A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

Sheila Singson was still mentioned in Give Up Tomorrow but not this whole part. This deleted scene features Atty. Florencio O. Villarin and his interview with Sheila. We do have more unheard-of clips of the interview with Pros. Teresita Gallanida. What I want to focus on is the interview with Villarin, the very person whom the Chiong parents went to ask for help. Ironically, the late Dionisio Chiong ended up calling Villarin a liar . Was it because the Chiong parents wanted instant justice or felt that the "testimony" of Davidson V. Rusia was "more than enough"? Starting at 2:21, I decided to pay attention to what Villarin said. At that time, Villarin was still at the NBI. The following day, Villarin went to the workplace of the late Jacqueline Jimenea Chiong. Jacqueline was noted to have worked at the Global Village which used to be at Ayala Center, Cebu. This person was named Sheila Singson. Villarin mentions that Sheila couldn't identify and neither gave a re...

This is another bamboo dance done by what I believe are Atayal dancers. The dance steps are very similar to what one might find in Nueva Ecija or any indigenous region of the Philippines. What makes it more appealing to me is the absence of Taiwanese Mandarin in the lyrics. Instead, it's lyrics that would sound like the chanting of Filipino indigenous dancers. There are similar yet different movements between Taiwanese aborigines and Filipino aborigines. The Malaysians and Indonesians have settled in several places. The dance movements between Taiwanese aborigines and Filipino aborigines are too similar to be ignored. Even the indigenous language might be very similar. 

The Daily World Above is an art by The Daily World. As an advocate of constitutional reform, I'm afraid the word democracy is often misused. It's very easy to say that we're a democracy so it's the rule of majority shaming the minority, it's a place where you can have a dysfunctional sense of freedom, or I can't even remember all the stupid definitions one can have about democracy. It's very easy to say that the Philippines is a democracy. However, what if democracy can be just an illusion because from one constitution after the other--winning an election is based on popularity over credibility. The founding fathers of America did fear demagogues . One of the meanings of the word demagogue is "a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power". In another definition, it's also "a leader championing the cause of the common people in ancient times". So, has the Philipines really been quali...

I remembered back in Civics and Culture class when it was taught that July 4 was originally a holiday. Instead, it was moved to June 12. July 4, 1946, became the end of the Commonwealth Government of America. Think about it like it was the handover of the British of Hong Kong back to the Chinese government. I remembered there was a one-time holiday when July 4 had no classes because it was Philippine-American friendship day. The Americans freely gave the Philippines its independence from the Commonwealth. However, the Philippines did become a republic on June 12, 1998. I did remember celebrating the centennial celebration of the founding of the Philippines. It was in 1962 when the late Diosdado Macapagal, the father of Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, issued Proclamation No. 28 . It's because it was in 1898 when the Philippines managed to gain independence from Spain and declare a republic . For a time, the Philippines fell under American control but not without having decla...

Right now, I'm having an argument with a certain old man (wearing a toga, presumably graduating from a doctorate degree) on Facebook. One thing I noticed in some of his Facebook posts is the use of CTTO more often than not. Maybe, I can start giving a sample of his arguments since there are many. One of his posts would go like this: All nations have protectionist policies, its their inherent rights. It is the role of the business to use strategies to work within these policies.... ctto... Back then, I remembered I erroneously used Yahoo as a source in my high school term paper. Later on, a college professor placed an X mark on Yahoo and Google as a source . It's because Google nad Yahoo are search engines . Now, we have CTTO which means Credit To The Owner. If we're to really credit the owner, why not post a link or acknowledge the site where it was taken from? For example, the meme above is by 8LIST.PH.  It's very eays to say CTTO to make myself look smart. However, I ...

There's the term MARITES which can be often said as Masters in the Art of Relaying Information Through Exaggerated Storytelling . Such people give a bad name to any woman named Marites. I wouldn't be surprised if women would stop naming their daughters Marites for that reason. I decided to make this simplistic meme to talk about what I'd call the MARITES Pyramid of Learning. The Pyramid of Learning has been used as a joke in many memes.  One of them has the caption "Trust Me Bro" (read more about that here ) at the tip which is the fallacy of Appeal to Emotion. If Trust Me Bro isn't enough then what happens next is, "If you don't believe them you must be (insert insult)." If there was a lesson I had to be taught many times, "Never get mad at insults. That just proves that the other person is either insecure, in the wrong, or has a very shaky ground that he or she is defensive. Get even and they'll play the victim."  If there's a...

It's very easy to confuse democracy with mob rule , right? I remembered an English class proverb by George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm , who also warned, "Beware lest democracies may become tyrannies." It was most likely the theme of Animal Farm when the pigs took over the farm and made it worse than their human owners. Now, how do we define democracy? Most people just say that it's the rule of the majority. However, the Council of Europe website   would give us what democracy really means: The word democracy comes from the Greek words " demos", meaning people, and "kratos" meaning power; so democracy can be thought of as "power of the people" : a way of governing which depends on the will of the people. There are so many different models of democratic government around the world that it is sometimes easier to understand the idea of democracy in terms of what it definitely is not. Democracy, then, is not autocracy or dictatorship, ...

On the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, a festival known as the Dragon Boat Festival (note it's not Dragon Ball). There are three stories of the festival's origin . The story goes with China's first known famous poet known as Qu Yuan which is the most well-known story. This would be the origin of the food that I would know as machang among Chinese Filipinos as well as Filipinos of other ethnicities. Filipinos of Malaysian or Indonesian descent still call it machang.  The life of Qu Yuan came to a sad end when he ended his life at 62 years old: During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of enduring poems showing his love and passion for his country, some of which are still very famous in China. In 278 BC, the Qin State conquered the capital of Chu. On hearing of the defeat, on the 5th day of the 5th lunar month, Qu Yuan in great despair committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River (a branch of Yangtze River) as a gesture of dying along with his motherland. T...

This is something that might come out of a Buwan ng Wika (Month of the Language) program in the Philippines. Personally, I want to celebrate August as Buwan Ng Kulturang Pilipino (Month of the Filipino Culture) as indigenous tribes in the Philippines are still Filipino . The props all look very similar to what I used to see in the Buwan ng Wika program in high school more than 20 years ago. This performance is sung which would be similar to the Filipino indigenous language. Maybe, an Ifugao scholar or an Igorot scholar would be able to decode what's said here. The chanting here is rather beautiful even if I can't understand a word. It's even followed by a rap version of the indigenous language. No wonder some tribes are referred to as Taiwanese "rock star" tribes .  I was wondering why Original Pilipino Music (OPM) hasn't really paid attention to indigenous Filipino music? Has it been because of Manila-centric policies or what? Or is it because of protectionis...

In the quest to know more about Southeast Asia's indigenous people--Taiwan can become a hit destination. This would look like a group of Filipino indigenous dancers but they're from Taiwan. This long dance number may show how the Taiwanese government may have been treating indigenous tribes better than the Philippines. One article I wrote was about how some Filipino natives now have to travel to Taiwan to learn indigenous weaving .  Just watching this video makes me think of what the  Inquirer  cited about Taiwanese indigenous people: TAIPEI—In communities of the indigenous Amis tribe across Taiwan,  locals say lima for five, pito for seven and mata for eye, just like Filipinos . In southern Taiwan’s Alishan mountain,  the Tsou tribe calls the community’s meeting hut a kuba, strikingly similar in design to the Philippines’ kubo . Whether in language, architecture or way of life, links among indigenous peoples of the Philippines and Taiwan are undeniable, with...

More than 10 years ago while I was a college student, I remembered one of the topics raised was who in the world was the father of the late Sergio Osmeña Sr.? I remembered my Humanities subject while I studied at the University of San Carlos (USC) during my summer classes. I immediately took summer classes after I finished my associate's degree and proceeded to take my bachelor's degree in business administration. We had a field trip at Casa Gorordo in Cebu where one of the curators said, "Just who was his father?" There was a wild guess it was the late Pedro Lee Singson Gotiaoco. The Freeman I heard from someone, back in college, that neither Tomas Osmeña nor the late John Gokongwei Jr. admits to being related to each other. Gokongwei Jr. is a great-grandson of Gotiaoco. A Sunstar article about Juana Osmeña  mentions this one about the past 145 years ago which may verify their mutual claims: SCIENCE has settled almost a century-and-a-half-old mystery -- history and g...