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!
Total Pageviews
Showing posts with label Philippine Daily Inquirer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philippine Daily Inquirer. Show all posts
Music is one of the most underestimated layers of hospitality. It is the first thing a guest feels when they walk into a room and often the last thing they remember when they leave. It sets the mood before a word is spoken, fills the silences that conversation cannot, and tells people—without ever announcing itself—that someone thought about them before they arrived.
A well-chosen playlist is an act of care. When picked with intention, music becomes its own language of welcome—not decorative, not incidental, but deeply felt. In the hands of someone who truly understands it, it is one of the most elegant ways of drawing people together. That is hospitality in its most overlooked form.
This is where Toti Dalmacion lives. Record collector, label head, shop owner, promoter—each title describes a function, but not the essence. His collection is the truest portrait of him: built through decades of pure pursuit, each record a decision, a moment, a door that opened into another. All together, they point to the same thing: the music guy. The one who listens first, who gathers, who shares. The one who has always known that music is never just about sound.
I’ve always wondered about the following: Mindset-wise, what sets me—an ordinary athlete—apart from an Olympic champion?
Or, if comparing myself to an Olympian is like comparing apples and oranges, then let’s ask a different question: What separates a 10th placer in the Olympics from the gold medalist?
At that level, the differences can’t simply be talent. Everyone competing at the Olympics is already among the best in the world. Yet there is room for only one gold medalist.
Two people can train the same number of hours, follow the same program, and eat the same food—yet their outcomes will still vary.
The same principle applies to elite athletes. Everyone trains hard physically. So what actually sets the very best apart?
I got a glimpse of the answer when a journalist asked freestyle skier Eileen Gu to “take us into her brain.” She mentioned that she journals a lot and emphasized something simple but powerful: we can control our thoughts and our emotions. Neuroplasticity, she said, is on our side.
The brain is trainable in the same way the body is. The narratives we rehearse internally—about who we are, what we’re capable of, and how we respond to setbacks—eventually become mental habits. And those habits shape how we perform when the pressure is at its highest.
Elite athletes don’t just train their bodies; they train their minds. They rehearse confidence, learn to regulate their emotions, and become comfortable performing under pressure. These patterns of thinking eventually become part of their identity, and identity has a powerful influence over performance.
Another athlete who made me reflect on this is figure skater Alysa Liu. What struck me most about her gold medal performance wasn’t just the technical excellence. It was the visible joy. You could see it in the way she glided across the ice. There was a lightness to her skating.
After years in the spotlight as a teenage prodigy, Alysa stepped away from competition to rediscover why she loved skating in the first place. When she eventually returned, she made sure she was skating on her own terms. She wasn’t chasing validation. She wasn’t trying to prove anything. It was as if she simply wanted to skate, and the gold medal was just a bonus. That detachment from the outcome seemed to unlock her best performance. The joy was palpable—not just to the judges, but to everyone watching.
It’s one of those paradoxes we see not only in sports, but in life: when you stop gripping so tightly to the result, you finally perform freely enough to achieve it. When joy and presence replace pressure and fear, amazing results follow.
Even if you have no desire to become an Olympian, the mindset behind elite performance applies to almost every aspiration in life.
Most people assume success is primarily about external factors—talent, opportunity, circumstances. But we see that the internal landscape matters just as much: Your ability to regulate your thoughts, your ability to reframe setbacks, your ability to detach from outcomes while still giving your full effort. These are trainable skills.
Neuroplasticity means your brain is constantly rewiring itself based on what you practice. If you repeatedly practice doubt, comparison, and fear, those neural pathways grow stronger. But if you practice presence, confidence, and emotional regulation, those pathways strengthen instead. The brain adapts to the stories you rehearse. And maybe that’s the real difference between good and world-class.
Not just how hard someone trains physically—but how intentionally they train mentally. Because when the defining moment arrives—the Olympic final, the championship game, or the opportunity that could change your life—your body can only perform as well as the mind guiding it.
And the beautiful part is this: You don’t have to be an Olympian to apply that lesson.
The outcomes we want in life rarely come from focusing only on what we want to have. Instead, they begin with who we choose to be.
When someone becomes mentally resilient, disciplined, and grounded, their actions naturally follow from that identity. They show up consistently. They practice the habits that reinforce that identity. Over time, those actions accumulate into results.
Elite athletes understand this intuitively. They become the kind of person who can handle pressure, do the daily practices that reinforce that mindset—whether it’s journaling, visualizing, or training with focus—and eventually have the performances that the world celebrates.
But many people try to reverse the order. They believe that once they have success, they will finally be confident or disciplined. In reality, the process usually works the other way around. The work begins internally.
So maybe the real question isn’t what separates Olympians from the rest of us.
Maybe the more interesting question is this: Who are you becoming while you pursue what you want?
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.
NU’s Arah Panique (right) attacks the UST defense on her way to a career-high night. —MARLO CUETO
National University clinched the No. 2 seed and a crucial bye in the first round of the step-ladder after rallying past University of Santo Tomas, 19-25, 23-25, 25-18, 25-18, 15-13, in the final elimination round playdate of UAAP Season 88 women’s volleyball tournament on Wednesday at Smart Araneta Coliseum.
In finishing second behind outright finalist La Salle, the defending champions also gained a prolonged break as the Golden Tigresses dropped into a tie for fourth spot with Far Eastern at 8-6 and both will figure in a KO duel for the right to play third-ranked Adamson in another you-or-me match.
That means more than a week of rest and recalibration—with the battle for the second title series slot slated for May 2—for the Lady Bulldogs, who are coming off two five-set games, the other a heartbreaking setback to the Lady Spikers over the weekend.
We tend to explain today’s instability in geopolitical terms—conflict zones, trade routes, shifting alliances. But beneath all of that runs a deeper strain: trust.
When trust breaks at the level of nations and institutions, the consequences don’t stay abstract. They show up in higher fuel costs, tighter margins and consumers whose purchasing power steadily erodes.
We are, in many ways, downstream of that collapse.
What we are witnessing globally is not simply a failure of diplomacy or policy. It is the erosion of the basic conditions that makes cooperation possible.
When trust collapses, negotiation gives way to force—and the cost doesn’t stay with leaders. It moves outward into markets, into systems, into everyday life.
This is not new. It is a pattern as old as exchange itself.
Trust: Original infrastructure
Long before contracts and currencies existed, exchange had depended on credibility.
Early communities traded out of necessity, but survival rested on something deeper than the goods themselves. You had fish. I had rice. We made a deal.
But the real transaction was never just about goods—it was about belief. Will you cheat me?
If you gave me bad fish today, I might not live through tomorrow. If I cannot trust you, I cannot trade with you. And if I cannot trade, neither of us survives.
Trust was not the soft side of early commerce. It was the entire infrastructure.
This held not only between individuals but across communities with every reason to distrust one another. The groups that found a way to build trust—despite risk, despite difference—were the ones that grew. The rest disappeared.
The question “Can I trust you?” has never left commerce. It has only grown more complex.
The same question, digitized
In the Philippines, that ancient logic persisted in everyday life. The sari-sari store was not merely a retail model—it was a trust system.
When the lola said “utang muna, babayaran ko sa Biyernes ( Put it on my tab, I will pay on Friday)” and the manang said yes, there was no paperwork, no formal enforcement mechanism beyond reputation and relational accountability.
Trust functioned as currency. Relationships acted as collateral. Consistency became credit.
Today, we operate in a digital marketplace defined by speed and scale. Yet behavior tells a different story. We spend disproportionate time validating sellers, choosing payment methods and documenting proof of transactions.
In a market where online scams are prevalent, the caution is justified. And yet, participation continues—because consumers are not necessarily naive. They engage because they are still willing to believe that someone, somewhere, is worth trusting.
That willingness is not a weakness. It is latent demand.
And that hunger to trust is the biggest business opportunity in the room today.
The market is not asking organizations to be perfect. It is asking them to be predictable.
Trust is not built through messaging. It is built through repeated, consistent delivery—especially when it is inconvenient.
Culture starts it. Systems sustain it.
Filipino culture provides a strong foundation: kapwa, loob and malasakit (shared identity, mutual trust and care). These values shape what people believe is right. But under pressure —when incentives shift, when costs rise, when no one is watching—belief alone is not enough.
Systems determine behavior
Organizations consistently overestimate the power of culture and underestimate the power of governance.
Values statements are easy to articulate. Designing structures where honesty is safe, accountability is enforced and the right action is also the easiest one—that is far harder.
Consider Toyota’s production system, where any worker can stop the assembly line without penalty. That andon cord makes honesty safer than silence and quality a shared responsibility. Consider Grab’s localized platform decisions—cash payments, transparent pricing, safety features—which are designed around real user constraints, lowering the barriers to participation and trust.
Consider Singapore’s institutional discipline, where accountability is not selective but systemic and integrity is predictable rather than optional.
In each case, trust is not assumed. It is deliberately engineered.
From virtue to advantage
This is the shift leaders must make.
Stop treating trust as a communications strategy. Trust is not what organizations say—it is what their systems do when commitments are tested.
Stop assuming that culture alone will sustain it. Culture is where trust begins; systems are where it is proven.
And start measuring trust with the same rigor as financial performance. In markets where consumers demand proof before belief, trust is not a soft metric. It is a driver of growth.
The question that governed early barter still governs today’s most advanced transactions. It determines whether customers convert, whether partners stay, whether institutions endure.
The world has not run out of resources. It has run out of trust.
Rebuilding it will not happen through declarations at the top. It will happen through decisions on the ground—in the way organizations design their systems, enforce their standards and behave when tradeoffs become real.
It grows the way it always has: between two people trading fish and rice, between a manang and a lola at the sari-sari store, between an online seller and a buyer with screenshots as their only assurance.
Organizations that get this right will not just grow. They will be the ones still standing when others are not.
Chiqui Escareal-Go is a marketing anthropologist and CEO of Mansmith and Fielders Inc. This piece was delivered at the opening of the 17th Mansmith Market Masters Conference. For in-house invitations or inquiries, please email info@mansmith.net.
Iwas able to catch Tanghalan Pilipino’s “Mabining Mandirigma: A Steampunk Musical” on its last weekend at the Tanghalan Ignacio Gimenez Theater, and it was marvelous. The musical, written by Nicanor Tiongson with music by Joed Balsamo and directed by Chris Millado, is a complete theatrical experience. It has extensive musical numbers with great singing and dancing (choreography by Denisa Reyes and Richardson Yadao), intricate and playful set design by Toym Imao, and stunning projections by the late GA Fallarme and JM Jimenez.
“Mabining Mandirigma,” first produced in 2015, is a story about Apolinario Mabini as he navigates through the political challenges and the strife that followed during the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the subsequent Philippine-American War.
And through his story, we bear witness to the ravages of imperialism and how, in landmark moments of our history, the greatest enemy of the Filipino, oftentimes, is the Filipino himself.
A counterpoint to masculinity (and the patriarchy)
The show, with Shaira Opsimar as Mabini, has always cast a woman in the role. On that wheelchair, Opsimar is a commanding presence, and for all intents and purposes within the play, Mabini is a man.
But with Opsimar in his shoes, Mabini has a more caring, nurturing presence that plays counterpoint with all the masculine energy in the play; everyone from Aguinaldo (the show I saw had David Ezra, but Arman Ferrer is an alternate) to the illustrados who formed Aguinaldo’s congress (MC Dela Cruz, Roby Malubay, Jonathan Tadioan, Marco Viana).
There’s an inflection here that pushes against the patriarchy—that the oligarchy that meddled in Aguinaldo’s politics is primarily a masculine affectation, and having Mabini played by a woman provides a stunning counterpoint to this.
“Mabining Mandirigma” | Photo by May Celeste, courtesy of Tanghalang Pilipino
A wakeup call
The play is meant to be seen by students and adults alike, but because it’s written for a large audience, it means that the play is more forward with its themes. It doesn’t hold back with its criticism against what is wrong with Philippine politics then and, invariably, Philippine politics today. It also comments against patronage politics, the elite class shaping public policy to protect their own interests, and paints the imperialism of the West as our main enemy.
This is a truly Filipino production with the intention to wake its audience up from its slumber. It’s a call to action that speaks directly to our history and connects this with our present.
What’s more, the stylized “steampunk” aesthetic and tone allow the play to take modern elements in order to retell the past in ways that connect us to our issues today. This is the kind of theater that Gilda Cordero Fernando champions—and one that I really look for when watching a local production: How our shows utilize the medium’s urgency to speak directly to its audience and not just some form of entertainment.
The Filipinization of revivals
Also in its closing week last week was Theatre Group Asia’s “A Chorus Line.” The multiple Tony award-winning play by Michael Bennett—based on a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante, with music by Marvin Hamlisch and lyrics by Edward Kleban—celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. And the only show in the world to stage it (as of this writing) is the one held at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater with a cast composed completely of Filipinos, both here and abroad.
Directed by Emmy award-winning choreographer Karla Puno Garcia, the show is a heartfelt love letter to the ensemble. “A Chorus Line” is set in an empty theater as 17 dancers audition to get a part of a chorus in a new play. The show is demanding of its actors, requiring a high level of dance skills, complex acting portions, and some really beautiful songs to sing.
“A Chorus Line” | Photo by Jyllan Bitalac
Theatre Group Asia’s production of “A Chorus Line” is a triumph in every sense: great direction, great choreography, and great performances. This is a show I grew up listening to as a kid, so seeing it live is such a treat for me.
But outside that, what good reason would we have to stage “A Chorus Line” in the Philippines other than it being such an entertaining show? This is a show about dancers trying to get into Broadway. How could we relate? How could this show reflect upon our own realities?
What Puno Garcia and her cast lean into is their own backgrounds. The Filipinos in the cast who live and grew up outside the Philippines easily slip into American accents, but when they perform their monologues and mimic their parents’ speech, they give them a Filipino accent. Some exaggerate their eccentricities, leaning into the Filipino campiness that’s prevalent in our social media and our movies and series.
What happens is that, as we watch this revival of “A Chorus Line,” we are seeing Filipinos on the world stage, sacrificing everything to do what they love. We are reminded of how many successful Filipinos have made it on the world stage as actors, dancers, and singers. It’s a very American musical, but by allowing the actors to dig from their own realities, Puno Garcia builds a show that speaks to all our hopes and dreams about making it big somewhere, anywhere.
“Ang Linangan” | Photo by May Celeste
The universality of theater
While not an adaptation, Scene Change’s “Linlangan,” directed and translated by Guelan Varela-Luarca, is a staging of New York-based playwright Davis Alianielo’s play “The Farm.” This two-hander, a brother and a sister, happens entirely in New York state in the middle of winter. But what Varela-Luarca does is to just translate all the dialogue into Filipino. He doesn’t adapt it into a Filipino setting or situation; the siblings, Tyler and Sasha, are Americans and try to reconnect after Tyler has separated from a cult. Brian Sy and J-mee Katanyag play Tyler and Sasha, and as they inhabit the siblings, they make this world real: a long drive in the winter, a brother and sister skirting around difficult subject matters, but a love for each other evident in every little gesture or look.
With Varela-Luarca’s translation and Sy and Katanyag’s comfortable delivery of these lines, I kept forgetting that they were playing Americans. What I saw on that simple stage—a table and two chairs meant to approximate the front half of a car—were two Filipino siblings bonding, catching up, taking into account the struggles of their lives. It was when Sasha made a call to Triple A (the car got stuck in the snow), and she delivered the whole dialogue in Filipino that I was taken out of my focus.
I was reminded that this story is set in America. These are Americans. They are only speaking Filipino because it’s a translation. They are not Filipino immigrants. This is not an adaptation.
Varela-Luarca delivers this Western play to us in a language that makes it accessible to us—very much like the Tanghalan Ateneo shows I’ve seen that stage Rolando Tinio’s translations of Shakespeare (again, not adaptations but just translated)—but by doing so, we see that in our tongue, there are similarities between the bonds of siblings with Americans and Filipinos.
It’s the power of theater—whether translated or adapted—that shows us that the lives of people somewhere else are not much different from here.
And for theater to really have an impact that goes beyond making us laugh and making us cry—for entertaining us—it has to take the urgency of the live performance and speak directly to our realities. It’s what I’m always looking for in any stage production.
.jpg)
