This might not be the typical expat blog, written by a German expat, living in the Philippines since 1999. It's different. In English and in German. Check it out! Enjoy reading!
Dies mag' nun wirklich nicht der typische Auswandererblog eines Deutschen auf den Philippinen sein. Er soll etwas anders sein. In Englisch und in Deutsch! Viel Spass beim Lesen!
You plan to move to the Philippines? Wollen Sie auf den Philippinen leben?
There are REALLY TONS of websites telling us how, why, maybe why not and when you'll be able to move to the Philippines. I only love to tell and explain some things "between the lines". Enjoy reading, be informed, have fun and be entertained too!
Ja, es gibt tonnenweise Webseiten, die Ihnen sagen wie, warum, vielleicht warum nicht und wann Sie am besten auf die Philippinen auswandern könnten. Ich möchte Ihnen in Zukunft "zwischen den Zeilen" einige zusätzlichen Dinge berichten und erzählen. Viel Spass beim Lesen und Gute Unterhaltung!
Visitors of germanexpatinthephilippines/Besucher dieser Webseite.Ich liebe meine Flaggensammlung!
The Academic Recovery and Accessible Learning Program, or Aral, of the Department of Education (DepEd) is a worthwhile and much-needed initiative. It aims to provide remediation lessons to public school students struggling with the fundamentals of reading, science, and math.
Last January, DepEd reported encouraging gains from Aral’s early implementation. Reading readiness scores increased by approximately five points in Grades 3 to 6, while the scores of students in Grades 7 to 10 improved by six to nine points, bringing millions of students closer to grade-level proficiency.
Under DepEd guidelines, Aral summer classes should have a 1:10 teacher-to-learner ratio. To implement the program properly, schools may hire external tutors or tap volunteer teachers, with the 2026 national budget allocating P1.96 billion for their salaries and allowances.
Growing up, I hated trigonometry because I couldn’t understand what it was for. I got a decent grade in class, but only because I memorized the formulas. It was only much later that I appreciated how trigonometry has practical uses in architecture, aviation, medicine, and many other fields. I couldn’t help but wonder why it wasn’t taught to me this way. Why didn’t my teacher start our year by showing us why trigonometry mattered so we could better appreciate what we’re learning?
This was my own experience of the education relevance gap—the disconnect that happens when a student cannot see the relevance of what is taught in the classroom and its practical application in their day-to-day lives. Multiple studies and reports highlight how the perceived mismatch between what students need and aspire toward and what education systems offer leads to student disengagement, poor attendance, and the eventual risk of dropping out.
A major driver of the education relevance gap is that young people today are exposed to a much larger world than what the classroom or home can offer. Their perspectives and questions are shaped by social media, economic anxiety, climate fears, political instability, new technologies, and an uncertain future of work.
An 80-year-old woman speaks with her son for a few minutes each day through video calls. She has not seen him in some time, so she keeps asking when he will visit. He always replies that he relocated to another province to save money before returning home to care for her. What she does not know is that her son died in a car accident a year ago.
Rather than tell her the truth, the family members hired an artificial intelligence (AI) company to create a digital twin so she would believe that he was still alive. According to the family, she has a weak heart, and they were worried that the news might harm her health. This incident, reported by the South China Morning Post last week, has since sparked an online debate regarding the ethical use of AI, especially in cases where it can impact human emotions.
As generative AI matures, the world is also seeing the emergence of “grief tech,” also known as the digital afterlife industry. These technologies enable users to interact with simulated versions of their deceased loved ones in intimate ways. Conversational AI products like Project December and You, Only Virtual (YOV) simulate a person’s conversational style by training the model on the deceased person’s text, email, and social media content. Startups like Eternal and Here After AI are offering interactive, voice-enabled avatars of people’s loved ones.
Afriend of mine, who is an infectious disease specialist, once observed that many Filipinos tend to delay going to the doctor unless something hurts. He shared the case of a man who consulted him for a mild stomachache, even though the patient had a visibly bulging goiter. The stomachache was painful and, therefore, was considered urgent, while the goiter was merely seen as an inconvenience.
He noted that part of this pattern may be linguistic. The Filipino word for illness is the same word we use for pain: sakit. When illness is tied to pain in language, painless symptoms, even if they are potentially life-threatening, are easily minimized and tolerated, leading to delayed diagnosis and intervention. It is only when something hurts that we treat it as a serious concern. This is the quiet power of language. It shapes not just how we perceive and describe our experiences, but also the kind of action and attention they require.
Words matter even more when they come from those in positions of authority. What leaders say carries a disproportionate ripple effect, shaping culture, morale, and collective behavior within their sphere of influence. Language, in their hands, can actively construct norms. This is why the remarks made by Sen. Robinhood Padilla during a recent Senate hearing drew such widespread criticism. Padilla suggested that children today are “weak” compared to previous generations, citing their vulnerability to mental health challenges.
Experts and citizens alike were quick to respond. The Psychological Association of the Philippines emphasized that resilience cannot be meaningfully compared across generations, because the challenges young people face today are both “quantitatively and qualitatively more intense.” They also stressed that what appears to be an “increase” in mental health conditions is, in part, the result of greater awareness and significant advances in identification and diagnosis.
Rather than acknowledge how his previous statement could compromise the mental health discourse, Padilla doubled down by claiming that his notions about today’s youth are not simply an opinion, but are based on worldwide data surrounding the rise of suicide rates. He argued that if the public were truly concerned, then the focus should be on responding with solutions to the problem rather than correcting what he said.
What Padilla fails to grasp is that how he talks about mental health is itself a large part of the problem that needs to be addressed. For instance, one of the longest-standing challenges that mental health practitioners have faced is the common word choices in media and public discourse (e.g., “psycho” and “crazy”) along with portrayals that equate mental illnesses with criminality. These have reinforced myths that people who have diagnoses are dangerous and socially undesirable. While greater awareness in recent years has helped dismantle some of these misconceptions, fears of being boxed into stigmatizing terms have led people to delay help‑seeking or avoid mental health care altogether.
When Padilla labeled children as “weak” for having suicidal ideation, he inadvertently framed mental health issues as a personal failure rather than a public health concern. This could feed into one’s self-stigma, where individuals internalize negative labels around their condition, leading to lower self‑esteem, social withdrawal, and reduced hope for recovery.
As proof of his generation’s resilience, Padilla claimed that young people during his time weren’t “crybabies” and did not even know what depression meant. Yet, suicide deaths are also alarmingly high among males in middle and later adulthood, globally, and in the Philippines. This potentially points to long-standing patterns of silence from men who were socialized to suppress rather than articulate suffering, and to cope through socially acceptable but harmful substitutes like substance use. Older generations may not have known the word for depression and other mental health challenges during their time, but they almost certainly felt its weight.
It’s true that mental health language these days can sometimes be used loosely, especially among younger people, which strips these terms of their clinical meaning. But rather than dismiss the experiences behind them, the appropriate response is guidance and education. These are opportunities to build deeper understanding and stronger mental health literacy.
Padilla was correct in pointing out that the problem must be addressed. But how we frame the mental health discourse dictates the kind of action and policies that follow. By recognizing depression as a clinical condition rather than a character weakness, we open the door to policies and evidence-based interventions grounded in compassion, empathy, and care. Our leaders’ choice of words matters because it can determine whether people seek and receive help or continue to suffer in silence.
Many people grew up subscribing to the traditional three-stage model of education-work-retirement for mapping out their future. Education is about equipping oneself with knowledge, work is about building a career, advancing professionally, and saving for the future, and retirement is about pursuing rest and leisure. This trajectory has always been a linear way of dividing one’s pursuits into chapters that correlate well with the natural stages of youth, maturity, and old age. At Arizona State University (ASU), however, there is a pioneering community for senior citizens that is creatively reframing retirement as an opportune time to be an active member of the academic ecosystem.
Mirabella at ASU is a university-based retirement facility that promotes active, purposeful aging through intergenerational learning. The community, which currently houses 400 older adults, encourages its residents to go back to school and audit university classes that they are interested in. The center promotes itself as enabling senior citizens to major in “having the time of your life.”
What distinguishes the Mirabella model is that it does not see senior citizens as passive recipients of care. Instead, it recognizes how they can bring their lived experiences into learning spaces. Intergenerational classrooms have been shown to enrich discussions, improve critical thinking, and promote empathy. Young people offer boundless energy and fresh ideas, while the “seasoned” older adults help provide context, judgment, and more tempered perspectives. The result is reciprocal education where everyone learns and connects more meaningfully.
The Department of Education (DepEd) mandates that 205 school days should be strictly devoted to classroom learning. In reality, schools rarely reach this target due to class suspensions caused by typhoons and extreme heat. What remains of the school year, however, is further weighed down by 150 legislated events and competitions, such as Nutrition Month, World AIDS Day, Palarong Pambansa, and Philippine Environment Month. As the final report of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (Edcom 2) notes, these activities are well-intentioned. But the lengthy preparations they require, along with teachers assigned to manage them, often lead to further disruptions.
The issue raised by Edcom 2 is not whether cocurricular experiences are important. They are unquestionably an integral part of a child’s education and holistic development. However, the way that some of these activities are being carried out may only benefit select students, while the majority bear the cost through lost instructional time. What was meant to enrich learning has, over time, begun to displace it.
Some public school teachers speak of being regularly pulled away from class to train or accompany chosen students for both academic and sports competitions. During their absence, they typically assign self-paced work to the remaining students, even if they know it is ineffective for learners who are struggling with comprehension and/or motivation.
