A Business Graduate's Random Blog on History and Gossip

The Straits Times As April Fool's Day draws near, I intend to write on something the late Lee Kuan Yew said in his book From Third World to First . It was once wrongly said that he said the Philippine presses as masters of intrigue . It was made by a certain Jesus Satorre Jr. who wrongly called Lee Kuan Yew,  president . That alone deserves to be fact-checked . It was even funny how a certain someone called Mahathir Mohamad a president when he criticized former president Rodrigo R. Duterte.  However, there was a quote from the book concerning the Philippines about the Philippine press: Ramos knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino's proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges . I'm afraid that it's very easy to quote what Lee said about the

Well, it's time for another today in history  entry, right? I was trying to set up a WordPress site (which might be experimental at best, for now) and it's in. WordPress is that hard to use for someone like me. Back on topic, I was tagged to a post on Facebook on ABS-CBN News Facebook page. It's no surprise that I read people's comments can be very stupid . Some keep talking like, "The 1987 Constitution is the best in the world." or "Change the people. Not the constitution." Please, if that were true why was it that the defective 1973 pseudo-parliamentary government of the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. (and I wrote a rebuttal why it isn't ) had to be replaced with another constitution . Sadly, the 1987 Constitution was written almost in such a hurry which created a lot of mistakes.  The events of EDSA reveal this detail about the late Maria Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino. It was that Mrs. Aquino was hiding in a convent in Cebu at that time . In short, M

2020 became the 25th death anniversary of Flor Contemplacion. The "celebrations" came to a halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was way back in 1995, during the rule of the late former Philippine president, Fidel R. Ramos, when it happened. It did spark a lot of discussion of whether or not Flor was innocent or not. It became a call for national outcry though another case was ongoing at that time namely the Vizconde Massacre case. Poor Hubert Jeffry Pagaspas Webb was falsely accused of a crime he couldn't have committed. Meanwhile, I feel that there was a stark contrast that happened. Why is there a stark contrast? Maybe, it's time to read and find out as we explore another old history topic. This is about Flor's execution in the nation of Singapore.  I remember talking about trying to turn the Philippines into another Singapore. Some people are still too stuck with bad sentiments regarding Singapore because of the execution of Flor. It's not as if Singap

I remembered writing about the links between Taiwanese natives and Filipino natives  as well as Ifugao OFWs in Taiwan . I'm not a bit surprised about the studies showing the common ancestry of Taiwanese natives and Filipino natives. The brown skin ethnicity is not unique to the Filipino majority. A visit to Taiwan's fabulous Mount Alishan would show a surrounding similar to Banaue Rice Terraces or the Cordillera region.   Above is a video depicting the dance of a song called "高山青 (read in pinyin as Gāo Shān Qīng)". It literally means "High Green Mountain". I guess this is the most-known song. A trivia would be that the song was written for a 1940s Taiwanese film called Happenings in Alishan . If you noticed the dance steps, any Filipino familiar with the native dances of Filipinos might comment, "Wow, the steps are rather similar." These are dances that Taiwanese natives would entertain tourists with.  This is an Ifugao dance called Dinuya. It'

Required Reading PH Facebook Page As the Constitutional Convention is going on, I'm afraid that there are still some stubborn boomers (born from 1946-1964) still spreading their wrong information. One of them even blocked me on Facebook after I made some comments to enlighten him. A post from Required Reading PH's page already showed that they believe that the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.'s administration was a parliamentary system . If the bookstore happens to be selling the book From Third World to First --I recommend they read it because it's utterly false to believe that the Marcos Sr. Years were a parliamentary system.  One article I wrote was about boomers who are resistant to change . I do understand that there's a valid concern about charter change because of what Marcos Sr. did in 1973. The late Benigno Simeon A. Aquino Jr. aka Ninoy gave his speech in Boston. I wonder if they bothered to listen to his speech on Boston. Aquino Jr. had highlighted several po