We beg to differ.
A lot of Filipinos want to copy everything about the United States of America. From the form of government down to the style of music, Filipinos look to Uncle Sam for direction. For as long as everyone can remember, Filipinos have always viewed the home of our former colonizers as the land of milk and…
Read More “Philippines: Stuck in reverse since Independence Day” »
Seeing foreign direct investment, cash handouts, and subsidies as the silver bullet that will cure chronic Filipino poverty? Think again. Lots of lessons are to be learned in what former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad said in a speech at the Harvard Club of Malaysia dinner on 29 July 2002 about how the presence of…
In my 2006 book Get Real Philippines Book 1, one of the key solutions I cited to the challenge of effecting fundamental change in the path we have (rather consciously) set for ourselves to chronic impoverishment is to re-evaluate the content of our mass media. I highlighted that it is an easy solution, because much…
Read More “Foreign capital will not solve Filipinos’ inability to apply capital profitably” »
The Iranian experience in implementing a successful population management program has become a model for many countries that seek to overcome the debilitating burden overpopulation presents to development aspirations. The most remarkable aspect of Iran’s program is in how what was once a religious directive to go forth and multiply had been repealed by the…
Read More “Iran: model of successful population control and an inspiration to Filipinos” »
I cannot say in absolute terms that I am a strong advocate of the proposed Reproductive Health bill (RH Bill). In a perfect world, we wouldn’t need to introduce such legislation. But we do not live in a perfect world and if one’s intention is to seek flaws in the proposed bill, one will surely…
Read More “The RH Bill: Economic growth alone will not solve overpopulation” »
Think of what it takes to sustain human civilisation at the standards of living we believe that everyone is entitled to. Have we stopped to think what it would mean for a billion Chinese people, say, to have access to a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed by Western Europe and North America today?…
Read More “Over-population is not just a problem of poor countries” »
Everytime I hear this and that initiative to “attract” foreign investment to the country and then see these touted as “solutions” aimed at uplifting Filipinos from the clutches of poverty and the setting of our economy on a “firm” path to prosperity, I find my eyes rolling up to the high heavens as if to…
Read More “Overpopulated Philippines: reduced to panhandling for foreign investment” »
In his latest article “Divergent paths“, Inquirer.net columnist Cielito Habito shared some interesting statistics that provide breathtaking insight into the divergence of the fortunes of what were once the “virtual identical twins” that the Philippines and Thailand were back in 1970, that made the two countries the “estranged twins” that they are today. The divergence…
Read More “In development terms Philippines is no Manny Pacquiao” »
