dumb tourists, maybe
Personally, I kinda ruined a romantic date in Intramuros by wanting to visit that museum, and then buying and wearing the shirt from Rizal. (you have to choose your priorities, between cheesy 'i love you and this park is so cute' and 'viva la Révolution, colonialism is all over').
And it was worth it, I'm now a bit smarter.
But yeah, as a tourist from France, I was surprised by how dystopian looked Manila.
- Signs and everything remotely important were in American English.
- Some justice court, next to the museums, was in the same building as a Chowking (a fast food chain), which was maybe the worst place to assert the sobriety of justice and public services.
- Everyone had SUVs and cars from TV series, as cycling and public transit aren't that developed.
- There were private security officers all over, as if the government didn't exist, and the ones would could pay would decide what was worth to protect.
- The workforce was ridiculously cheap and allocated inefficiently. There were a lot of security guards for private houses, you could take the tricycles to go around the city. Why isn't workforce more expensive and allocated in industries and R&D ?
- Most filipinos I knew were studying in public universities, paid by state, just to be able to move oversea when they graduate. It's a very bad investment.
- And laws don't make any sense. I'm about to loose my Globe prepaid SIM, as the government just mandated to whitelist who can access the mobile phone network in the PH (the whitelist : Filipinos, residents, oversea filipinoes, aka everyone but tourists). As if you can regulate who can access a public network to make it secure.
However, I have a different perspective than the OP about his own article.
The article depicts modern days Philippines as a 'tyranny', and encourages to 'Let the knife, the Philippine bolo, speak.' to establish freedom.
But as far as I understood on my trip, the country has too much freedom : it's just on neoliberal autopilot. There is no real government to overthrow in a revolution.
The Philippines lack a vision or a dream or something. You guys need to _build_ a state and institutions that can be held accountable, and that can foster a debate to create things that make sense.
The article notes that, in "As the writer Eric Gamalinda has noted, only two things unite Filipinos: gossip and José Rizal." So there needs to be more !
Bolo time is over, now build the nation with books and laws !