Pinoy Facts

  The Philippine culture is rife with mystical creatures and scray monsters. And the most fun part is that some of them actually do exist. Most believe that the aswangs are one of those. When it´s full moon and the dogs start howling a scary and lonely tune, take care not to stray too far into the dark. Last week Grimm featured a Wesen (pronounced vesen) called the aswang . For those of you who are not familiar with Grimm, it's a US series featuring a detective who also moonlights as the Grimm. The Grimm is a human with supernatural strength whose main purpose in life is to hunt down Wesens-- supernatural creatures who walk among us like normal human beings. According to Inquirer.net, last week´s episode of the aswang was due to its Sgt. Wu character who in real life is Reggie Valdez, a Filipino born native of Quezon City. What Are the Aswangs Really? In the Grimm episode "Mother Dearest", the aswang was featured as a gray-shape-shifting monster that eats ...

While the rest of the world travel to seek themselves and find adventure, the Filipinos leave home to find a better life. Or at least we hope. While most of the world can easily come home when they get tired of traveling, most Filipinos banish themselves, sometimes for life. I have yet to visit a country where I won't run into any fellow Filipino. A few months back, one Saturday after work my friends and I decided to pack our backpacks and buy ourselves two-way bus tickets to Singapore. Living in Kuala Lumpur, that was a very easy thing to do as the tiny island country is only about 5 - 6 hours away depending on how long the bus drivers decide to stay on each stop, and how long the traffic and queue is to pass through the immigration gates both from the Malaysian side to the Singapore border. It was going to be my first time in Singapore. As the bus rolled off the modern highways of Malaysia I thought of Manila and what my brother would probably be doing at that moment....

  It's always fun reminiscing about Christmas in the Philippines, especially of Christmas for children in the Philippines. There is probably no place else in the world where it's more fun to celebrate Christmas than in the Philippines. Of course, I could be biased. I'm talking about Christmas from home after all. If you want to get at least an idea of what I'm talking about, let Mikey Bustos tell you all about it. For us Filipinos spending Christmas away from our homes, it's a bit different of course. Especially Filipinos working in non-Christian countries. Although Christmas might be celebrated, the real spirit is just not there. To none Christians the only aspect captured is the material part, which is well, material gifts. And there is no carolling, no christmas songs repeatedly playing in the radios. No christmas trees and no blinking christmas lights in front of homes to light our ways. To Filipinos celebrating their Christmases at home, rem...

    WARNING: Might contain corny and green jokes. If you have aversion to corny jokes please do not read. If you have strong aversion to green jokes please do not read. If symptom persists consult a psychiatrist. *** Filipinos have a propensity to make light of anything and everything. Even in times of great distress we always find ways to make a joke out of things. Please don't get us wrong, we do not mean to appear apathetic or insensitive. It just makes it easier for us to take and survive difficult situations. Here is a list of pinoy quote jokes which I blatantly and unabashedly plagiarized from other pinoys on the net. I hope they don't mind. Pinoy Quote Jokes “oo na, maganda na ang kutis mo! Ikaw kaya dito sa pwesto ko. Tingnan ko lang kung hindi ka magkutis matanda! Hmp!” ~ bayag “Subukan mo kaya na kalimutan na ako at wag ng puntahan. Di naman sa pagyayabang. Lalapit ka pa rin sa akin.” ~ inodoro “Sana naisip mo lahat ng sakripisyo ko! Hindi ak...

Travelling in the Philiipines unlike other places in the world is pretty comfortable and easy. Owning a car is not a necessity because public transportation is available wherever you wish to go. The Jeepney The jeepney is a classic example of Filipino ingenuity. Its use started when jeeps left by the American military in the Philippines after the world war started replacing the classic calesa which used to carry Filipinos point to point. The advantage of the jeepney was that it could carry more people, faster and in longer distances. Unlike the calesa which can only carry a specific number of people not to mention the fact that the burden of carrying the weight was literally on the shoulders of sometimes malnourished donkeys or horses. In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, almost all major roads are crisscrossed by the colorful jeepneys traversing specific routes which oftentimes crosses other major roads where you can take connecting jeepneys to the area where you nee...

2016 will seat a new Philippine president. Will we learn our lessons or will incompetent and corrupt presidents continue to seat on that ill-fated chair. It seems no matter who gets elected, one way or another some people will always find something to complain about it. Why not try to make the best decision on the onset by voting not from the heart. How many of us are actually trying to have a thorough understanding of what makes these candidates tick? How many of us are trying to understand the ills of our country today independent of our own personal woes? And how many of us are actually thinking through whether promises made prior to elections are doable or not? Presidential debates are not to see whether a candidate is articulate or not. It is to see whether their platforms actually make sense and whether they have a clear idea of what they are going to do to solve the issues that plague our country. Some promise that they are the answer to the problem of unemployment, p...

There are a bunch of stuffs that used to be taboos in Philippine society until they became popular abroad and considered the thing to have or be. This is one of those things that illustrate what is generally known as the Filipino colonial mentality. Wearing tattoos Before Hollywood embraced the tattoo culture it has already been part of Filipino pre-hispanic society. In the Visayas we had the pintados or painted people. Pre-spanish Filipinos used tattoos to recount their prowesses in war or simply to decorate their bodies for aesthetic purposes much like the celebrities are doing now, be it in Hollywood or locally. Years after the Spanish era and after the subsequent colonization of the islands by countries like the US and Japan, much of this culture has disappeared. It came to a point when having a tattoo marked somebody as someone who was incarcerated and served time in prison. In recent years however, when Filipinos started seeing prominent Hollywo...