Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

BluPrint It's the Chinese Ghost Month, which starts on the first day of the seventh Lunar Month. This year, Ghost Month started on August 13, 2026, and it will end on September 10, 2026. Today is called the peak of the Ghost Month. For the sake of a post, I want to write about this Chinoy Ghost Story that I remember from the 1990s. This was when our Grade 2 Chinese siansi (I don't know where she is anymore, but I remember her as being very strict, and the next year, Grade 3, was even stricter ) would use the statement that she said, "If you can't speak Chinese, you will have a hard time finding a job." She even mentioned a peer who baliwala (took for granted) his Chinese studies and ended up as a motorcycle driver in their community. However, I often suspect that white lie was made out of desperation because grades mattered that much.   The threat, however, proved ineffective because the students were in Cebu City. Chances are, several huan-a students ( a word use...

High School Philippine History Movement It's August, and it's frequently associated with Buwan ng Wika . However, August tends to be celebrated more like Filipino cultural month than it is about the language. Right now, I want to "de-stress" by writing about the Filipino subject . I can remember how someone nearly didn't graduate from elementary or high school (during K+10) because of  the Filipino subject . It might sound absurd for Generation Z students but in my case, I can relate. Honestly, I hated the Filipino subject, especially since I grew up as a natural-born Filipino, but three out of four of my grandparents were Chinese citizens who took a long time to become Filipinized. I had to deal with the fact that my paternal grandmother became a Chinese citizen again when she got married to my paternal grandfather. It was in the 1990s, and I remember the Filipino subject. I could easily talk to my Filipino teacher now . Just because I have already forgiven the F...

Mr. India Facebook Page Since it's Thursday, I feel like doing a random throwback post. Back in college, I had a few Indian Filipino friends who could speak Cebuano . I was usually into Arabic cooking . I remember eating in an Indian friend's house where his mother prepared some Indian dishes. It was around 2012 when Mr. India opened. This was the restaurant that would eventually become Bollywood Tandoor on M. Cuenco Avenue . It was a humble restaurant that served authentic Indian cuisine while learning to adjust to the Filipino palate.  I could remember my hesitance to eat there before. It was because I once had a bad memory at an Indian restaurant on Mango Avenue, which closed down so soon . It had bad service, and I will not mention its name. It was sometime in July of 2012 (more than 10 years ago) when the establishment opened at Gaisano Country Mall. I only entered the establishment a few years after it opened. I ate some of their foldover sandwiches (which were my favorit...

Anti Free Trade Postcard From 1910. Corbis via Getty Images / Getty Images I was thinking about a few more anti-protectionist posts and I found this "antique" postcard. Not that I have a physical copy of it (which would be aged by now) but that it's from the 1910s. That would already be 112 years ago when this postcard was first made. Unfortunately, this post card is still used as deceptive propaganda even some time. What should be interesting is that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic had protectionists taking opportunity over it. After 1918, the world went into the Stock Market Crash of 1929 followed up by the Great Depression of that same year.  Events after the postcard that proved the postcard a lie The postcard promoted two lies that protectionism (in the form of tariffs) creates prosperity and happiness while free trade creates unemployment and misery. Here's a definition of tariff from ThoughtCo : The most commonly applied protectionist ...

TripAdvisor I was thinking about how Cherry's the Spice won awards for the best Indian restaurant. So far, three branches have opened in total from its first place in Talamban, its second branch in Lapu-Lapu (which I believe will make good seafood masala), and the third branch in Busay. I remembered how difficult (at times) it can be to memorize foreign names. It becomes a simple solution among Filipinos to give monickers or nicknames to Indian food for easy reference. So far, some waiters and waitresses can easily get it unless there's a variation of a certain dish. These might be very common especially if the dishes can be "close to home". I still feel Cherry's the Spice similarity with Bicolano food might be why Filipino customers are so abundant there. Now let's get down to these dishes... Goat samosa from Bharat Spice Samosas were often referred to as empanadas. Samosa, like an empanada, is fried dough with filling. I've observed Filipino customers te...

High School Philippine History Movement I was afraid I would be running out of ideas. I wanted to recall some businesses that closed down such as Nova Fontana (my once favorite toy store), Alyssa Caramel (my favorite candy store), El Loco (which used to open at IT Park), etc. Now, I decided to focus on remembering my childhood and values education. Values education is supposed to teach proper manners and good conduct. However, values education tends to become a propaganda tool of the National Economic Protectionist Association (NEPA) to justify Carlos P. Garcia's erroneous Filipino First Policy. However, the whole policy really helped cause the Philippines to fail. Its very idea of Garcia is that majority of the economic participants had to be Filipinos. It might sound good in theory but it wouldn't work with how the late Lee Kuan Yew would put it.  Apparently, Garcia has never learned the consequences of protectionism from history--whether it'd be the Stock Market Crash of...