Philippine Democracy Online

  By Menelito Mansueto, MA MSU-IIT  One of the heated issues in academia today is the ranking of scholars based on citations. It's only in the Philippines that getting cited is a source of scorn for some. So, let's look at the facts. Being cited means that other scholars are reading your work. It doesn't mean though that your paper has no value if it's not cited. A paper has several academic purposes. In the area of scholarship, however, if one claims to be an expert on a topic or a philosopher, it's important to consider the impact of your work among your peers, here and abroad. Internationally, top scholars have thousands of citations, which makes them influential in the field. In the Philippines, especially for Philosophy, it's quite an achievement to be recognized by your peers. We can mention two names, Jeremiah Joaquin and FPA Demeterio, both from DLSU. JJ has 594 citations while Demeterio has 395 citations. JJ's work is on analytic philosophy while De...

  By Dr. Romulo Bautista  Here are some Filipino traits that are bad for the professional manner in which we conduct our work. Due to personal and social pressures, even professionals act in an immature way. The reason may be cultural. Below are some typical traits. In the succeeding section, I will also explain the importance, value and purpose of a code of ethics for professionals.  1. Padrino system is practiced in a business organization or in running the affairs of government to the detriment of the greater good of many or the community. For example, an applicant for a vacant job in a particular company, his closeness to the hiring officer almost assures him of getting that vacant job. Preference is given to relatives and friends in hiring even if they are not qualified for the position. Or a family member may be exempted from following hours of work and standard procedures in a company or given special privileges or favors.  2. Palusot - Some Filipinos have dif...

By Leo Lusanez To be fair, even those in the deliberative democracy sphere have had a hard time truly placing President Rodrigo Duterte on certain political lenses. Despite the man's statements, he can't reasonably be considered leftist as he has consistently acted against the left's interests.  But on the other hand, you can't entirely place him on the right since his policies tend to be governed by pragmatism rather than ideology, and it just so happens that the context during his term favored a capitalist (some would say neoliberal approach). This is why many of you have had to give him all sorts of labels to identify him as - radical democrat, penal populist, and so many others. His actions have made him difficult to appraise, yet intuitively, we understand that they're not the behavior of some old, demented politician. There is sense, but it's blurred by a kind of haze only Duterte is capable of producing. In an academic situation like this, attempting to d...