A couple weeks ago in my last column I took the government of the Philippines to task for continually squandering the greatest national resource of the Philippines … it’s people. Training an engineer, for example, up through college and then sending him off to costs the country a fortune. A couple people misinterpreted this to […]
SIR: The Compadre System
The Compadre System, or the “Extended Family” is the basis of Filipino social structure. When they say “Extended Family” that doesn’t mean that there is a blood relationship, or even a marital relationship. Some “family members” are chosen, rather than being truly related. The Compadre System, or Extended Family is, as I said, the basis […]
SIR: Garbo – "Self Esteem, Self Worth"
It’s been a couple of weeks since I posted an article in my series about SIR , mostly due to the holidays. I felt that with everybody so busy due to the holidays, it would be good to hold off on the SIR series until the holidays finished up, so we will get back on […]
Rediscovery
In this busy world where we are always on the run, sometimes we lose track of things. Sometimes we forget and leave our cellphone somewhere. Other times we forget where we put our car keys. Frankly, we can lose track of anything. Sometimes we even lose track of who we are. I think that it […]
SIR: Tigpataliwala
It’s Tuesday, so let’s get back to my SIR series! For today’s installment, let’s look at a different area of SIR, Tigpataliwala, or the “Go Between”. The go between is critical in the day to day functioning of Philippine society, so it is important for us foreigners to learn about it and understand what it […]
SIR: A debt of gratitude
Well, it has been a few days, so it seems to be time for another installment in my SIR series. What is SIR? If you are asking that, you must have missed my earlier articles! SIR stands for Smooth Interpersonal Relations, and it is the foundation of Philippine Culture. In case you did miss my […]