Category: personal AnGoL

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You must read this!!!! :: Market Manila – Income Levels / Poverty in the Philippines – General

This is probably one of the top 5 posts I’ve read about the Philippines this year.

Marketman’s Running Survey
In the survey I am running (or if you read this later, survey that I ran), it seems some 40% of readers actually think the Philippines is POORER than it is, in other words, a fairly negative sentiment. Some 24% of you got it right, with roughly 86-88% of the families earning less than PHP25,000 per month for a family of 5. But approximately 36% of you were varying degrees of being overly optimistic, and believed that many more families earned more than they actually do. Okay, so hold this thought for a moment. Roughly 87% of all families in the Philippines, representing 75.7 million people, are living on less than PHP5,000 (USD110) per month per person on average in income.
via Market Manila – Income Levels / Poverty in the Philippines – General.

Okay a little too over the top. but I really wanted you to read this!!!

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Praise :: Noynoy opposes Teves’s plan to raise 12% E-VAT to 15%

There was the book taxing travesty last year and now we have secretary teves trying his best to increase government revenues by increasing E-Vat. Simply put, I am against any increases in the E-VAT. VAT’s are regressive taxes in nature. Regressive in our cases means falls more heavily on the people who can least afford it.  Processed foods such as some canned goods etc, or worst the chicheria (junk food) that extremely poor people use to give a little taste to a bowl of rice. All this while politicians maintain multiple houses and businesses , very large businesses evade taxes. This is unacceptable. Tax the poor and the near poor and the middle class (I and most classmates are probably part of the near poor and middle class)while you let the big businesses and even small businesses go to the bank with the paper because their accountants know how to run make money out of accounting software. Increase tax efficiency. Catch the big tax evaders. Close the fucking loop holes that unsavory but slick accountants use to hide profits, revenues etc. In short I salute the creative ways Sec Teves is trying so as to close the budget gap but what he is doing is declaring defeat against the big evaders while lording it over the people like most salaried employees and consumers who have no way of evading the the tax.
PS:: I usually go with the crowd in decrying taxes, but honestly I believe in a fair and equitable society where we help each other out. The fortunate sharing some of their fortune to make the lives of the unfortunate just a little more livable. I am not against taxation. I just hate the thought that people who can least afford the tax are the same people who are the easiest targets for taxation.

Noynoy opposes Teves’s plan to raise 12% E-VAT to 15% PDF Print E-mail
Written by Butch Fernandez / Reporter
Tuesday, 06 April 2010 20:21
FINANCE Secretary Margarito Teves’s plan to jack up the 12-percent expanded value-added tax (E-VAT) to 15 percent met immediate objections from opposition stalwarts, led by Liberal Party standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.
“This [planned E-VAT increase] is the easy way out,” Aquino said, adding: “We can collect more taxes at the Bureau of Internal Revenue and higher duties at Bureau of Customs if we become more serious in curbing and punishing tax evasion and smuggling.”
In a statement, Aquino assured that if elected, his administration would instead focus on raising revenues by increasing the government’s tax collection efficiency to 17 percent.
via Noynoy opposes Teves’s plan to raise 12% E-VAT to 15%.

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rePost :: New Comelec rules disallow election complaints at precinct level – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News

This would speed things up greatly but I fear for places where people are running against the incumbent this will test the the determination and honor of the local comelec officials. This would also level the playing field for candidates with less money (read:: less corrupt) because incumbents have enough cash to put lawyers in each clustered precinct. Local politicians usually use the lawyers to slow the pace of voting in the precincts whose voters they do not own. In some ways you can think of these lawyers as thugs or as protectors of the sanctity of the ballot because they either impede you or protect your vote, a true double edged sword.

Candidates can no longer complain about possible anomalous election documents at the precinct level and instead, wait for the winners to be proclaimed first, according to new rules promulgated by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) over the weekend.
Comelec Resolution 8804 says that candidates, political parties, and party-list groups can only question documents that they deem to be suspicious – such as election results, for instance – and challenge the results before the proclamation of winners if there is an “illegal composition of the board of canvassers (BOC)” and “illegal proceedings of the BOC.”
via New Comelec rules disallow election complaints at precinct level – Nation – GMANews.TV – Official Website of GMA News and Public Affairs – Latest Philippine News.

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Ponder :: Sonia Sotomayor Has Pursued Her Calling :: Ben Casnocha: The Blog:

ditto. Read the whole thing!

These profiles give an authentic glimpse of a style of life that hasn’t yet been captured by a novel or a movie — the subtle blend of high-achiever successes, trade-offs and deep commitments to others. In the profiles, you see the intoxicating lure of work, which provides an organizing purpose and identity. You see the web of mentor-mentee relationships — the courtship between the young and the middle-aged, and then the tensions as the mentees break off on their own…. You see the way people not only choose a profession, it chooses them. It changes them in a way they probably didn’t anticipate at first.
… Sotomayor’s life also overlaps with a broader class of high achievers. You don’t succeed at that level without developing a single-minded focus, and struggling against its consequences.
via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Sonia Sotomayor Has Pursued Her Calling.

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Things To Ponder :: Do You Want a Family or a Calling? :: Ben Casnocha: The Blog

Damn, think I’ve made this choice already, sadly subconsciously.

I believe the unvarnished reality about work-life-balance is this: the only people who successfully follow an all-consuming, high-impact professional calling are: a) either single or married to a someone who has a “career” (or less) and not a “calling” and, b) do not have kids.
The most effective men and women of this variety tend to be married to a comparatively passive partner (this does not mean objectively passive) because marriage boosts happiness, and do not have kids.
Yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but that's what they are: exceptions. Yes, Lewis's distinction is too rigid, but it's to make a point.
Many men, including some of Silicon Valley's most famous, do their “calling” early in life and then “career” later in life with kids. Men have the luck of being able to organize their lives in a way that this can work. Women, not so much. Damn biological clock.
via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Do You Want a Family or a Calling?.

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rePost :: Notes from an Insomniac: A conversation with Noynoy by Lila Shahani

I also appreciate the types of bills he has filed: they are clearly reform-oriented in very overarching ways. It comes as no great surprise that Noynoy became a strict fiscalizer in his time, focusing more on accountability in government appropriations and spending than anything else. Among the measures he pushed for were greater restrictions on exemptions to the requirement of public bidding and strengthening legislative oversight over executive spending. He also sought to tighten congressional oversight on the executive’s use of public funds.
More importantly, if one studies the actual bills he filed and the quality of thinking that has gone into what are clearly pro-reform views, what is more striking is how many of them were not passed. How is it that none of these (arguably stellar) initiatives — on PNP reform; an increase in penalties for corporations and work establishments not compliant with minimum wage; the banning of reappointments to the Judicial and Bar Council; the prevention of reappointments and bypassing of the Commission on Appointments; real property valuation based on international standards; and superior responsibility for senior military officers, who are ultimately responsible for their own subordinates — had been passed? Had they been blocked, I had to ask? These were after all not the kind of trivial initiatives one might associate with certain legislators, for instance, and could certainly have benefited the country as a whole…
Noynoy agreed with my reading, noting that the job of an effective legislator goes beyond merely proposing laws. After all, legislators have the responsibility to ensure that the checks and balances system in our government is at work as well. But he had clearly pitted himself against the administration in a score of privileged speeches that questioned the government’s alleged human rights abuses (with respect to the desaparecidos, informal settlers, marginalized groups and extrajudicial killings). He has also continued to question the misuse of public funds (ZTE-NBN, “Euro Generals” and Fertilizer Fund, etc.). So it wouldn’t be entirely surprising if he had rubbed the administration the wrong way, which would certainly explain why so many of his initiatives never saw the light of day. Clearly, he would have been threatening to many in the establishment, which further sheds light on why he was stripped of his post as Deputy Speaker for Luzon after he called for GMA’s resignation at the height of the “Hello, Garci” scandal…
via Notes from an Insomniac: A conversation with Noynoy by Lila Shahani.

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rePost :: Generational determinism :: Stumbling and Mumbling

This is why it is quite important for successfull Filipinos to reach out to their communities and become role models. I remember reading about how the lack of role models (non rap artist/sports star/actor/actress/singer) for african american males/females are one of the leading reasons why african americans under achieve. I think the same applies to most of the people who live in depressed communities through out the Philippines. In our country success is defined less by people like Manny Villar (pre campaign business man image that has been shattered by the campaign investigations.) and more by people like Manny Pacquiao. See when you are young and your dreams are still in flux you tend to orient your dreams to what can be achieved. Without proper role models showing you that success is possible, that hard work pays, you will probably not go that route.
Read the whole thing an excellent blog post.

All of which is a way of saying that our beliefs are shaped not just by class but by age. There’s firm research on this. This paper finds that individuals whose formative years (18-25) were spent in recession:
tend to believe that success in life depends more on luck than on effort, support more government redistribution, but are less confident in public institutions.
via Stumbling and Mumbling: Generational determinism.

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rePost :: The Blog: Culture rePost :: Matters to Entrepreneurship :: Ben Casnocha

As long as the next meal is the primary concern of a lot of Filipinos the startup dreams would be of the pipe variety.

Culture Matters to Entrepreneurship
Culture Matters
All through childhood and adolescence you are a sponge absorbing cultural stimuli. From local billboard advertisements, to school curriculum stylized to your country; from conversations with your parents about the ways of the world to the thousands of local customs that dictate proper behavior in restaurants, queues, airports, homes, and driving on the road.
Culture matters. That's the title of a compelling set of essays on whether some cultures are better at creating freedom, prosperity, and justice. It is politically incorrect to chalk up massive societal failures in places like Africa to culture — besides, the situation is always more complex than a single factor — but it seems safe to assert that the culture you come up in affects how you think.
via Ben Casnocha: The Blog: Culture Matters to Entrepreneurship.

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rePost :: Neurosurgical patients get closer to God

If the various churches don’t get their act together we are going to have a century that is defined with tension between religous groups and between theist and non-theist. I ‘ve said this before but I feel that the line is about even that religions of any kind would one day be treated as simple organizations such as corporations and non-profits, and religiosity of any kind would be viewed more as a mental disability like alcoholism , or any form of substance abuse.

Neurosurgical patients get closer to God

Category: Neuroscience • Religion
Posted on: February 27, 2010 3:58 PM, by Mo
REMOVAL of specific parts of the brain can induce increases in a personality trait which predisposes people to spirituality, according to a new clinical study by Italian researchers. The new research, published earlier this month in the journal Neuron, provides evidence that some brain structures are associated with spiritual thinking and feelings, and hints at individual differences that might make some people more prone than others to spirituality.
via ScienceBlogs.com here