This one I first read in a Star­bucks after Manny Pac­quiao won against Ricky Hat­ton. This is by one of my favorite colum­nists of the Philip­pine Daily Inquirer, and I’d like to share it, partly because I could really under­stand the need for sys­tems in our coun­try. While being vague about the how-tos and the nitty grit­ties of how to build this “sys­tem”, the arti­cle points out some­thing I advo­cate myself: that sys­tems help change a cul­ture, along with the right atti­tude, and more long-term approach to things. If politicians–and Fil­ipinos in general–could let go of their self­ish egos, and stop focus­ing on their own per­sonal lega­cies, sys­tems would prob­a­bly see the light of day in this country.

10 Women That Changed Philippine History (Part 2)">

We con­tinue our series on the 10 WOMEN THAT CHANGED PHILIPPINE HISTORY.

The five listed so far are the following:

10. 2^nd Female and Present Present of the Repub­lic Glo­ria Macapagal-Arroyo
9. Actress and Super­star Nora Aunor
8. Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Hero­ine Mel­chora Aquino
7. Fic­tional Char­ac­ter and Super­hero Darna
6. National Book­store Founder Soc­coro Ramos

10 Women That Changed Philippine History (Part 1)">

The Philip­pines is out­wardly patri­ar­chal but inwardly matri­ar­chal. While machismo is very evi­dent, and there’s a lot to improve in how our soci­ety looks at women in gen­eral, and there are a lot of laws that still reek of chau­vin­ism and dou­ble stan­dard, our moth­ers, our wives and our women have power unlike women in other coun­tries. Women in our soci­ety have always had infor­mal power (in terms of influ­ence and being “the power behind the throne”). But we’ve had women hold for­mal power as well. For exam­ple, while Hillary Clin­ton came close to the Pres­i­dency of the United States, we’ve had two women hold the post in our country.

Not bad for a “young” democracy.

Here are quotes/musings/thoughts/philosophical pin­ings of Bob Ong. They’re in Fil­ipino, and I did try to trans­late it, but it turned out really awk­ward so I didn’t bother to trans­late any­more because a lot would be lost if I do. These are really prac­ti­cal, no non-sense, humor­ous stuff. I apol­o­gize for those who can’t understand.

60: Church Simplified">

I first heard about them when my office­mates gave me rave reviews about their expe­ri­ence of a dif­fer­ent kind of Sta­tion of the Cross in Boni­fa­cio High­street (see video below). I even­tu­ally became a face­book fan, and as with many things face­book, the rest is his­tory (hehe). I found myself res­onat­ing with many things they espouse, and while I can­not talk about their phi­los­o­phy and the­ol­ogy at length since I have not joined any of their ser­vices myself, I think the con­cept of a Church that is sim­ple, open to very cre­ative ideas, and one that does not pros­e­ly­tize, is a real breath of fresh air, and some­thing that appeals to me.