Opinion

The Philippine automotive market is beginning to look like a family reunion where everybody has arrived in a different vehicle, but everyone wants to talk about electricity. There are fully electric sedans, plug-in hybrid pickups, hybrid SUVs, and battery-powered crossovers competing for attention. The gasoline engine has not been invited to leave, but it is beginning to notice that the conversation has changed.

The trouble with seemingly nondescript sporting events is that somebody often has to explain why we should care. There are rankings to memorize, rivalries to understand, and statistics we pretend to have been following since childhood. Surfing has an efficient solution to this problem. Put the athletes in the water and let the ocean decide who deserves our attention. It has no interest in press releases, world rankings, or the opinions of people sitting comfortably on dry land.

I have had Tuesday volatility exhaustion for quite a while now. It’s a disease borne out of an alphanumeric that reads RA 8479, which, in plain language, is merely the Downstream Oil Industry Deregulation Act of 1998. “Merely,” of course, is doing a heroic amount of work.

Buying a car in the Philippines has traditionally involved three things: a dealership, a salesperson who calls you “Sir” or “Ma’am” with enthusiasm, and a calculator poised to reveal how much of your future salary you need to commit. There may also be coffee, a test drive, and a discussion about whether the free tint is really worth installing.

Filipinos have long treated food security and food self-sufficiency as though they were the same, as if a country that grows all the food it eats automatically has a well-fed population.