is a land in which a few are spectacularly rich while the masses remain abjectly poor. . . . Here is a land consecrated to democracy but run by an entrenched plutocracy. Here, too, are a people whose ambitions run high, but whose fulfillment is low and mainly restricted to the self-perpetuating elite.’
Fallows seemed to echo the same realization I expressed in my previous article, South Korea: the country that the Philippines could have been — that South Korea was in the same position as the Philippines in the 1960s:
“Officials in both South Korea and the Philippines have pointed out to me that in the mid-1960s, when the idealistic (as he then seemed) Ferdinand Marcos began his first term as President, the two countries were economically even with each other, with similar per capita incomes of a few hundred dollars a year. The officials used this fact to make very different points. The Koreans said it dramatized how utterly poor they used to be (“We were like the Philippines!’ said one somber Korean bureaucrat), while to the Filipinos it was a reminder of a golden, hopeful age. It demonstrated, they said, that the economy had been basically robust until the Marcoses launched their kleptocracy. Since the 1960s, of course, the Philippines has moved in the opposite direction from many other East Asian countries.
But it’s not like corruption is exclusive to the Philippines. Up until the 1990s, corruption in South Korea was so rampant that the country was hardly called democratic:
The situation with the Koreans in the 1990s was so similar to what is happening to Filipinos now that if you read the following excerpt from the book Asian Values, Western Dreams by Greg Sheridan, you will not be able to ignore the striking resemblance of the Korean political setting to our current political setting, to wit:
“In an earlier conversation in 1996 Kim Dae Jung had gone so far as to call into question South Korea’s basic democratic credentials. “I don’t believe Korea is a democracy,†he said at that time. “President Kim Young-Sam has failed to implement democracy. During the election in 1995 the ruling party committed every type of election fraud, spending money everywhere and exploiting the activities of North Korea in the Demilitarized Zone. Television is totally under the control of the State.â€
To be sure, Philippine elections in the past and even the recent one in May 2010 were mired by allegations of fraud in the form of vote buying and rigging of election results, the latter not prevented even by new electronic voting systems. Likewise, mainstream media in the Philippines which includes a major television network and a leading newspaper is owned by oligarchs who are also friends and relatives of the incumbent President, Noynoy Aquino. In short, the powerful elite who exert a strong influence on the electorate controls the media.
[…]
It is obvious that authoritarian rule has done more good than harm for the Korean people overall. It instilled discipline and a strong sense of nationalism in its people.
Korea has certainly come a long way. And their coming of age was remarkably fast. Three decades ago, Korea was even poorer than Malaysia and Mexico. Now, its “GDP per capita has surged by a factor of 10 to $17,000.00 more than double the levels in those countries. GDP growth was 0.2% in much of the rest of the world was contracting, and is estimated to be 6% this year†according to figures obtained from TIME magazine.
Can the economy save the Filipinos?
It is interesting to note that Fallows seems to think that the Philippine economic history of having an open market in the past during the American occupation had something to do with why we lag behind in building our own industry. He said that “the countries that have most successfully rebuilt their economies, including Japan and Korea, went through extremely protectionist infant-industry phases, with America’s blessing; the United States never permitted the Philippines such a period. The Japanese and Koreans now believe they can take on anybody; the confidence of Filipino industrialists seems to have been permanently destroyedâ€.
His view on the Filipino people’s general lack of ingenuity and competitiveness in the presence of foreign investors is not something that the proponents of economic liberalization will agree on.
So it would seem that even when the economy was open to free foreign trade competition in the past, Filipinos struggled to find their own niche in the market. It remains to be seen then, if modern day Filipinos could really find their way out of their dire economic circumstances through innovation and entrepreneurial skills even if we allow foreign investors in. James Fallows seems to believe and I tend to agree, that Filipino culture tends to succumb to a child-like state whose hand needs to be held while crossing the streets even in the 21st century. This is evident in the fact that most Filipinos still believe that the U.S. will be coming to our country’s aid if we ever get embroiled in military operations with an outside force. It is obvious that most Filipinos still can’t shake the idea that “that America is the center and they are the periphery.â€
Our culture is the culprit.
PNoy’s second SONA will not be any different from his first or his 3rd, 4th, 5th or even his final one unless he acknowledges himself that there is a need to change the culture of impunity in our society. It is difficult to imagine how he will address the people’s call for him to find a resolution to the allegations of cronyism and favoritism that is hounding his administration early into his term. As the country slogs through another monsoon flooding, the rain is not strong enough to drown out reports of PNoy turning a blind eye to what is dubbed the anomalous activities of his “KKKâ€:
Minority congressmen in the House of Representatives have filed a resolution seeking an investigation of Aquino’s alleged cronies, whom they have labeled “KKK†or kaibigan (friend), kaklase (classmate) and kabarilan (shooting buddy).
It is quite ironic to note that former President Gloria Arroyo’s son, Mikey is now emphasizing that “there’s less food on the table. And yet the only thing people can relate PNoy to is his dates with different girls and his fancy for luxury sports carsâ€.
As every pundit would know after years of analyzing the Philippine setting, politics is “just a recreational sport for a few dozen families from the landed oligarchy; a ball which is passed on from one family to the next.†The people who plan to watch PNoy’s second SONA would be better off spending their time on something more productive.
In life, things are not always what they seem.
I dont think if President Nonoy Aquino can save d Phil. Goverment thru POVERTY!
Hi Aileen
Yeah, he seems to have the wrong idea on what to do in order to save the country from going down the drain.
puro fiction lang yang abnoy na yan http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=512485
Pnoy should control his big mouth
http://mb.com.ph/articles/324211/pnoys-love-interests-real-fiction
lacierda can spin that into something to the effect of “at least he is honest” and in the process imply that butch abad and the rest of the people who sold pnoy’s legend to the 15 million duped voters are amusingly creative liars. i’m sure he looks forward to doing a great job every single day.
this time, kris will have a chance to tell big brother to shut his mouth.
@Parallax
Stuff like these will simply fly over most Pinoy’s head.
@Ahehe
Thanks for the link. I can’t believe he put on record that his friend just fabricated the whole thing.
yeah. star-struck ignoramuses the whole lot of them. it’s all about selective blindness…
…like joe’s.
Ms. Ilda, last month pa yan. “Some” of the ff. abnoy quotes found here are screaming for a video/audio clip.
http://www.pinoyexchange.com/forums/showthread.php?t=518735
Back up the youtube vid “Noynoy Admits His Reported Love Affair Is A Fiction”.
I’m still looking for the spratlys/hyacinth and MS EXCEL ones.
This should be fun.
Sadly, he is giving more material for people to use against him. But despite the criticism, they are still in denial about his below average performance.
First of all, I’d like to give you an outstanding ovation, for opening up the eyes of our fellow filipinos. Noynoy, has done nothing but hype up the filipino’s it what we would call false hope, I knew from the moment he ran in office, he would end up like his, allegedly famous, and heroic mother. How aquino won is beyond me, How could our fellow citizens not see that he was using his name to work for him rather than he live up to his. Our government isn’t the only problem here too, we the people, are the reason why there is a government, let us take that into our minds, and try to mold the government ourselves, its time we stopped wallowing in the shadows and grieving over what should have been, when what we know we deserve would’ve been. Filipino’s its time we open our eyes. It’s time we LIVED.
@Jean Claude
That is the idea behind all this activity.
Thanks.
OOPS TYPOS! haha, i was just too mad, and had to vent. 😐 forgive me
Ilda, nice to see that you haven’t lost any “love” for PNoy. 😉
One year na, wala pa rin solid na direction. He’s still all gas.
Lately, he’s been harping on “unrealized savings” when he should be more concerned about making the right investments.
@brianitus
Well, with the way he is doing his job, one can be forgiven for thinking that it was only yesterday when they swore him in. It’s too bad his supporters can’t use the line, “He is only less than a year in office. Give him a break”.
Thanks…it is a very enlightening article…our political leaders are the part of the problem…they are not part of the solution…most of them are: hacienderos; owners of business monopolies; have family political dynasties; control their own political turfs with private armies, that intimidate voters, during elections.
Same old blaming on people speech. Presenting a Philippine world of fantasy, on the second SONA of Noynoy Aquino…nothing will change…he may even blame us, for all these ills…
@Hyden
Even if we fast forward it to 2016, it seems that PNoy will still be the same. I actually wish we can just forward it. It’s very excruciating to have to go through the next five years knowing nothing significant will happen.
I agree that Mr. Aquino is passive and his administration reflects the foibles found in day-to-day Filipino living, mainly poor “integrated, strategic, forward-looking” work. However, I also think it is wrong not to commend him for the persistent of efforts to bring corrupt people to account (much of which occured under Arroyo, so it is impossible to do this WITHOUT attacking her; you really do like to box him into a no-win situation), or for getting RH and Divorce bills onto the national agenda. Rather than re-write my full blog, I simply refer you (again) to an opposing view: http://thesocietyofhonor.blogspot.com/2011/06/hail-to-chief.html
pnoy wants to replace stradcom with MS Excel bec the latter is free daw. That’s your president.
joe america is da man when it comes to consistency.
first he says: “it is wrong not to commend him for the persistent of efforts to bring corrupt people to account (much of which occured under Arroyo, so it is impossible to do this WITHOUT attacking her”
then he says: “I agree President Aquino should stop using Ms. Arroyo as a crutch in his speeches, and should leave the prosecution to the various prosecutors. Otherwise he is interefering with her right to fair judgment.”
joe america, when it comes to consistency that we can all rely on, you da man!!!
you’re already spamming the place by sprinkling this same link in more than one thread in less than a week’s time, though i must admit that’s really up to grpost admin to say so. regardless, you still haven’t answered my question on pnoy’s stand when it comes to the victims of the banco filipino closure, specif. the depositors and employees. hail to the chief for making his kkk buddies really wealthy and without accountability is what it is. enough gloria bashing because that’s all your president is ever good at. come on, joe, try and explain this one away.
Yea, I should stop the spam. I know nothing about the banco filipino closure and certainly believe that President Aquino is a part of a powerful “family” and subject to the pressures of same. See my response to Ilda below for added comment.
joe, the only way you gain credibility for all the praise praise praise would be to account for all his other actions and inactions (not just the stuff you can gush about), not by pandering here and there.
calling it a blanket condemnation is an obvious cop-out, and so is conveniently saying you know nothing of banco filipino’s closure and what pnoy did (or didn’t do) about it. by all means please research that subject and then tell us what you think of the chief’s greatness in terms of that. this should be quite interesting.
Parallel, I research what I want, not what you want, and it is not my choice to follow Presiden Aquino around with a mop waiting for every little shit he drops. That said, if I view that blanket condemnations are unfair, I’ll say so, and allow you to gush your diatribes that are detached from any reason but defense of your esteem, a marked and mundane Fiiipino trait.
cop-out, cop-out, cop-out, joe. classic joe america. nothing has changed. my mistake was i actually expected better from you. i forgot you’re more pinoy than most people realize (and that’s no compliment).
nice try but no matter how you position my argument (my argument being the bank closure is clear evidence of pnoy’s incompetence and lack of real concern for people including those who voted for him) as a joeam-contrived esteem issue, pnoy is definitely a much-celebrated popular failure, and his being touted by coddlers as supposedly morally better is now officially a 2-legged chair.
you can’t explain this obvious pnoy failure, can you joe?
“I research what I want, not what you want, and it is not my choice to follow Presiden Aquino around with a mop waiting for every little shit he drops.”
ignorance is bliss, isn’t it, joe?
very revealing. even your typos. rattled much?
Parallelaxe, “gush”, “cop out”, “ignorance is bliss”. These are the clues to your fundamental method of argument, going personal in the anti-pinoy style. You are a 100% kinda guy, offering no latitude for someone to have an honest disagreement with you, and holding the president of your country to an impossible standard . . . perfection. You are a stinko patriot, I fear. You are a true-blue Pinoy, where personal winning is the goal. Not problem solving, not query and dialogue. You are a living example of the “why” of the Philippines.
When you dish personal shit, it drags both parties into the mud pit. So here we are . . .
there you go again, joe, playing the victim like you always have. you took this entire exchange personally? you’re far more pinoy than i thought.
i’m already accustomed to your false dilemma of perfect versus imperfect, and pnoy is nowhere near perfect. see, there’s the problem with wanting an “honest” disagreement with someone who isn’t being honest with me; that someone ends up whining like a baby, not unlike the president, interestingly.
all i need to do is be blunt and bam! you turn into a victim. is it my fault if being frank with you reveals you, your antics, and huge holes in your arguments? i’m merely stating the obvious, which are: (1) you can’t explain pnoy’s “hands-off” stand on the banco filipino closure without admitting he is a great non-impartial political buddy to have; (2) latitude isn’t begged, but earned; (3) disagreeing with you empowers readers with an alternative to your creatively worded pandering, which goes to show that i wouldn’t stoop so low as to insult their intelligence. too bad for them that’s just a walk in the park for you.
personal winning isn’t my primary goal, but it sure as heck is a great side effect of being right. how’s playing the victim working out for you so far? miss the old fv days? contrary to what you would have everyone believe, no problem gets solved by taking the path of the victim-player in blissful ignorance…
…which brings us back to my question: you can’t explain pnoy’s obvious failure on the banco filipino issue, can you joe?
Parallelaxe, Our values differ, and our goals I suppose. That is to be expected, as we come from different cultures and life’s experiences. I engage in blogs to keep my mind active, to spin a good phrase now and then, to force myself to figure things out when situations are a little intricate, and to do what I can do to foster thinking on behalf of a productive Philippines, my home. I participate in Get Real Post because Benigno has a depth of perspective, understanding of the Philippines and way with words that are thoroughly entertaining, informative and thought-provoking. He thinks for himself and he deals with opposing views intelligently if they are expressed intelligently. He has little patience for small-minded people. I suspect he reads every comment others make on his blog site, but he is selective on where he will insert himself. He lets people be themselves. No rub on him.
Ilda also has great potential if she can let go of the obsessions that constrain her thinking.
I am always filled with hope for the Philippines when I see a Filipino writer who is straightforward rather than manipulative, who has a sharp mind open to new knowledge and ideas rather than being locked shut, and who finds his integrity within rather than having to take someone down in order to feel whole.
I invite you to stay out of my comment lines as you are mostly filled with night soil and you are starting to creep me out.
@Joe
Just out of curiousity, what “obsessions” do I exhibit that blogger Benign0 does not exhibit? 😉
Anyway, thanks for the compliment. I’ll stay away from your quarrel with Parallax.
Ilda, an unwillingness to comprehend where an argument backing President Aquino is coming from. I have a very different sense when I write to Benigno, of a mind that is open to an argument, versus one that is closed, and is working mainly to figure out how to fit the counter-argument into an older framework that has, and alway will, diss him.
You put him into boxes where he cannot possibly escape. He is wrong if he attacks Arroyo for corruption, and he is wrong if he does not get rid corruption. Your mind is extraordinarily sharp, and you simply will not let him out of the box.
I think Benigno is not that pre-patterned.
Nah. Sorry to say but Benign0 and I criticise PNoy and the Pinoy culture the same way but for some reason you just tend to give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, Benign0 has been doing this longer than I have. Favoritism much? Hehe… 😉
Don’t worry, I don’t take it personally. I’m kinda used to some men not used to women having an opinion. I’ve had to accept that there are just some men from a certain generation who still think that women should remain in the kitchen.
You said: “He is wrong if he attacks Arroyo for corruption“. Unfortunately, that is all PNoy is good at. It won’t even translate to GMA being prosecuted. I wish I could be wrong, ya know.
Anyway, I’m sure in 2016 you’ll eventually agree with me.
@joe: our goal might not be so different; we want the philippines to be a better place, a morally upright and productive place. i, too, have little patience with small-minded people, so i reveal them, plain and simple. from people who whine about having their comments deleted when they never were, to people who stay purposely blind to the corruption of the current president and go “i’ll research what i want, not what you want” to conveniently hide their arrogant ignorance, i reveal them. verbally tarred and feathered, they tend to go the manipulative route william esposo b.s. style and tell me i’m close-minded, locked shut or incapable of granting incompetent people any latitude, and even try contrasting me with benign0 or ilda. true, benign0 and ilda are of a different league neither of us belong in, but for different reasons: i may be forthright but i’m just not that good a writer; you, on the other hand, are the flipside of me, which makes you a really, really creative writer. when you grow up, i hope abe lincoln gets to teach you a few things.
anyway, you were going to explain to us why your adorable gush-worthy president was “hands-off” on his finance secretary buddy purisima’s baby project to close banco filipino, right joe?
@Joe
Unfortunately, PNoy is turning a blind eye to the alleged cronyism and favoritism that has been happening under his watch. This is not something I could simply ignore just because he gives people the impression that he is actively pursuing GMA.
Are you saying you are ok with PNoy just attacking GMA for the next five years? What about the a system change or economic reforms that the country badly needs in order to move forward? You seems to have accepted that the Filipino just need to wait for the next election. Well, that’s not good enough for me. I need to point out that people made a mistake so come next election, they will not vote for another Aquino.
I agree President Aquino should stop using Ms. Arroyo as a crutch in his speeches, and should leave the prosecution to the various prosecutors. Otherwise he is interefering with her right to fair judgment.
No, you should keep writing, not wait until the next election.
My main point is that corruption will go away when it is socially unacceptable, and the amount of noise being made by President Aquino’s administration is loud and hopefully influential, and should be encouraged, not condemned. Also, the HR and Divorce Bills are long-awaited and positive acts that should not be condemned via a blanket condemnation of President Aquino.
Ilda, you may be assured that I shall read every word you type here, and will have an opinion at the end of 2016. Please also consider that my views are not shaped by a bias of men over women, but by what you write. In other words, own the responsibility, don’t dish the flaw onto me.
Parallelaxe, give me some time to do my research. And my comments WERE deleted. How can you presume to know more than me about that?
joe, you were told by the very gr post admin/authors you’ve just praised that your comments were NOT deleted again and again. unless you’re calling them liars on this very thread, you can rest assured your comments were never prevented from getting through. you were put in your place time and time again, remember joe? that was an embarrassing display of playing victim, and i was glad to help out.
now that you’re painted to a corner and forced to say you will do your research this time (as opposed to “i’ll research what i want, not what you want”) to save face, please go ahead.
I don’t know Joe. Your claim that I have an “obsession” does not make any sense at all considering Benign0 and even other bloggers like Benk have made similar criticisms of PNoy. But it’s just me you single out as “putting him in boxes”.
Anyway, I don’t dwell on these things. You are the one who keeps bringing it up. You love comparing people. Ok already. So you have this “man-crush” on Benign0, we get it 😉
Parallelaxe, you are delusional, and have a small psyche, perhaps the smallest I have witnessed since arriving in the Philippines.
Ilda, I agree, it matters little, and you can prove me wrong easily based on what you write. I hope you do. I bring it up, as you relentlessly bring up President Aquino, to make a thought complete. I don’t appreciate the sly insult about being a man-lover. I thought you were above such minor manipulative slanders.
@Joe
I actually go by the definition from the Urban Dictionary: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Man%20Crush
It does not have a negative connotation at all. C’mon, I thought you had a sense of humor. 😉
you’re welcome, joe. i’m happy to open a can of whupass on a whiner any day. and i’m glad you appreciate the full extent of how far up your knickers got pulled over your head. the world makes sense again.
but i wonder though:
how is it that the smallest psyche in the land got you evolving from Gushing Spammer, to Emotionally Defensive Misspeller, to Victim-Player Extraordinaire, to Dude with a Man-Crush, to Oversensitive Ad Hominem Spewer, all on the same thread, just by asking you one simple question about pnoy allowing his kkk buddies to act without accountability? don’t worry, you’re not getting sloppy. you were just flat-out wrong. hail to the chief for causing you embarrassment. wishing you many, many more to come.
(and c’mon joe, do you really think yours is bigger than mine? haha)
Ilda, I think whether a man is straight or gay has no bearing on a discussion of issues, and is a poor choice of subject matter for jokes.
@Joe
Ok, noted. I will try my best not to joke with you again seeing that you have this tendency to put too much into things. This is evident in when you introduced the words “gay” and “lovers” even though the context of my statement wasn’t even in that area.
I thought it was only Filipinos who “tend to be consumed with words that should mean nothing if they were untrue” as discussed in my previous blog Filipinos need to work on their ego. Silly me 😉
Cheerio!
Cheerio, and I was having a grumpy day, to speak the complete truth.
We will be all as guilty as everybody else if we will all be stating the problems without offering solutions. People Power succeeded because the middle class was able to unite with the mass base. If only they were able to sustain their alliance and prevented the privileged few (the oligarch, as you may) to exploit the situation for their own selfish motives, then it would have been the start of a real democracy.
I think the key lesson we learned out of all that is that numbers or mass without structure will not constitute a sustainable and/or enduring force. Structures – institutions and frameworks of governance and execution – need to emerge after a major change is effected.
Why would we Filipinos always expect to much to our President? Instead of supporting our leader and helping our country, we always criticize them as if we are better than our leaders. With this kind of people, please don’t expect that our country will be better because, I hate to admit, most Filipinos have a crab mentality and always tend to pull down those who are on top. Usually, those people who complains are those people who has no gain or benefit from the government. Instead of complaining, why cannot we work as ONE. Let us provide solutions and not complains. I hope Filipinos will open their minds and support each other instead of bashing one another.
@simoun
In what way do you want us to support PNoy? Pointing out his shortfalls is my way of supporting him. I can’t let the leader of the Filipino people continue to give mediocre performance. It is not enough that he reports for work just for show.
Yes, the Filipino people have to do their part as well in following the rule of law but PNoy has the power to advocate for amendments to the system and policies in our institutions that does not work. Unfortunately, PNoy does not see the need for change. In fact, being part of the pampered oligarchy and being part of the priviledged few who benefit from the status quo, he is part of the problem.
why support a “fictional” and “pirate software proponent” president?
Selective news reading.
he asked for the job, he got it. and the bosses who demand that he deliver on all his promises. so far it’s been fail, fail, fail.
you want a solution? point out the problem/s first. make sure the recommended “solution” actually addresses the problem/s determined, and it’s not just some stupid fun run. it’s called scientific method, not crab mentality.
WHY don’t we just shut UP IF WE HAVE NOTHING GOOD TO SAY…won’t HELP PNoy & the filipino community on what we would like to point out…LET’S JUST HELP OURSELVES & DO THE HONOR in MAKING OUR LIVES COMFORTABLE…! (hindi kasalanan ang maging MAHIRAP-tamad eh; KASALANAN ang MAMATAY KANG DUKHA!)
shut up while we let pnoy turn taxpayers money into doleouts? Talagang maghihirap ka!
taas
I FOR NOYNOY,ALL OF US DESERVED CHANGES SPECIALLY IN OUR GOVERNMENT SYSTEM,NOY IS OUR PRESIDENT HE’S NOT A MAGICIAN NOR POSSESSES EXTRA SUPERNATURAL POWER THAT HE CAN TRANSFORM EVERYTHING HE’S ALSO HUMAN,IF WE LONGING FOR CHANGES WHY DON’T WE START IT TODAY IN OUR SELVES………KUNG GUSTO NATIN NANG KAGINHAWAAN SA BUHAY BAKIT DI TAYO MAG BANAT NANG BUTO.
That’s not how his campaign made him out to be, though. During his campaign, he was made out to be some sort of God-send and the silver bullet to all the problems that hinder Filipinos’ aspirations for a better life. Too bad Pinoys have such a short memory. But then that’s what writers like us are here for – to remind people WHO they voted for and WHY they voted for him.
wew !
The problem with the Filipinos are so impatient and big time complainer at all times. They are so highly dependent without even putting their share of the fruit of their labor. They leave all the hard work to their leaders and just wait for the graces to come….. ridiculous! It is not an easy job to be a president, you know, thinking he/she is responsible for the country’s problem and progress, always front-of-the-line chewed out/criticized by his/her people, they don’t look at the changes/resolution done by their leader. Filipinos are never satisfied, they always want more not appreciating the little things done for them slowly by the president…. Filipino attitude SUCKS! ‘Tho everyone aspires for a better life, (who doesn’t??), but time is of the essence to everything, you know. Be patient please 🙂
Indeed, being President of the Philippines is not an easy job. So why then did Filipinos elect an unaqualified, unmotivated, and unimaginative man to that office?
@Lois
There is nothing wrong with being impatient and complaining per se. They just have put it in the right context just like what we do here at GRPost 😉
I’m sure you are talking about those tambay sa kanto boys and those who depend on the conditional cash transfers. It’s ridiculous, indeed!
Yes and just like what Benign0 said: So why then did Filipinos elect an unaqualified, unmotivated, and unimaginative man to that office?
I AGREE!
enjoy giving limos to the poor with your salary.
suggest ko lang na try nyong magTagalog. Kung Pilipino ka talaga, wika pa rin natin ang pinakaepektibong wika upang iparating sa KAPWA PILIPINO at hindi kung KANINOMAN ang gusto nating iparating na opinyon.
Hindi lang ito patungkol sa pagbigay ng pansariling kritiko sa ating Presidente, dahil sa pagsulat ng mga ganitong klaseng artikulo ay kaakibat din ang pagpapakita ng pagiging MAKAPILIPINO. At isa na sa pinakaepektibong paraan ay ang paggamit ng WIKANG PILIPINO.
Vizayas and Mindanao peeps would like to say “HI”.
Solution: learn English
@ahehe
Thank you for pointing that out. 😉
@Katalina
Are you saying that people from Visayas or Mindanao who are not well versed in Tagalog are not Filipinos?
What evidence can you show us to prove that TAGALOG is effective as you claim it to be?
what is the effect of the SONA of PNOY in every individuals?
and as a whole?
what is the effect of the state of the nation address of pres. noynoy that benefited every filipino in particular and in general?