Business & Economics Perspective Blogger

  It's Thursday, and I will try to recall some things from a business and economics perspective. I thought about how I didn't do well as a high school student, and that teachers often tell me to look past by it . Even the late headmistress of Bethany Christian School (who died of cancer in 2019) told me that when my high school report card was submitted ot the University of San Carlos , it should be a letting-go ritual.  I still couldn't get over the toxic attitude that people have towards menial labor. Back then, I remember how I started slipping  in my studies. Eventually, I started getting bad grades. The Filipino subject even had an example of a father trying to get his child to study, showing him the work of menial workers as the "fate of those who don't study hard enough" . The child was scared to see people do carpentry work. I was told that if I weren't studying hard enough, I would end up as a garbage collector. However, Typhoon Odette proved tha...

Foreign Trade University I was wondering which business or economics blog entry to post. As I was looking at the class suspension in Cebu right now, I thought about writing about education as my first post in September 2026. I looked back and thought about how the Philippine education system has lagged behind . At the same time, I thought about how Communist Vietnam ironically created the Foreign Trade University . Cebu City right now has these problems of (1) rotating brownouts due to red alert with the grid, (2) the current smog issue with Indonesia , and (3) floods. I was thinking about how schools have been affected as well. The equity rule of education in the Philippines vs. Vietnam  The IBON Foundation called the economic charter change in education "unnecessary"  last May 9, 2024. Here's an excerpt from the article that continues what I might call  fear-mongering : Opening schools to foreign ownership and presence might come at a great cost to educators and future...

Some time ago, I wrote about two topics. The first topic was about school insults and the broken windows theory . The second was all about school violence in connection with the broken windows theory . Before August ends, I thought about the nationwide DepEd policy for an active-threat drill. The news from one school shooting after the other makes me think that school shootings aren't a joke. Sure, there are very controlled school environments like Bethany Christian School, where I remember our disciplinarian was like the late Miriam Defensor-Santiago, and that we had a very orderly drill. I had two classmates who were usually boisterous, but during that fire drill , they were at their most behaved; they didn't have to be warned; they simply complied because of the school environment.  The update on DepEd's nationwide active threats is a good thing . This is really something that makes sense: DepEd Undersecretary Malcolm Garma told a Senate hearing Thursday that the departm...

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...

Right now, I reserve the right to be critical of Kabataan Partylist. Kabataan Partylist is part of the Makabayan Bloc. I often get insults on Facebook, like saying, "Where's your mass base like Kabataan Partylist?" or "Have you rallied enough like Kabataan Partylist?" That's the "You Too Fallacy". As always, it becomes Makabayan Bloc's mindset to stick to what I call "Vietnam War Economics". The late Lee Kuan Yew would call their mentality a third-world mindset . Here's a post by Kabataan Partylist on their Facebook page: KABATAAN: Marcos Continues to Submit to Washington; Down with the Pax Silica Framework! House Assistant Minority Leader and Kabataan Partylist Rep. Atty. Renee Co expressed fierce condemnation today over the impending November finalization of the predatory Pax Silica framework, calling it an “outright declaration of economic warfare and imperial exploitation against the Filipino people.” With the Philippine gove...

Credit: Verywell / Dennis Madamba Some time ago, I wrote about the Broken Windows Theory and school insults . Whenever I remember the vicious cycle where the insulter usually gets a free pass (out of the name of "kids just being kids"), I also get more violent despite the interventions done. It wasn't until I was in another school that both sides were usually mediated, even if teachers could often lapse into just "dealing with the bigger offense". It made me think that several fights I got into in high school, even if the conflict wasn't resolved immediately, eventually fizzled because when I got scolded for overreacting, the aggressor still had the punishment that met the offense. For example, I got the harder scolding for overreacting,  while the other person got scolded also for triggering the offense. I even felt that reconciliation with some of my former enemies may have been much harder without mediating between the  two sides of the conflict. I mean, ...