A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

Sim Dapat Jr. It's easy to admire the late great statesman Lee Kuan Yew . However, it's easy to just think about what he said about the Marcoses while ignoring the stuff that he said about the Philippines. As I was reading his book From Third World to First , it was  easy to talk about what he said about the Marcoses while ignoring good economic advice . Years ago, I also remember the Philippine Star article by Alex Magno (way back in 2006 that talked about the parliamentary system . As the 2028 is just around the corner  and it's 2026 , I was thinking about the fallacy of "just vote wisely, it's not the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines that's the problem." However, it made me think of this statement by Magno from the Philippine Star , which should be a reflection of the biggest hurdle why a LKY type of leader would never show up in the Philippines: One keen observer of the sometimes bizarre conduct of our national affairs is former Malaysian prime min...

I'm certainly glad that Senator Francis "Kiko" Pangilinan is out of the job as the head of the constitutional amendments, if he's too stubborn to see the reality. This blog post doesn't seek to discredit anything good Kiko has done. I don't like the idea of Senator Robin Padilla as the head of the same committee either. Instead, I'm going to try to enlighten every spectrum by discussing the Broken Windows Theory . What is the Broken Windows Theory? We need to look into it first. This Criminal Justice Know How article by Kelly M. Glenn gives this introduction: The Broken Window Theory was coined by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 and greatly impacted police work in the decades to follow.  The Broken Windows Theory uses the basic metaphor of a broken window to demonstrate how crime and disorder tend to flourish in environments where small problems go unaddressed.  As the environment falls into neglect and disrepair, people responsible for crime a...

Let me get this straight, I'm not here to totally dismiss the good that the late Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" C. Aquino III did. I'll try to be least biased  when I'm writing this to "give a shock" to those who tend to treat his term as a "magical time". However, I'm going to have to warn people about the problem of looking for "another Messiah leader". Yesterday was the would've been 66th birthday of Noynoy if he were alive. One can talk good about Noynoy's legacy. However, we need to realize that relying on Noynoy's term is a violation of the Mahathir Mohamad principle of "Never stop learning."  We need to think that there's only one Noynoy and when he died, he died . TV-5 reveals that Rep. Edgar Erice, a long-time friend of the late leader, also said the following: Caloocan City 2nd District Rep. Edgar Erice made the remark in a social media post marking Aquino’s 66th birth anniversary.  In the post, he co...

It's easy to post an outrage on Facebook, whether it's on the Butthurt Philippines' Facebook page or Gerry Cacanindin's relatively open Facebook profile (except that only his friends can comment). I try to ignore the guy's page. I was wondering if Gerry has learned his lesson (that the Philippines badly needs a system upgrade) or if he still wants to believe that "It's just a matter if Leni Robredo or Vico Sotto." The latest Facebook post gives me something to think about: People often ask why some countries seem almost immune to corruption. As if their leaders are just magically more honest. But that’s not really it. The truth is actually simpler. These countries didn’t wait for good people. They built systems where doing something dirty is hard, risky, and usually not worth it. In the least corrupt countries, corruption isn’t just illegal but inconvenient. Paper trails are everywhere. Payments are digital. Contracts are public. Anyone can look up wh...

Gemini AI Art Some time ago, I wrote an essay that Filipinos can expect to lose more money betting that people will vote wisely . It's time for the truth,  and the  inconvenient truth hurts now, doesn't it? I had Gemini AI create this new AI art of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. and Atty. Maria Leonor "Leni" S. Gerona-Robredo, at the casino, just to make a point. Sure, Bongbong shook hands with Leni in Sorsogon as a step for political reconcilation . However, such events should be considered more like random variables, such as getting your ball to land on a certain color and a specific number in a game of roulette.  Let's define what a gamble means. The Cambridge Dictionary defines gamble as: to do something that involves risks that might result in loss of money or failure, hoping to get money or achieve success: The gamble of whether your candidate wins or not, because popularity is fickle It's effortless to say, "It's not rea...