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!
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Showing posts with label Philippine Daily Inquirer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philippine Daily Inquirer. Show all posts
IMPACT Reduced rainfall associated with El Niño leaves cracks in rice fields in Catigbian, Bohol, in this Sept. 5 photo. —LEO UDTOHAN
If the scientific community’s dire predictions will come to pass, the active El Niño weather phenomenon that is widely predicted to reach its peak in the last quarter of this year—with the impact to be felt well into 2027—will be among the worst on record, possibly exceeding the strength of previous cycles dating back to 1950.
Unfortunately for the Philippines, it was listed by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of the United Nations among the countries “at highest risk of severe humanitarian impacts” caused or worsened by the “Super El Niño,” which is characterized by hotter and drier conditions, meaning prolonged droughts, possible water shortages, extreme heat, and consequently further slowdown in the broader economy.
“El Niño in Spanish means boy child—but it has the potential to deliver a massive blow to communities and economies across the world. We are already seeing disruption and devastation from droughts and floods and we expect these impacts to increase as El Niño intensifies,” warned WMO Secretary General Celeste Saulo.
I tend to have gay friends. In fact, I have so many queer friends that I could complete the acronym.
When the iconic monologue of Miss Eugene Domingo from the movie “Ang Babae sa Septic Tank 2” became a cultural symbol in the LGBT+ community, I began to look beneath it. These four lines are an iconic piece of Filipino pop culture, often clipped and shared online because they speak a rotten truth about how our society only views queer people—the life of the party, the rainbows to a dull world, the humor to our misfortunes, and the sidekicks to our mainstream stories.
Looking at my seven-year friendship with my gay best friend, I know how profound those sentences are—stripped of Miss Eugene’s comedic delivery.
“Masaya ‘pag may bakla.”
I first met him in the seventh grade, when he had so many “girlfriends” and “girl” friends that most of the boys in our class despised him. Today, this is a usual inside joke for both of us, but as a 12-year-old, it was a strategy my friend had to adopt because he wanted to prove himself to his deeply masculine and patriarchal father.
We didn’t know each other that well at this age; we didn’t bother to. Our interactions were limited to high school small talk, but it was enough for me to see right through him. I didn’t mean to assume, but looking at him, I just knew he was faking it.
By the ninth grade, we found ourselves being that duo within our friend group. I just woke up one day to find myself cheering frantically for him while he was on stage, dancing as if he had no bones, to “Boombayah” by Blackpink. Soon, he became the friend who would teach me how to pose stylishly, give me tips on how to get my crush’s attention , and effortlessly recite the pros and cons of my skincare products.
Yes, he could make us smile easily or burst into laughter without the stunts. But to say he was just the “funny gay friend” would be misleading—a testament to the exact media stereotype Miss Eugene was mocking. His humor was not merely for our entertainment; it was also his way of letting us know that despite the strict parameters of his life, he chose joy. A contagious one.
“Mahal ko ang mga bakla.”
Seven years into our friendship, he has witnessed most of my highs and lows. As we go through the journey of being naive, my gay friend is the first to see, laugh, and listen as I fell in love—and as I fell into despair when it ended. He became my unpaid therapist throughout the endless teenage dramas, offering the advice only he could truly define: to fight despite it all.
The daily, unwarranted remarks my gay best friend has to dodge in the streets like “bading,” the backhanded taunts “sayang,” and the closet he still hides in from his own father are just the symptoms of a much bigger societal disease; the systemic denial of equal civil rights and the deafening absence of institutional safety nets for queer people.
Having queer friends means realizing all of this—that our society will gladly consume queer talent, media, and culture, but locks them out of its legal protections.
Lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and all those navigating their identities are people who have mastered the labor of turning murky oppression into colorful resilience—one that we should not romanticize. Individuals should not be required to turn their pain into entertainment just to make their existence palatable to a world that refuses them baseline dignity.
Resilience, after all, is just a poetic word for survival.
Queer people deserve human rights, not just applause for surviving the lack of it.
Thus, fighting alongside them means recognizing that the joy and laughter they give to us is not a mere rainbow splashed onto our grayish world, but a hard-fought victory won each day against a society that constantly tries to take it away.
To be queer should not mean performing for the appeasement of an audience.
Being part of the LGBTQ+ community is not only about being the life of the party, the emotional shield for people’s misfortunes, or the comedic sidekicks to mainstream love teams. Rather, being individuals deserving of dignity, citizens entitled to equal rights, brave people who should never have to compromise peace just to live and love, and above all, friends worthy of the exact same joy they freely give.
Alittle over a month after the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte began, what currently dominates online conversations is not facts from the case, but memes mocking a female prosecution lawyer. Her offense, according to her critics, was appearing too flirtatious. They called her style of questioning “malandi” and said she intentionally made the word “baril” sound like a double entendre. Some went so far as to say that her “bedroom voice” was more fitting for a sex worker than a lawyer or political leader.
A lawyer’s courtroom conduct, especially in an important trial like this, is open to scrutiny. But that is not what many of these memes do. Legitimate criticism asks whether she was effective. Sexual shaming, by contrast, uses perceptions of her femininity or sexuality to question her character and credibility.
The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental democracy organization, identifies sexualization and objectification as recurring forms of gendered disinformation used to humiliate women and undermine perceptions of their professional capacity. The implicit argument behind sexual shaming as a tactic is that if a woman can be made to appear morally questionable, then her trustworthiness and professional legitimacy become questionable too—overshadowing the merits of her education, experience, and overall performance.
This is not just a Philippine problem, but a regional issue that cannot be ignored. A 2025 study by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), conducted in partnership with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, found that 60 percent of women lawmakers surveyed across the Asia-Pacific had been targeted online by hate speech, disinformation, image-based abuse, or doxxing. That is the highest rate for this type of abuse in any of the IPU’s regional studies, and an important reminder that making political spaces safer for women needs to be an urgent priority.
Advances in deepfake technology have also compounded the problem and made this tactic easier to weaponize. Female leaders are targets for fabricated, nonconsensual sexual imagery designed to discredit them. The result is a hostile environment that makes it harder for women in leadership, and for those in the pipeline, to thrive.
Repetition alone can also do significant damage. Hear a sexual rumor or joke often enough and it can become attached to a woman’s name in the public mind, whether or not it is true. That is why I have deliberately withheld the lawyer’s name. I want to discuss the issue without contributing further to that association.
What makes the issue even more insidious is that no version of womanhood is safe. A woman can be attacked for appearing too sexual, labeled promiscuous and immoral. She can be attacked for being insufficiently feminine, deemed bossy, abrasive, and unsympathetic. And then she can also be attacked for being overly feminine, too soft and emotional, and therefore unfit to lead. Research shows that women leaders often feel pressured to shift between masculine and feminine styles to satisfy these conflicting expectations and maintain both credibility and likeability.
Ultimately, women are often judged not just on their performance as leaders, but on whether they conform to society’s expectations of how a woman should act. And whereas men are often afforded a wider margin for error—where scandals involving sexual misconduct or personal failings do not immediately compromise perceptions of their credibility—women leaders are easily judged as unfit to lead after a slight misstep or deviation from the ideal.
Sexual shaming and other forms of sexism against women in politics threaten both democratic participation and inclusive governance. Unfortunately, too often, our lawmakers are part of the problem. Last week, Sen. Raffy Tulfo said the prosecution should be careful not to bring in “pa-cute” lawyers. He could have used his platform to condemn the vicious online comments and steer the discussion back to the merits of the prosecution’s case. Instead, his remarks inadvertently reinforced the sexist framing behind the attacks. I applaud House prosecution counsel Atty. Lorna Kapunan for immediately calling him out and reminding him that it was the Senate that passed the safe spaces law and should model those standards in political discourse.
The rest of us have a role too. For every sexist meme or demeaning comment, we can push back by centering the substance of a woman’s argument and body of work. We can remind lawmakers that criticism should never cross the line into misogyny and hold to account those who do.
Because while the public argues about a lawyer’s tone, almost no one is discussing the merits of the case. The memes have effectively crowded out the very thing the public is supposed to be watching: an accountability process involving the second-highest official in the land.
Philippines stocks edged lower on Friday, extending their losing streak to five sessions as high oil prices, elevated Treasury yields and a weak peso weighed on investor sentiment.
The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) slipped 0.01 percent, or 0.44 points, to close at 5,629.03.
“Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider.”
The first was popularized by the counselor John Gray in 1992 to express the differences between the two sexes. The second is a schoolyard rhyme used by young girls to shoo away the taunts of their male classmates.
Be it innately biological or socially constructed, at this age, young boys are less likely to bare their emotions, as they would rather bare their teeth. Boys are indeed rougher, more rambunctious, more loud and mischievous: no wonder the term boisterous sounds like it has the word “boy” built into it. And it carries on through high school and into the early years of college. But when these boys, now young men, are exposed to the culture of higher learning in academia; they come to realize the aesthetic aspects of life that are far more entertaining than the drivel they were used to in their youth.
Art, culture, music, film, literature—all these things suddenly become a more dominant dimension in their lives. It usually occurs at the point in late adolescent development when they become more interested in things other than themselves. The development of a boy to a young man begins in the crucible of genuine life experiences, compounded by the beauty and truth these experiences reveal. And this beauty and truth is reflected and further extended in the art and aesthetic around them.
These young men begin to read, to listen, to seek, and to curate what they seek. They begin to think more deeply, to contemplate. The general anxiety of achievement that hangs before most young men no doubt helps fuel this attitude. They begin to pay attention to what they wear, and to how the outside can more accurately reflect the inside. Their tastes move beyond mere chorizo and chicken (though we still indulge) and they take their first sip of bitter coffee or grassy-tasting tea. And they seem to like it.
All of a sudden, they realize that the outside is more conducive to genuine experiences than the inside. They go out more, and they either revel in nature and sport or in the quiet solitude of a cafe they have chosen to gatekeep from others. Young men, be they the brusque and highly masculine or the quaint and intellectual, seek to enrich their “experiencing” as most men do. That’s why—for the most part— we like classical literature, traditional or Greco-Roman aesthetics, and/or dream of pursuits of grandeur that give our life meaning beyond our boyish compulsions.
Why would one ever hate that?
There is a popular and persisting notion that the only thing that truly motivates the male animal is carnal desire. From that, another notion springs forth: that men only act “cultured” to attract women. These men have been called performative. I do not deny their existence. But when a label like that is thrown into a crowd, the explosion usually maims innocent bystanders, too. And when people started calling them “performative,” seemingly all men became more anxious to explore their aesthetic sensibilities. At least in public. Now that that label has died down in relevance, I invite my fellow young men to go out and enjoy their aesthetic pursuits in peace.
Sartre called this “the Gaze”; be it the gaze of women, the gaze of other men, or the gaze of society. This “gaze” casts a shadow of doubt and anxiety that threatens the freedom and autonomy of an individual and leads them to live their life in bad faith. That they shouldn’t be themselves, but be someone else more socially acceptable. And there is nothing more performative, in my mind, than that. Authenticity is a golden apple at this time of our lives, but we must keep reaching for it. And in reaching for it, we must live freely and authentically for it. For when you perform a character, all the praise and adulation goes to that character, not to you, not to who you truly are. Just as fans can come to hate a character and adore its actor, in “performance,” you furnish a pagan idol for worship that only looks like you, but isn’t actually you.
Read your favorite book, order your favorite coffee, play your guitar or violin wherever you want to, speak your mind freely on things you believe in. Be moral, be ethical, of course. But in the space between the good and the bad, you have the freedom to seek the experiences that will build you up to who you will be one day. To perform a character is to build a facade, a facade that one day might not be stable enough for you to stand on. In Montaigne’s own words, “I shall see to it, if I can, that my death makes no statement that my life has not made already.”
Don’t worry, you are not “performative.” You’re just a dude, we all are.
Philippine stocks bounced back on Friday as bargain hunters returned after five straight sessions of losses, while strong foreign buying provided additional support.
The benchmark Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) climbed 1.67 percent, or 95.95 points, to close at 5,825.97.
Luis Limlingan, head of sales at Regina Capital Development Corp., said market sentiment improved following expectations that local gas prices could decline next week, easing some cost pressures.
“Sentiment was further supported by reports that US and Iranian negotiators are exploring a phased deal that could see Tehran reopen the Strait of Hormuz and Washington lift its blockade of Iranian ports,” Limlingan said.
Foreign investors were net buyers, posting net inflows of P2.85 billion.
This helped lift the market despite lingering concerns over the country’s macroeconomic environment.
Trading activity, however, remained tepid. Net value turnover stood at P5.21 billion as many investors stayed on the sidelines due to persistent downside risks, according to Philstocks Financial Inc.
All sectoral indices finished in positive territory. Services led the advance after rising 3.22 percent.
International Container Terminal Services Inc. was the strongest performer among PSEi members. Shares of the port operator climbed 3.95 percent to P920 each.
Semirara Mining and Power Corp., meanwhile, was the main index laggard. Its shares fell 4.5 percent to P15.28.
Alex Eala | Photo by Matthew Stock-man/Getty Images via AFP
In 2026, we’re reaching a point where Pinoy Pride no longer feels forced onto anyone with a drop of Filipino blood. Alex Eala’s been making tennis history, Olivia Rodrigo’s cemented her pop princess status, while Sophia Laforteza of Katseye and the members of Bini have been soaring to new career heights after their Coachella sets—and yes, ube’s the new matcha.
For a nation whose global news headlines usually revolve around natural disasters and political corruption, these wins are quite the comforting distraction. They also beg the question: Is the Philippines finally developing its own soft power?
Sophia Laforteza | Photo from sophia_laforteza/InstagramBini at Coachella | Photo from @bini_ph/Instagram
Soft power equals cool
Soft power is a term that refers to a country’s ability to influence and persuade people without the use of military or other coercive means. For countries like ours that don’t necessarily have or need strong militant forces, we can consider soft power as a culture of coolness.
Soft power brings in new tourists, TikTok vlogs that romanticize what you may consider mundane about your country, and the priceless recognition of your nation and culture as something “cool.”
All thanks to soft power, Japan exceptionally rebuilt its image after World War II, and South Korea became a global force to be reckoned with through the Hallyu wave after experiencing financial crises. Everyone being in a “very Chinese time of their lives” is another form of soft power—albeit a bit more unserious.
Soft power is more than capable of becoming a launchpad for countries that would otherwise be overlooked or overshadowed. For a country as multicultural as the Philippines, the development of tangible soft power could spell wonders for our already exceptional creative industries—as well as a solidified identity that no longer gets conflated with Latin American or Pacific Islander cultures.
Olivia Rodrigo (AP Photo_Chris Pizzello)
Everybody gets more Filipino now
There’s an apartment in Monaco that’s probably blasting Rodrigo’s newest album as we speak. That flat is probably owned by Anya Granados, the only Filipina journalist who’s accredited to cover Formula 1, Formula 2, and Formula E.
Like the newly crowned pop princess, Granados is also a mixed Filipina working to put the Philippines on the map in industries that have traditionally leaned Western. From mainstream pop music to motorsport, it’s initially been rare to see Asian voices at the forefront, but recent years are turning the tide there.
“Olivia has reached a point where her Filipino identity doesn’t have to be introduced to a Western audience as a novelty or an educational footnote,” Granados shares. “It simply exists within the global cultural picture she occupies. She is Filipina American, but she is also one of the biggest young artists in the world.”
“When she brings Filipino elements into that world, millions of people encounter them without being told, ‘here is a Filipino person you should know.’ They are simply encountering her,” she adds.
The world has been consuming Filipino culture for years
This distinction is of particular importance: for Granados, the world has been consuming Filipino culture for years. It just wasn’t paying attention to what was Filipino. In the early 2000s, we already had stars like Enrique Iglesias, Shay Mitchell, Nicole Scherzinger, and Vanessa Hudgens who had Filipino heritage, one way or another.
“There was a real pressure to assimilate, sometimes even to distance yourself from being Filipino,” as per Granados.
That pressure is a natural side effect of centuries’ worth of colonial mentality, despite an overwhelming Filipino presence scattered across the globe through our diaspora, and the “unusual amount of raw material” we have in music, fashion, beauty, food, film, literature, design, and sport. Raw materials like capiz shells and ylang-ylang, for example, are often associated with luxury and opulence first (see Ibiza-style dresses and Chanel No. 5), and their Filipino-ness second.
Anchored in their Filipina identity
What makes Rodrigo and Eala’s ascents to superstardom extra admirable is the visceral shift from that urge to distance oneself. Rodrigo and Eala are consistently anchoring their Filipina identity when they’re making their press rounds.
(Unless one lives under a rock, they’re bound to know about the aforementioned stars’ Filipino roots because they make where they hail from crystal clear.)
By doing so, they and their successes become instrumental in developing a more positive and nuanced view of Filipino people, which is important when the Western world still tends to associate Filipinos with the stereotypical roles of caregivers, nurses, and service workers.
Crab islands
What do Liza Soberano and Eala have in common, aside from being Filipinas making waves across the globe? They both prove how the Philippines is a country that loves to celebrate winners but cannot get itself to celebrate the process that makes them winners.
“Once there is a medal, a championship, a ranking, a record, suddenly everyone wants to claim them. But the years of development that came before the victory: the money, coaching, travel, sacrifices, and uncertainty, are much less glamorous and therefore much harder to get people excited about,” shares Granados.
Sports like tennis, gymnastics, and weightlifting only started to become palatable to a Filipino audience when Eala, Carlos Yulo, and Hidilyn Diaz started winning internationally. Prior to that (and honestly, even after that), we as a society only cared about basketball.
Similarly, before “Forgotten Island” became the highest-rated DreamWorks film at debut, people were too busy calling Liza Soberano an ungrateful woman for burning bridges in the Philippines.
These are just a few examples of the crab mentality that pervades the Filipino people. Generations raised on “hiya” and “utang na loob” make up a volatile Molotov cocktail that teaches us to look down on people trying to make a better life for themselves.
That’s why it’s easy to call people social climbers, ingrates, and other insulting terms: Filipino crab mentality tells us that if we can’t have something, other people can’t and shouldn’t either.
Filipinos will only continue to make waves across different industries globally from here on out. For Granados, she fears that as we develop stronger cultural exports, the culture takes off before the people do.
“Something so specifically Filipino has traveled far enough to become commercially desirable in a place where Filipinos themselves are barely present,” she says as she recounts that irony.
While a development of soft power is mostly ideal and desirable, we have to exercise caution because we might end up exporting our problems alongside our culture.
A timeless example of this would be the distinctly Filipino value of resilience. Yes, there’s something beautiful about it, but there’s also something disconcerting about the concept of celebrating an ability to survive unsurvivable conditions.
Celebrating global success versus seeking validation from the West
Granados also thinks that we ought to strike a balance between celebrating global Filipino success and treating Western recognition as a final stamp of legitimacy on our culture.
“I hope we learn to support every kind of Filipino—not just the well-spoken, half-white person who wins a beauty pageant crown, the middle- and upper-class athlete who makes it into an elite sporting system, or the actor whose Filipino heritage we discover only after they’ve become famous abroad,” she says.
“Because if we only support something once it is aspirational, we never give ordinary people the opportunity to become extraordinary,” she adds.
That said, the true power lies in learning how to celebrate and build bridges for the wins of our people while simultaneously unlearning the urge to tear people down for exercising some form of upward mobility.
“I’d rather the Filipino value we export be: your success doesn’t diminish mine, and my success doesn’t have to come at your expense,” she ends.
