Making It Fun in the Philippines

Time flies fast doesn't it? Another decade is coming to an end as 2019 means 2020 is just around the corner. Now, I thought about the need for constitutional reform is badly there. So why is the Philippines still stuck with the 1987 Constitution when it's already 2019 next year? Worse, a certain senile old man still believes that the 1987 Constitution must still be used even when it's the year 3019. The Constitution can be likened to an operating system for your computer. Let me ask you -- would you still use Windows 95 in this day and age? My answer is certainly no. I may not enjoy much of today's modern music but I wouldn't want to listen to classical music over an old record player. While Windows 95 did become such a popular operating system yet we know we soon had Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Windows Vista. In short, Windows 95 is already and should be regarded as an obsolete software. It also called for upgrading to newer, b...

It's not just Leni Loud Robredo who has been making expensive trips but also Antonio Trillanes IV. He was last seen at the future would-be Antonio Trillanes International Airport  where he was boarding for Europe. But let's consider the other trips that he has made during this year such as his sudden trip to Singapore (which revealed he had a lot of unexplained wealth which he now pushes on President Duterte) and "fighting for freedom" last February 2018 . Now he's spotted for his Europe trip where he's currently in Amsterdam. When he will be moving to Barcelona and London is still unknown. Hopefully, he will run into Stephen Sackur in person. This has you wondering why #TindigPilipinas and company currently blame President Duterte for the current economic woes? So what's wrong with President Duterte going abroad for DIPLOMACY PURPOSES all the while both Leni Loud and Trillanes are traveling for more personal reasons? Is it possible then that tampe...

This is the real problem of many Filipinos for so many years -- way back even before the regime of Noynoy Aquino. At least, Noynoy has the decency to pick his trash up but what about those who attended the Luneta Park Christmas Eve celebration? With New Year around the corner then you can expect more mess in welcoming the new year.  I may not be supporting Florin Hilbay especially with how this guy lacks common sense in many areas but he had EVERY RIGHT to call the Philippines a "baboy nation". At least, he's not blaming President Duterte for this problem and neither should Noynoy get the blame too. This is a problem of many Filipinos with the culture that just hates to follow simple guidelines  such as simply cleaning up your mess before you go  or throwing your garbage at the proper place. So how do progressive Asian countries maintain their progress aside from free market economies over protectionism? It's all about discipline. Reasons why I admire Jap...

Here's Jim Paredes' latest hit where he covers the Christmas song called "12 Days of Christmas". I personally didn't listen to it completely nor do I plan to personally argue with that dumb pigeon. If President Duterte isn't declaring a momentary ceasefire against the Reds because it's Christmas -- then the Yellows aren't declaring ceasefire against President Duterte too. Fair game? Well, it seems that Paredes himself thinks he's fighting a dictatorship and bullying when in fact he showed himself to be both a BULLY and a potential tyrant during the EDSA Revolution anniversary last year. Now they do have a couple of questions that they need to ANSWER TRUTHFULLY. What proof do they have that President Duterte has sponsored extrajudicial killings? What proof do they have that all the killings were actually ordered by the president? It's crazy how petty libel ends up people getting jailed but what about heavy case of libel where people are ...

I may have gotten so facedesk at Ateneo De Manila's partisan politics and awarding Jover Laurio but at least I'm thankful for one thing they did right this year -- expelling Joachin "Bullyit" Montes from the school. This is not your normal case of bullyin. This guy may be short but he sure is terrible especially with how he misuses his expertise in Taekwando to physically bully others. Heck, even one taller student suffered an injury and from what I heard is already hospitalized. This is the case of the spoiled brat Bullyit. He thought he could get away forever but it happened. He finally had the letter dropped at him by ADMU with the following notice which is taken from CNN Philippines by Bayang Pilipinas : Above is a copy of the memo of the ADMU with regards to Junior High School student Bullyit whose name is unfortunately not mentioned -- perhaps due to his right as a minor. This should be something that maybe ADMU just wants to save face so they ended u...

Chito Gascon obviously ignores the one basic fact about criminal law -- the rights of law-abiding citizens come first before the criminals! Although people shouldn't be stooping down on the level of Joaquin "Bullyit" Montes or wish him dead, that there should be due process and that said person has the right to be convicted as a minor -- but where is Gascon's priorities being placed? After his " eerie silence " now the Commission on Human Rights under Gascon has failed its mandate once again. Whose rights are more important? Bullyit or the victims of Bullyit himself? The CHR's mandate is to uphold all human rights and to investigate first and foremost the rights of law abiding citizens' right to a safe and secure society. Instead, Gascon seems to be more concerned about Bullyit's privacy instead of the human rights of students who were bullied by said person. Since when was a human rights department assigned to protect criminals over the victi...

I remembered writing about the problem of the presidential system and its ridiculous term limits. Some people may want to shift the presidency from four years to four years but I don't think eight years is enough to allow any major change. The problem of the presidential system would leave a lot of hanging projects by the time the term is over. Former president Noynoy Aquino may have secured several projects during his term but couldn't finish them before his term ends. What's the real problem with #SAGASA2016 ? One can imagine the extreme difficulty of the project of making that expressway from Baclaran to Bacoor. Another is that it's not easy to get materials and implement said project. Noynoy should have known better than to make the promise that said expressway would be completed by the end of 2015 because of how unrealistic said deadline is. Six years is definitely not enough for anyone (and not just Noynoy) to really make a major change. But what if we wer...

Now here's where the Commission of Human Rights or rather Chito Gascon is failing again. Aside from their rather slow action towards  the death of Richard Y. Santillan  -- you have to admit that where is Gascon himself isn't even doing anything about the human rights of the victims of  Joaquin "Bullyit" Montes  or to those who are victims of school bullying. Isn't the right to education one of your human rights? So what's the use of having CHR to monitor human rights when they don't even do anything about the human rights of bullied victims? While I may no longer think CHR itself is a redundant function (though it needs to be redefined if ever) but the problem is once again Chito Gascon -- not the CHR ! He's always making excuses not to do his job which is why he deserves to be FIRED from his post because he's making CHR a waste of space because he's a waste of space. He's making one excuse after the other whether it's "CHR jus...

Well the current trend of calling Joaquin Montes as "Bullyit" or small bully is now going on since that viral video of him bullying much bigger students. Suddenly, I got compelled to write this humor post to actually help relieve some stress and to show how you can't always underestimate a person for their height. Such a person is Joaquin and if there's one character from my childhood that he's worth comparing to -- it's the self-proclaimed emperor of the Universe namely Frieza! I remembered Dragon Ball Z for this reason -- Frieza appears to be a very short foe while he possesses an incredible amount of power. One can wonder why he's got huger, bulkier goons such as Dodoria, Zarbon, Ginyu, Recoome, Burter, Jeice, Nappa and Raditz all the while Frieza is so damn short -- yet he exercises his authority in fear because he's got so much power. Frieza may have been very small but he surely ruled unchallenged as a punitive tyrant with an immature attitu...

The recent viral video of Bullyit (combination of the English word bully and the Tagalog word "liit" which means small) middle school student Joaquin Montes (who's also a taekwondo student) has finally surfaced. It doesn't matter how the Ateneo De Manila University would want it taken down -- what's done is done and this small but terrible brat is really getting all the criticism he deserves for what he did. Now he plays the victim card as he's getting the taste of his own medicine especially with all the inappropriate responses that have backfired at his arrogant face. But what people may be ignoring is that this situation is but a symptom of one thing -- Senator Francis Pangilinan's law that would increase the age of criminal liability is really stupid! If you take a good look at the world today then you can see why the Pangilinan law is that stupid. I remembered reading documents of school shooting from one school after the other. Some school sho...

Well it's just five days before Christmas and 12 days before the New Year, right? I remembered how I wrote a series of articles concerning Christmas and New Year celebrations  in the Philippines. Now it's time to write my latest observation about how Christmas and New Year merrymaking in the Philippines is but a drug in the Philippines -- which can be connected to the misguided notion of happiness  and wanting to be in an eternal state of bliss  when such a notion is impossible in an imperfect world. Nothing is wrong with celebrating Christmas and New Year. I don't think anything is wrong with giving pinaskohan -- what I'm against is the wrongful practice of extorting pinaskohan  from other people. Nothing is wrong with having buying nice stuff during Christmas as well as celebrating on the eve before Christmas and New Year -- just make sure that you still have plenty of money to meet your needs such as paying electricity, water and rent by January! I was thinki...

Well it's official the half-Australian, half-Pinay contestant Ms. Catriona Eloisa Magnayon Gray has won the crown for Miss Universe 2018. So should Duterte supporters now rub this at the faces of the idiots who are behind Change Scamming ? No. President Duterte has NOTHING to do with the win of Catriona herself. Also, Noynoy Aquino had NOTHING to do with Pia Alonso Wurtzbach winning either so there!  Anyway, congrats to her for winning the Miss Universe crown for the Philippines! 

Image from Philippine Star Antonio F. Trillanes IV or Sonny is now termed as the " new Ninoy Aquino " by the Dilawans. Although he's a Nacionalista and Noynoy Aquino is of the Liberal Party -- it can't be denied that the two have close ties. Who gave Trillanes his pardon but Noynoy, right? It's been verified that he was last seen at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport wearing a black suit and having been granted his travel permission. He doesn't look like he's out there to get a heart (or even a head ) operation but is said that he will be engaging in several events in Amsterdam, Barcelona and London from December 11, 2018 up to January 12, 2019. He is soon to go to the U.S. to where he will be attending events in California, Washington and Maryland. This has me thinking about any possible set-up that could either work or backfire. At the rate Trillanes is going -- he could be actually be set-up as either as a sacrificial lamb or people are simply...

I was thinking about past posts I wrote such as about obsessing about the obsession with  Pinoy racial purity . Now it came into my head that the last Miss Philippines prior to Maxine Medina was half-German and half-Filipino namely Pia Alonso Wurtzbach. Right now, we have half-Australian (white) and half-Filipino contestant Catriona Eloisa Magnayon Gray. For those who are complaining about not sending a "pure Pinay" -- are they sure that they don't have any foreign blood mixed in them because Filipino history and anthropology would prove them wrong. I don't really care about "racial purity" these days for the reason that much cultural exchange and interbreeding has happened around the world. You can see some Filipinos have different appearances than the others. The generations of interbreeding such as the Spanish occupation, Chinese immigration, the Imperial Japanese occupation, and the American occupation could not guarantee the preservation of the ...

The event of the death of Atty. Glenn Chong's bodyguard the late Richard Y. Santillan was not a joke. Although I may not be a criminologist, forensics expert or lawyer (and I'm still waiting for updates of said event) -- I just want to do a simple analysis as a casual blogger concerning the death of Santillan and what could have really happened to him. This is going to be mostly speculative so I request my readers to read this post with a grain of salt because I don't claim to have the answers either. So what could have happened to Santillan from behind the scenes?  From Business Mirror -- here's what Atty. Chong himself has to say so let's hear his side of the story as well which I'll just give an excerpt:  According to Chong, the video footage showed there were patrol cars in front and at the back of Santillan’s car , contrary to the police spot report that his aide engaged lawmen in a shootout. “That’s against human nature kung alam mong may p...

Do you remember the story of the Scholars and the Lion ? The story involved four scholars but only one had common sense. The others decided to revive a dead lion back to life even if it posed much danger. Sadly, the same thing can be said about the education system of the Philippines today -- it's been too much focus on books and too little on common sense. While dropping out of school to live a bum life doesn't mean you have wisdom yet some of the most stupid people today are in fact very highly educated people (with plenty of academic awards) and some even have high intellectual quotients. It's just like how the three highly intelligent scholars were very stupid to revive the dead lion while the other decided to object to such foolishness. The objective of education is to prepare people for the real world. Unfortunately, that's not much of the case in today's schooling education system. So what's wrong with schooling these days? There's too much focus on ...

Awards here, awards there and the awards go on as Maria Ressa is now Person of the Year for Time Magazine. Is it a cause for just anyone to be jealous and to play the jealousy card as she keeps getting awards? There are  Clueless Western media entities keep showing her with awards but the question is now can they bring her back credibility to her very own home country ? Now, Yellowtards can go ahead and brag that the Duterte supporters should be jealous of her getting Time Magazine's slot and called her "the guardians and the war on truth". It's just as erroneous as comparing Leila De Lima to a real heroine namely Aung San Syu Kii in Myanmar. So why is Ressa getting lumped together with the REAL truth fighters and even made her the poster lady for the year? Hmmm shouldn't this be a call for suspicion that perhaps close ties between the Democrats of the U.S. and the Liberal Party of the Philippines could also be the cause. Did the Liberal Party of the Philippi...

It's really a problem when you've got the current Dutertards vs. Noytards dichotomy (as well as the Marcostards vs. Aquinotards) going on rather than get a middle ground. It's like the problem with one side is that they IGNORE the good and the bad from their side and both sides. So it's almost like Dutertards want Noynoy Aquino to get ran over by a train (which statement was obvious hyperbole ) or Noytards demand President Duterte to ride a jetski to the West Philippine Sea -- which both sides made hyperbolic scenarios. The problem with the current presidential system is that it's very easy to be one-sided because it's a popularity contest. But how would a parliamentary system reduce the whatever-tard form of thinking? One of the biggest problems of the presidential system is the lack of a real, formal debate and a real, formal opposition. If we can think of how and how if the current Minority Bloc was formalized into the Opposition then think of how things w...

Yesterday was Human Rights' Day and it's time to tackle on the Commission on Human Rights' existence and what was its original purpose . Its first and foremost mandate is to investigate on its own or complaint all forms of human rights violations. Yet as said organization evolved (or devolved) then it has shrunk to its weird logic that human rights violation can only be committed by state agents. That kind of logic is screwed up because any victim of crime regardless who does it is already considered a criminal. The real problem is not the CHR but Chito Gascon. Giving PHP 1,000.00 only to a government agency would bully those employees who do their job in spite of having a lazy chairperson. If Gascon is the problem then by all means -- fire him from his post! But the problem of the CHR's deterioration can be linked to the presidential system's one-sidedness without any real watchdog. So how would a parliamentary actually work in making sure that CHR does its j...

Change the people -- not the system is the frequent far cry of the people who are stuck with the mindset of the 1987 Constitution. While some of them are actually open to reforms such as opening up the economy but they want to stick with the presidential system only because the Philippines supposedly has " hundreds of years of experience " in the presidential system and none in the parliamentary. Such is the case with any departments or government agencies today. Also, Leila De Lima's rather questionable performance as justice secretary is but a symptom of the presidential system. How would a parliamentary have exposed De Lima and put her in a dilemma?  Think about the  horrible crime statistics  under her watch. One could also think of the Bilibid raid. She was appointed as Justice Secretary on July 2, 2010 , why were the raids only happening in 2014? Chief Inspector Roque Merdegia Jr, of the PNP’s Anti-Illegal Drugs Special Operations Task Force even boldly asked her to...

Here's a hypothetical scenario of what if we had Prime Minister Rodrigo R. Duterte and former prime minister turned Opposition Leader Noynoy Aquino in a head-on debate. While the president may serve as its unifying figure -- both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader are set to be at competition and in toes against each other in the spirit of competition. A parliamentary could have put Noynoy as the Opposition Leader vs. Prime Minister Duterte in a more formal manner.  The problem of the presidential system is that there's hardly any formal opposition and debate. This is not the case with a parliamentary -- the power is divided into three parts with the symbolic Head of State (President), the Head of Government (prime minister) and the Opposition for check and balance) which wouldn't give anyone absolute power plus  there will be more room to correct any potential error in order to minimize error in the long run. Neither Prime Minister Duterte nor Opposition Leade...

There's always the same argument of just change the people but not change the system. The argument is usually rounded or based upon the " fear of the unknown " where one can argue that there's no need to change from parliamentary to presidential based on anecdotal evidence or argument based on experience. One can always say that the Philippines already had hundred years experience in presidential and none in parliamentary as an excuse not to shift saying it'd be "costly". But again, it's just like using band-aids and cheap medications on one's wounds to "save money" only to realize one has to spend more money because said infection got worse. Unlike if you spent more money now to get said wounds treated properly which results to less expenses later. The same can be said about Daang Matuwid -- Noynoy's succeeded in some way in spite of the faulty presidential system while his failures (together with people under him) are but sympt...