Grew up in a sizeable metropolitan area, in a residential enclave surrounded by commercial areas. The “inner” streets in our area are a bit too narrow for car traffic, but was often used as a shortcut by pedestrians.

We mostly played games on the residential streets, pausing to the occasional pedestrian, or the rare car to pass by. If we do play hide and seek, we can play it through the narrow alleyways of our area or even the nearby commercial buildings (we always agree on the bounds beforehand though). Sometimes, we hang out in the nearby arcade. Rarely, we go to the nearby seaside (as the city is next to the coast) just to hang out, but crossing the really wide eight-lane roads cutting off the seaside makes it kinda rare.

I’ve often found myself in places I shouldn’t be, like off-limits areas in the nearby commercial buildings, even managed to sneak inside one of the rooms of the nearby motel that one time. There’s a lot of things to get lost in around our area and I took it for granted that most things are just a short walk away.

The place I hung out the most, however, is a bookstore that was just across the road from the end of our street. And since this bookstore is also near the arcade, I’d choose one or the other depending on my mood, and remaining allowance.

That’d be giving in to Chinese provocation. They’ve been doing this harassment in hopes of the Philippine government giving up and complying with the Chinese demands, or the Philippines getting riled up and firing the first shot. The latter will give China the “moral ground” or at least ammo for their propaganda.

IMO, what the Philippine military has been doing is a good countermeasure to this harassment: asserting their rights (as per the arbitral ruling, which China refuses to honor), publicizing Chinese aggression all the while building up its defenses and network of allies.

Punching a bully in the face might feel good, but this bully is also crafty and sneaky, that some care is needed dealing with it.

It’s a subdirectory that was created on April 2023. Looking inside, it contains a bunch of APKs related to YT Revanced. I kept it there because I can’t come up with a better location to move it to. That’s basically the same story for almost all of the files that ended up staying in the directory anyways. However, I try to keep try to keep things clean.

Whenever I visit the downloads directory, I make it a point to try to remember the context in which the files ended up in there. If I can no longer remember the context, I delete it. If there ends up way too many files of “the same class” then I’ll try to move them together onto a different location. But if it’s a file or two that I can’t move elsewhere, it’s no big deal.

Subscribed | Scaled. But I sometimes change it to Subscribed | Top 12h for new content (but not too new that there’s no discussion yet) or even All | Top Day if I want more.

I didn’t realize we’re supposed to make poutine out of fries and condiments here. Does fries and red chili peanut sauce and soft tofu count?

In all seriousness though, I think I saw some post about ketchup and another about condiment concoctions and pretty much likely missed (or didn’t notice) the others.

Right now, it’s red chili sauce and brown sugar in a 1-to-1 ratio and an optional pinch of instant coffee. I use it as an all-around dipping sauce but it can work as a sandwich spread and cracker dip as well. The chili sauce is quite hot and spicy and the sugar sorts of mellows it out. That bit instant coffee adds a bit of complexity that I can’t really pinpoint.

Prior to that, my usual go-to is a 1-to-1-to-1 ratio of soy sauce, vinegar and brown sugar in a poor imitation of kecap manis and vinegar. I usually use it for fried fish but it also goes well with other fried meats (chicken, porkchops, etc). The brown sugar goes well with soy sauce and the vinegar (especially spiced vinegar that are commonly available where I live) gives it a kick that counteracts the richness and grease of fried meats.

Ketchup on canned tuna, yeah, I’ve done it. I’d rather have some mayo and sriracha on it, but it’s not that bad.

Ketchup on salad though, I can imagine it, I don’t remember if I’ve actually tried it, but unless we’re talking about sweet salads (like ones made out of condensed milk, all-purpose cream, canned fruit cocktail, gelatin cubes and the works), I don’t think it’s actually that hideous. Heck, I even think it’d go okay with something like potato salad!

There’s even a famous place here that serves chicken with banana ketchup by default, and fried sweet potato fries available as a side. And it’s actually a decent pairing!

Fried chicken, mostly. But ketchup goes well with a lot of fried food imo.

Oh, a lot of Filipinos can be quite cultural in their Catholicism.

As far as my own experience goes, catechism in Philippine public schools is more of a guy from the nearby church gives a series of weekly lectures that students don’t really pay attention to in order to have their first communion. And then after confirmation is treated more of a rite of passage than anything. Even my peers from Catholic schools aren’t that much better either, but they do have allotted time for religious teaching (or indoctrination). As far as people I know are concerned, they don’t take it seriously either.

There is no such thing as a Sunday school here, at least nothing that I know of.

There might be some people really serious about their Catholicism, but they’re few and far between. For a lot of people, going to church is for the Christmas eve mass (on night of the 24th of December), and maybe the Easter day mass, and sometimes even for their birthday (which is basically: go to church and pray for a bit, light a candle, etc.) However, going to church every Sunday is not something a lot of people do. And even when they do, not a lot pay attention to the homily and most just go through the ceremony and motions.

However, we can be pretty wild with our devotions: the Black Nazarene being the most well-known. Thousands of people flock to its yearly procession. And then there’s the infamous vows of being crucified during the yearly Lenten reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion in certain town and localities.

And then there’s our love of religious paraphenalia. Lots of Filipino homes have an altar with figures of their preferred saint alongside the icon or statue of the virgin Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus and/or Jesus on the cross. ‌ This altar also has a candle (unlit, for safety, but sometimes lit for a few hours on certain days). This is also where some novena booklets, rosaries, and other blessed (as in sanctified by a priest in a special prayer at the end of novena masses) religious paraphernalia are placed.

Despite this outward show of religion, we barely know anything of it. Whatever little we may know of our religion mostly comes to us via whatever our parents teach us, if at all, or that scant cathecism given to us before our first communion. It’s no wonder then, that most of us don’t have any idea what our religion requires us to believe, or whatever the bible says. The bible might sometimes be part of the family altar, but often, it’s just there to gather dust.

Just a disclaimer though, while I count myself among the people I described, I‌ later on became agnostic. However, only my partner (who is more of a Reddit atheist, btw) knows that.

Their “unity” is a lie. Even among the supporters of the Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte tandem, it is viewed as nothing more than a marriage of convenience. But when it stopped being convenient, it’s back to the usual mudslinging.

I’d also be wary of Duterte’s promises with regards to China.

In the 2016 election, one of his campaign promises involved going by jet ski onto the disputed islands to personally protect them, a promise he later dismissed as just an empty promise and mocked those who bought into it as stupid. His promise of pushing a claim cited in the OP article might as well be one of those empty promises made to increase their dynasty’s chances of winning the elections. Their actions show where their priorities and loyalties lie. What was promised to be a “protect our islands” stance, turned out to be an “embrace China” stance.

Marcos Jr. isn’t in the clear either, with the Marcos dynasty trying to whitewash and erase from history their wrongdoing.

Moreover, his 20 PhP (~0.33 USD) per kilogram of rice promise is just as ridiculous as Duterte’s Jet ski promise. As with Duterte’s jetski, Marcos delivered a ~600 PhP (~10 USD) per kilogram of onions reality instead and later on, dropping to ~20 PhP / kg (~0.33 USD / kg) as local onion farmers had their harvests.

Of note here is the fact that the Marcos Jr. held the post of Secretary of Agriculture at the same time as him being President until November 2023. Meanwhile, the price of (well-milled) rice is around 60 PhP (~1 USD) per kilogram—thrice what was promised. For context, the average daily wage is around 620 PhP (~10.33 USD).

Not that Duterte had the best handling of the economy, it was however, overshadowed by his bombastic statements and pro-China stance.

I personally would have enjoyed watching their (word) war of the dynasties if it were not for the healthy chance that one of them would win (because any politician opposed to both practically obliterated and rendered irrelevant).

NOTE:

All currency conversions were made assuming 1USD = 60PhP

I remember coming across a similar comment chain, and someone brought out cursive Hanzi, and everyone lost their minds.