Section
Civic duty, the Philippine state, and the Filipino psyche — notes toward a better PH.
32 posts
China refines 91% of the world's rare earths. Taiwan makes over 90% of its most advanced chips. We import 98% of our garlic and ship our nickel out as raw ore. What could the Philippines own that the world can't do without?
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Nobody had to break a rule to reach the pre-shaded ballots in Maluso. The rule put them there. The Omnibus Election Code was written two months before EDSA, and Comelec's 963-page fix is still waiting.
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The bank filed the report. The AMLC said it had too many to read. Part 4 of 4 on anti-corruption with teeth.
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In 1980, a crisis in Iran pushed oil to $149 a barrel in today's dollars. Saudi Arabia had warned that prices that high would push the world to find something else, and it did. In 2026 it is Iran again, and this time the something else is already in our driveways.
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The counting machine reads marks and adds them up. Your cashier's terminal is harder to build. So why is the code that counts our votes still kept in a reading room in Makati?
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SALNs and lifestyle checks only matter if someone looks. For five years, almost nobody was allowed to. Part 3 of 4 on anti-corruption with teeth.
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A gaming venue has to stay 200 meters from a school. A gambling ad on a college broadcast, a creator's giveaway, or a kid's phone has no such rule. The law should close that gap.
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Quezon City built a basketball court that holds 1,700 cubic meters of floodwater. We have 42,010 barangays. Why is that two courts in one city instead of the standard?
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PhilHealth's benefits budget is ₱378.8 billion. A costed list of what a tenth of it could fund, what's already free and unused, and the one thing no amount of it can buy by July.
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In 2018 a senator's aide got reclusion perpetua for plunder. The senator was acquitted. It keeps happening. Part 2 of 4 on anti-corruption with teeth.
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A 19-year-old in Lipa City faked his own kidnapping to pay a gambling debt. Nobody in charge can say how many Filipinos gamble online, and one hospital logged 48 admissions for gambling disorder in ten years.
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June Mar Fajardo says God gave him the gift of height and that started everything. The system's entire contribution was to notice him once the gift became visible.
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COA asked for ₱16.21 billion. The Budget Department it audits cut it, and the Congress it audits set the final figure. Part 1 of 4 on anti-corruption with teeth.
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PAGCOR took the gambling billboards down in August 2025, and the industry had its best year on record. The habit moved into our phones, where it is being trained on children and sold to their grandparents.
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A ₱728,000 delivery bill, a ₱34,000 benefit, and four offices standing between a working Filipino and care they already paid for.
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A Cabinet secretary makes about ₱4.2 million a year. Our top bankers make ten times that. Love of country is not a compensation plan.
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The PBA, the MPBL, the UAAP and the NCAA never play each other. So no assumption about how basketball should be played here is ever tested.
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Salaried Filipinos pay 83% of PhilHealth premiums and get back about 21 centavos on the peso. Where the rest goes, and who has to fix it.
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Sotto and Ramos play in Japan. Tamayo and Quiambao play in Korea. Four of our best players have all found somewhere better to work, and every reason why is structural.
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China beat us by 44 points and ended our Asian Games title defense in the group stage. The reason has almost nothing to do with the twelve men on the floor.
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RA 9003 promised a recycling system in 2000 and never funded it. RA 11898 handed the same job to companies in 2022, with fines up to ₱20 million attached.
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The last Philippine team to win the FIBA Asia Cup did it in 1985, coached by an American. We produce players at a rate no country can match. We have never produced coaches.
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The store funds it, the Supreme Court has said so twice, and the bill never lands in a budget anyone has to defend.
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Let's Help Fix Philippine Basketball
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Filipinos bought 1.87 million motorcycles and 491,395 cars in 2025, and the industrial policy went to the car. VinFast's electric lineup, and a manufacturer now eyeing a Cebu plant, show where the real opportunity has been sitting the whole time.
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Philippine officials finally sat down with Meta in Singapore this week and came away with real commitments. Good. Now the fair question: why did it take this long, and who makes sure anyone follows through?
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Metro Manila's flood control master plan was approved in 2012 at ₱351.7 billion and never built. We spent ₱545.6 billion on flood control between 2022 and 2025. The money was always there.
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From 250,000 to 8 million pesos you climb five separate rate jumps. After that the ladder stops, and most real wealth was never taxed as salary anyway.
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On Independence Day: two Fil-Ams in the NBA Finals, the 'halfies' fight, and how arguing about who counts as Filipino keeps us from admitting we never built the rails to grow our own.
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CADENA is already moving through Congress. Here's what it means for you, and what comes next if we get serious about it.
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The Philippines has the projects, the capital, and the demand. What it lacks is speed, coordination, and the political will to let its own people generate power.
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The rot we've learned to step around.
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