blackshama's commentary on Philippine issues

The Philippine Daily Inquirer writes an op ed Sodden welcome about the La Nina enhanced Easterlies that have been wrecking havoc on the eastern seaboards of the region even into Australia. Queensland, Australia is now experiencing floods which its non-believer Prime Minister Julia Gillard described as of "biblical proportions" Gillard has personally seen the disaster which now has shut down Brisbane. While the Sydneysiders and Melburnians are hundreds of kilometres from the flood zone, all my mates from those cities don't think they won't get flooded. They are concerned. The PDI complains that the Manila-centric Noynoy administration has not shown the requisite urgency in dealing with the matter. Mr Noynoy Aquino has yet to set foot or fly over flood stricken Southern Leyte or even in nearer Albay. If he had, the press didn't get wind of it and neither have we seen the press photos. Mrs Arroyo steps into a disaster zone, I think it is Malacanang P...

As one of the initiatives of Kevin Rudd's labor government, AusAid has embarked on a global survey of the impact of Australian scholarship programmes in particular and Australian education in general. Australia considers its programme as a good but costly investment. Last Wednesday and Thursday, AusAid representatives and its consultants held a series of focused group discussions (FGD) . AusAid is looking at the possibility of setting up a network of scholarship grantees in all countries. Australia has been providing scholarships to citizens of more than 50 countries. For the FGD, AusAid invited Pinoy scholars. Australia's scholarship programme for the Philippines once included a private (merit) category and a public (government) scholarship component. I got my PhD scholarship in the merit category. Many of the ex-scholars are now with private business concerns. Since the government category is larger, many ex-scholars are with the government departments. Australian educationa...

Fort Lauderdale, FL USA -Manolo Quezon writes something interesting about Pinoy global competitiveness in his " Bringing the world to our shores " What Manolo writes is very true. As an academic, I have seen that in this academic year; our department has seen an unprecedented number of graduate school applications to our programs. The only reason is that many of these applicants have been made redundant by company downsizing. In this situation the best option to maintain one's competitiveness is for one to go back to school. While Manolo writes about doing an MBA, I believe that this really won't give you that competitive edge. Manolo doesn't write that the problems of the world have been brought to our shores. One has to take academic programs that will allow you to fully exploit the opportunities provided by this new regime. It seems that the academic programs offered at our universities cannot cater for this. Even with CHED autonomy, universities are still trap...