One reason to love Philippine politics
posted by RafeBoogs | 8:32 AM
Manila Vanilla
What it's like to be a U.S. Fulbright scholar, basketball player, journalist, and the whitest man in Metro Manila.
About Me
- Name: RafeBoogs
- Location: Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines
New Yorker by birth, shipped across the globe to the world of malls, shanty-towns, patronage, corruption, basketball and a curious burnt-toast smell that wafts around at dusk
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4 Comments:
Oh boy! I found your blogsite through my cousin John-D. I've been living in the US for 25 years now and am glad my parents "stepped on the boat" and got away from the ever truculent quagmire of Philippine politics.
Hi, whats up? Im a full Filipino born and raised in Seattle. I came across your blog looking for links between Roy Jones and Pacman, I then stumbled upon this blog about a smart white guy from NY living in the Philippines. As, I was reading your entries it made me laugh because we share alot of the same views on the Philippine culture in the Philppines. Recently, my second trip back in like 15 years (im 25), I came to realize what makes the country so great, and what makes it a cesspool of corruption, crime, and different rules for everyone.
The entry about Defensor was priceless, I remember her goin on her rants in the news. You think a Dewitt Fellow from UofMichigan Law, who graduates early would know better.
One last thing how are the schools there, ive been told to get a law degree there from UP or Ateneo. I graduated from UofWashington, with degrees in Economics, and information systems.
I've been in and out of the Philippines most of my professional life (I'm a cruiseship musician), so I'm not too familiar with Miriam Defensor-Santiago the politician, except for some items here and there about her outrageous remarks. But I still remember the Miriam Defensor who wrote very smart, award-winning short stories in the Philippine Free Press back in the 60's. OK, so that makes me antediluvian, but really, she was one of Manila's best fiction writers in her college days. By the way, I accidentally bumped into this blog (like everything else in the internet), onto a page about "talatawagan". I found it somewhat astonishing that someone who was not a Filipino academic and looked from the photo to be as white as,um,American bread, should bother discussing this obscure made-up Tagalog (or Pilipino) word. I read the rest of your entries, and, I said to myself:"Of course, Filipinos and basketball, makes sense, about time." Here's an example about just how passionate Filipinos can be in their basketball: There was a game in my Catholic seminary (yup, a school for priests-to-be) where our star player got so irate with the visiting basketball hero from another school that he ran up to the dorm to retrieve his gun. Don't ask me why a seminarian should have a gun in the dorm, but we were able to persuade him not to use it. In time I left the seminary, but he went on to become a respected priest and remains so to this day. True story. Go figure.
I've been in and out of the Philippines most of my professional life (I'm a cruiseship musician), so I'm not too familiar with Miriam Defensor-Santiago the politician, except for some items here and there about her outrageous remarks. But I still remember the Miriam Defensor who wrote very smart, award-winning short stories in the Philippine Free Press back in the 60's. OK, so that makes me antediluvian, but really, she was one of Manila's best fiction writers in her college days. By the way, I accidentally bumped into this blog (like everything else in the internet), onto a page about "talatawagan". I found it somewhat astonishing that someone who was not a Filipino academic and looked from the photo to be as white as,um,American bread, should bother discussing this obscure made-up Tagalog (or Pilipino) word. I read the rest of your entries, and, I said to myself:"Of course, Filipinos and basketball, makes sense, about time." Here's an example about just how passionate Filipinos can be in their basketball: There was a game in my Catholic seminary (yup, a school for priests-to-be) where our star player got so irate with the visiting basketball hero from another school that he ran up to the dorm to retrieve his gun. Don't ask me why a seminarian should have a gun in the dorm, but we were able to persuade him not to use it. In time I left the seminary, but he went on to become a respected priest and remains so to this day. True story. Go figure.
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