A Business Graduate's Reviewing History Blog

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  hard to use for someone like me. Back on topic, I was tagged to a post on the 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 in such a hurry that it created many 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, Mrs. Aquino herself w...

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...

It's very easy to say that Isaac Newton introduced the wondrous tool of calculus. Maybe, learning how to implement physics into calculus. However, one can think that the history of mathematics is very long. As far as history permits, we can learn about the mathematics of the Greeks. A lot of ancient structures are a testament to the usage of engineering mathematics in ancient times. From MacTutor , I would like to share this amazing fact about Archimedes of Syracuse with his amazing discovery: Archimedes was the greatest mathematician of his age. His contributions in geometry revolutionised the subject and his methods anticipated the integral calculus. He was a practical man who invented a wide variety of machines including pulleys and the Archimidean screw pumping device. At first, mathematics in the classroom feels dull and lifeless. I think it's because there's hardly any exposure to the applications. I felt that too that it was a dull mental exercise. I found in college...

I remembered one of the stories in Chinese class. Okay, I might be criticizing the way Chinese was taught back then but I'm not going to shy away from remembering life lessons. It's like a Chinese language teacher of mine said, "Was it true I was strict?" and then she followed up by saying, "Did you learn something?" The same was true for another Chinese language teacher who was mad at my quiz scores. Later, the other Chinese language teacher said, "Did you learn something" followed up by, "I'm glad you see Mandarin has its importance." I could only say "Yes." to the two Chinese language teachers. I feel that even wit that old system that I disliked--the two Chinese language teachers imparted special values.  One story was of Li Bai who, like Mencius, wasn't a bright start. Some of the best people today may share their embarrassing pasts. Such a story that I heard was that of Li Bai the scholar. It was said Li Bai didn...