A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

Dr. Phil videos can be entertaining. I may not be a psychology major,  but I must admit, he may be missing the mark. Indeed, men should never hit women. However, Dr. Phil may need to address this other fact-- women should also never hit men! If a man should never hit a woman, then a woman should also never hit a man!  Dr. Phil has a point when he talks about male biology . It's often more outrageous when a man hits a woman, because of a man's physical strength. There are also heavier penalties when people in authority break the rules. A student can be suspended for punching a teacher. However, a teacher can get fired for punching someone. The gravity of the situation can change, depending on the status of the offender. The husband has higher status than the wife, which means any offense he does is going to be heavier.  I wonder what Dr. Phil would say about this incident. This was during the reign of former president, Atty. Rodrigo R. Duterte. Zhang Jiale is a woman who ...

April 30, 2025, would be 50 years since the Fall of Saigon. Ho Chi Minh (real name, Nguyen Sinh Cung), who also used the pseudonym Nguyen Ai Quoc, while in Paris, died before the reunification. This was pretty much the reverse of what happened between East Germany and West Germany, years later, on November 9, 1989. This event is when North Vietnam finally triumphed over South Vietnam. The democratic South Vietnam fell into the hands of the Communist North Vietnam, which was a totalitarian state. The event was the triumph of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) and its armed wing, the Vietnam People's Army (VPA). Communism won, and the CPV still occupies Vietnam to this very day. The Fall of Saigon proved that Communism can win . True enough, dictatorships do get toppled but not all dictatorships get toppled. The 1986 EDSA Revolution and the 1989 Berlin Wall proved that dictatorships can fall. However, Vietnam is still under a dictatorship. In fact, the reunification created a refug...

There's nothing wrong with complaining. Complaining can be productive. However, the problem with the likes of Butthurt Philippines (where I got the quote above) is that they'd rather stick to complaining than getting solutions. Even worse, it seems that the administrator of the Butthurt Philippines Facebook page is that he'd rather look at me as some "DDS troll". Is that the best answer that its owner, who I heard is Lico Reloj (if that's his real name), could even come up with? They'd dismiss me because I'm part of the CoRRECT Movement Moderated Public Forum. I've been insulted for my supposed poor ability in detecting sarcasm. Maybe I should've researched word elongation to detect sarcasm. However, with the way Butthurt Philippines' Facebook page carries things--I doubt that it's productive complaining.  The quote by the late Luis V. Teodoro is right. I was reminded of why I wanted to move out of the Philippines. I always felt it was ...

One look and one may think this is from the Bangsamoro Region. Instead, this is an Indonesian dance from Sumatra. A study of Filipino history reveals that Indonesians were among the settlers in the Philippines. That would explain why Muslim Mindanao would be like Malaysia and Indonesia in their culture. As I look at the gestures, I'm reminded of my high school Buwan ng Wika (Month of the Language) programs. Several Filipino dances in Mindanao are similar to those of Malaysia and Indonesia. After all, most Filipinos share the same direct ancestry as Malaysians and Indonesians.  As a Chinese Filipino, it's hard for me not to think of the Itik Itik dance. The two dances are similar yet different. 

Documentation Center of Cambodia Archives Two days ago, on April 17, 1975, marked the 50th year since Pol Pot (real name, Saloth Sar) rose to power. The Khmer Rouge only ruled for four years, but it showed one thing--a reign of less than six years isn't necessarily benevolent (read here ). A look at Pol Pot's past may show that he was the typical inggitero--the Filipino word for someone who's easily jealous of others! The History website reveals this brutal detail on Pol Pot's regime, which was most likely fueled by jealousy : Pol Pot was a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork. One detention center, S-21, was so notorious that only seven of the roughly 20,000 people imprisoned there are known to have survived. The Khmer Rouge, in their attempt to socially engineer a classless communist society, took particular ...

Credit: Jhonil C. Bajado's Facebook page Today is the Anniversary of the Titanic. However, I couldn't help but think of the even bigger disaster Doña Paz when the Titanic is remembered. The Doña Paz was called the Titanic of Asia--a disaster that had more victims than the already tragic, Titanic. The Pieta Park, a Catholic religious shrine, was also dedicated to the victims of the tragedy. I would search for "Dona Paz" on Facebook, and it's sad to know that some bodies were never found . Out of respect for them, I will choose to leave then Anonymous I'd like to cite this excerpt from the Daily Tribune: CATBALOGAN CITY – A plaza dedicated in memory of thousands who died in the sinking of passenger boat Doña Paz has been demolished, drawing outrage among the residents of this city. Catbalogan City Mayor Dexter Uy said the demolition of Pieta Park on Saturday shocked him, especially since the city has not issued any permit for the demolition or the planned constr...

I'm no maritime engineer, so I couldn't say yes or no. However, an article from the Smithsonian Institute may provide some interesting information.  According to engineers from the Imperial College London, the streak in the photograph may have been caused by a fire in one of the Titanic’s coal bunkers—a three-story-tall room that stored much of the coal that fueled the ship’s engines. Molony believes that the fire had started as early as three weeks before the Titanic set out for its maiden voyage, but was ignored for fear of bad press and the desire to keep the ship on schedule . “Britannia rules the waves,” Molony says. “They’d been facing massive competition from the Germans and others for the valuable immigrant trade. You don’t want don’t want a loss of public confidence in the whole of the British maritime marine.” Just after survivors made landfall, several people who worked on the ship’s engines cited a coal fire as the cause of the shipwreck. An official inquiry by Br...

As I look back on my college days, I recall learning more about Chinese history in a Chinese Language Class elective. Yes, it was going back to Grade 1 Chinese, but doing Grade 1 Chinese right. I looked at this video and thought of China's many dialects. A dialect is defined by the Oxford dictionary as, "a particular form of a language which is peculiar to a specific region or social group." The subject was taught in English, not requiring students to learn Hokkien first, and it was how the Chinese school system should've been. Most Chinese Filipinos (like myself) are Hokkien speakers. Amoy is known as Xiamen today, a coastal city of the Fujian Province. I was shocked to learn there are many different types of Chinese, such as Cantonese (used in Hong Kong), and I wasn't shocked to learn that Hainan and Hakka are other dialects in China. Similar to Filipino, China has several languages too! In the Philippines, we have Tagalog, Cebuano, Kapampangan, Waray, and Hilig...

I'm getting tired of people who still insist that the parliamentary system will never work, because it was "tried and tested" during the reign of Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr.. However, further data have proven that there was really no parliamentary system . Salvador "Doy" Laurel even mentioned that in Marcos' own words, Marcos was never legitimately installed as president or prime minister. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. even mentioned in his speech in Los Angeles, "We had a parliamentary form of government without a parliament." The government was supposed to be British type, and it went to the French type. Ninoy rightfully called it  80 Days Around the World . To think it over, the role of the president in a parliamentary system is supposed to be purely ceremonial. However, one must look at the comedy of errors  with the Marcos rule. Marcos' prime minister, until he himself handpicked Cesar Virata as prime minister, was himself (read here )....

I confess that I'm no fact-checker or journalist. I wanted to take AB Mass Communications, but I didn't find a better school. Instead, I took BS Business Administration (general) all before the course was declared obsolete. There have been crazy claims online, such as fetus soup from China. I went to China and realized it was a sham. In fact, it turned out to be a sham and that the "fetus soup" pictures were more than what I'd call, a distasteful performance art . I wasn't too happy about ABS-CBN's role in promoting anti-charter change ads. However, I believe that no one is free from biases.  Jeff Canoy of ABS-CBN admits a truth we all need to hear: In a forum titled “Campus Patrol,” ABS-CBN News chief of reporters Jeff Canoy said journalists are “biased” as their values protrude from the way they craft their stories, but objectivity would come into play when they verify information . “Actually, all [forms of] journalism [are] biased because the way I wou...

As I insist on the need for constitutional reform, I already feel like I'm alone. It's not because I'm in jail (otherwise, I would not be able to type this), but because most of my life, most Filipinos have become the collective   tyranny . In fact, one can say, "Are we a democracy or are we an anarchy?" The more I think about the surveys by Pulse Asia, they claim that 88% of Filipinos (but have they truly surveyed everywhere) are supposedly against charter change. This is where the tyranny of the majority kicks in. People may have overthrown the tyranny of Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr., but they haven't learned much. Instead, people insist on false myths such as the Marcos Parliamentary Years (which, by the way, is bogus to the core, read why here ). As Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" A. Aquino Jr. said, "We had a parliamentary system, without a parliament. "  I felt alone many times when I wanted to change the Philippines. When I went to Singapore for a...