Philippine Society and Culture

With just hours left before we bid good bye to 2022, revelers around the world are enthusiastically waiting for the unfolding of the brand new year, 2023. Regardless of one's religion and race, a new year is always welcome and celebrated with enthusiasm and optimism.  But what is really the essence of New Year? What does it signify? Does it really bring change into our life?  New Year Resolutions  Funny, yet it's true. Decades ago, during our elementary and high school years, our English teachers then would ask us to write our new year resolutions. Still savoring the new year fever, we would gladly oblige to our teachers and start writing the things we want to change as many as we could. These new year resolutions ranging from having crushes and puppy love, studying harder, attending to classes, saving money, and many more.  Visualizing the success of these new year resolutions would make us happy and proud.  Sadly, our burning desire for life's changes fizzles ...

Today another historical event will be celebrated by the Filipinos, the commemoration of the life and works of the country's national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal. But what are the reasons behind today's celebration? Why do Filipinos need to celebrate this event? Dr. Jose Rizal's life and values  Unknown to many, Dr. Jose Rizal was a multi-talented person. At a very young age of 35, he was already articulate in so many subjects: be in literary, music, language, medicine and romance.  He was also a leading figure in the Filipinos' against the colonizers using just pen and paper and his literary skills.  Aside from his humane values of compassion, bravery, kindness, and generosity which he manifested during his exile in Dapitan,  Dr. Jose Rizal was also a medical doctor.  Below are some of the qualities of Dr. Jose Rizal: Linguist/polyglot.   The country's national hero could speak not two, three but 22 different languages, an extra-ordinary talent possessed onl...

  Adhering to Catholics' religious traditions and as part of the Christmas celebration, a series of nine dawn masses are held in Catholic churches all over the country that starts on the 16th and ends on the 24th of December every year where millions of Catholic faithful flock to different churches in the country to hear these dawn  masses.  This string of dawn masses draws millions of Catholic parishioners and faithful all over the country every year. Historically, it's the first and the last Misa de Gallo masses that draw the biggest parishioners numbering in millions.  In this blog, we'll talk about the Misa de Gallo and why it is significant to Catholics.  Significance of Misa de Gallo. The Misa de Gallo is just one of the traditions celebrated during the Christmas season in the Philippines. This string of dawn masses is significant to the Catholics for it's associated with the celebration of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ.  Filipino Catholics ma...

  'Honesty is the best policy,' a universal maxim referring to an act of honesty manifested by some people in many ways and situations. But does this saying still hold true these days? If so, how do they value and manifest this popular value, particularly among Filipinos?  In this blog post, we will discuss if Filipinos still value honesty these days. If so, how do they manifest this virtue of honesty? Lost items. Losing one's pertinent documents, money, pieces of jewelry, and other important belongings is emotionally painful and distressing. But what makes it more painful is the thought of losing them permanently.  Fortunately, there are still people, particularly Filipinos, who are willing and ready to do good things for others wholeheartedly and unconditionally, like returning lost and found items.  The Philippines is just one of the countries in the world whose people have been suffering from poverty for a very long time.  The Marcos administration is i...

  The Philippines, despite its abundance of natural resources and globally-competitive manpower, still lags behind Asian countries economically.  Back in the 60s where the country used to be called " The Tiger in Southeast Asia" because of its strong economy.  In fact, the country of Vietnam would send scientists to the Philippines to collaborate with the Filipinos in scientific rice research purposes.  But today, it's the other way around. The Philippines is the one importing metric tons of rice from Vietnam and other Asian countries due to the insufficiency of rice production in the Philippines.  Aside from the importation of rice, the country is also planning to import sugar because of the shortage of supply in the country. Lately, sugar warehouses across the country were raided on allegations of sugar hoarding.  Poverty incidence . As of the first semester of 2021 data, there are a total of 26.14 million poor Filipino families, or 23.7 percent of the co...

For the past couple of years, life has been so hard for people across the globe: the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict in some parts of the world, human-induced and natural disasters, and hunger brought about by the effects of the pandemic has caused us emotional, physical and psychological distress.  Sadly, many people are not emotionally strong enough to face and deal with these challenges in life. In contrast, there are people who are emotionally and psychologically strong enough to deal with life’s unfortunate events, one of them is the Filipinos who are able to withstand and weather through life's challenges.  Undeniably, the Filipinos are a different breed of people on earth. They possess these exemplary virtues that they use as their potent weapons in dealing with unfortunate circumstances in life.  The Filipinos are no strangers to life's difficulties and hardships. They have gone through all forms of difficulties in life and they face these misfortunes head-on. I...

  Aside from his exemplary virtues of patriotism, bravery, kindness, and compassion, Dr. Jose Rizal also possesses qualities that are not known to many people, even to some of his countrymen, particularly the Filipino youth.  These qualities of Dr. Jose Rizal made him attractive to women; in fact, a handful of them had been romantically linked with him as mentioned in his literary pieces like his novels, poems, and essays.  No doubt, the late Philippine hero, Dr. Jose Rizal was truly an exemplar to the Filipinos, particularly to the young generation for his virtues that every Filipino can be proud of.  But there is this quality of him disliked by some Filipinos such as his alleged being a womanizer. It's public knowledge that the country's national hero had been linked to at least nine women according to the country's historians.  The country's historians claim that the country's national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal had a total of nine (9) women romantically involved w...