Pala-isip

Andrew Philip message to all the people around the world and to the Filipino people.

Here's an article by Ramon Tulfo that explains quite well why Filipinos are posing and smiling after the hostage crisis last Monday. According to Ramon Tulfo. The reason bloody incidents like the one at Rizal Park and tragedies such as typhoon “Ondoy” keep recurring is that Filipinos take misfortunes like a joke. We make jokes about other people’s miseries and mistakes. One day after the Rizal Park incident, jokes about the bumbling cops involved in the rescue started circulating. The acronym SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) had taken on different meanings: Sorry We Aren’t Trained. Sugod, Wait, Atras, Tago (Attack, Wait, Retreat, Hide) Sana Wag Ako Tamaan (Hope I don’t get hit) Sobrang Wala Akong Training (I’m very much ill-trained) Here’s a wry comment from a friend about the incident: “The Luneta massacre shows that our policemen are trained for HOSTESS-TAKING, not hostage-taking,” an obvious reference to cops who raid sleazy bars and force bar girls to have sex with them. The...

Here's an interesting article from The Huffington Post about the Philippines. This week two noteworthy events involving the Philippines made headlines: the botched rescue of Chinese tourists taken hostage by a disgruntled former policeman, and a botched response to a question by Miss Philippines in the finals for the Miss Universe contest. You might ask, what do these two things have in common? Separately, not much, but taken together, they represent both the peril and promise of the Philippines today. For many years pundits have commented that the Philippines appears to be heading backwards economically and politically, while many parts of Asia barrel toward middle income status and have maturing democracies. Yes, other countries have disputed elections, other countries' leaders do questionable things, and other developing countries struggle to achieve sustainable economic growth. And, yes, there are recent examples of fresh political turmoil and economic hardship not only in ...

I am deeply saddened by what happened on Monday with the hostage crisis. It was a tragic event that did not have to happen. It could have been easily prevented had the people in charged been more careful and did their homework. The Philippines now has a black eye caused by the incident and the international community has pretty much condemned the country for its tragic mistake. It's not just one, but several tragic mistakes. The first one being President Noynoy Aquino being incommunicado during all of this. Hong Kong Administrator Donald Tsang tried to contact President Noynoy Aquino but was unable to reach him. Hong Kong residents and officials are mad because of Manila's failure to update them of the situation as it was happening. Where was the President during all of this? According to reports, he was in the Palace administering the oath of office to the sister of one of his most powerful backers, the sister of Gabby Lopez of ABS-CBN. He only did a pre-dawn press briefing a ...