Get Real Post

Foreign capital will not solve Filipinos’ inability to apply capital profitably

June 3, 2011April 26, 2018 benign0 41 Comments

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…

Development, Economy, Media

Jinkee Pacquiao says no to Ellen Degeneres because her English sucks

June 1, 2011 benign0 35 Comments

Pac-woman Ms Jinkee Pacquiao reportedly turned down an invitation to guest in The Ellen Degeneres Show recently “because she feared she would be criticized for her lack of fluency in English.” Specifically she was afraid of making a mistake on live television… “Sabi ko ayoko ‘yong live (I said I didn’t want it live),” said…

Education, Glitz and Glamour, Society

Ultimately pointless: the secularist and atheist ‘debate’ versus the religious

May 31, 2011May 31, 2011 benign0 24 Comments

Many “atheists” fail to appreciate the size of the beast they are up against when debating with the religious. It is not that the religious are smarter. Far from it. It is their numbers — the rate at which they physically multiply, the sheer number of warm bodies that they can rally behind the drivel…

Religion, Science, Society

Metro Manila smoking crackdown: another case of sweating the small stuff

May 30, 2011 benign0 10 Comments

So I read that the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is going to “crackdown” on smoking in the metropolis. Interesting. Apparently, the legal basis for this “crackdown” is Republic Act 9211 or the Tobacco Regulation Act of 2003. Note the year: 2003. Makes one wonder what our so-called “law enforcement” officials have been doing for…

Civics, Environment, Government, Society

Philippine ‘Independence’ Day on June 12: a desperate claim to a false achievement

May 29, 2011June 9, 2013 benign0 12 Comments

Guess what’s coming up: “Independence” Day. More precisely, it is the could-have-been day of independence unilaterally declared by General Emilio Aguinaldo back on the 12th of June 1898 that we are celebrating this coming 12th of June. Many who see that day as a day that defines “Filipino nationalism” are right. We are a nation…

Culture, Society

Poaching of Cotabato black coral: Are Filipinos entitled to their outrage?

May 29, 2011May 29, 2011 benign0 8 Comments

What’s all the fuss about the destruction of the coral reef off Cotabato for a couple odd container vans of black coral? It sounds a bit hypocritical of Filipinos to be huffing and puffing about yet another wasteland created under their watch when they’ve overseen decades of wanton destruction and squandering of resources that had…

Environment

Hypocritical respect

May 27, 2011December 2, 2011 Ms. Mike Portes 7 Comments

Is this an honest mistake or a subliminal message from the Office of the President based on PNoy’s warning to China regarding the disputed Spratlys? To quote: “â€œWe may not have the capabilities now, but that might force us to increase our capabilities also,â€? Or is this a message that the PNoy administration is dead…

Philippine Catholic Bishops invent automated excommunication!

May 27, 2011 benign0 5 Comments

The holy officials of the Philippine Roman Catholic Church now step up their drive to implement a standard-speak to be used in the on-going “debate” surrounding Philippine Reproductive Health. Henceforth, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines hereby decrees that “excomminication” be considered to be a dirty word… A Catholic Church official asked advocates of…

Religion, Tech Talk