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Inflation that loses the value of Philippine peso. ✏️ Glenn Junsay Pansensoy  ·  📁 National Affairs  ·  ⏱️ 4 min read Inflation in the Philippines: Why the Peso Is Losing Its Worth Inflation in the Philippines means prices of goods and services keep rising, so each peso buys less than before. A big part of this story is the weakening peso, which makes imports costlier and pushes up everyday prices for families and farmers. What inflation does to the peso’s purchasing power Inflation is a sustained increase in the average prices consumers pay. When inflation is high, the real value of money falls: a ₱100 bill today buys fewer kilos of rice, vegetables, or fuel than it did last year. Recent data show the peso has lost significant purchasing power; one analysis notes that ₱1 is effectively worth around 0.87 centavos in real terms as prices rise. For small-scale farmers and households, this shows up as higher costs for inputs (fertilizer, fuel, transport) and basic ...

The Subanen roots of Zamboanga Peninsula ✏️ Glenn Junsay Pansensoy  ·  📁 History  ·  ⏱️ 13 min read The community changed as inevitably as the shoreline shifts with every tide. Kinship lines braided with trade routes and ritual rhythms until a new, layered identity rose across the Zamboanga peninsula. It was an identity rooted in the steady presence of the suba-nen yet charged by the lively currents of the arriving tau-o-sug. As more tau-o-sug families put down roots along the coast, the su-ba-nen found themselves moving gradually inland, their settlements retreating like the shore at low tide while the peninsula’s culture remade itself around these mingled lives. At first the changes were small and quotidian—the arrival of a new song on the lips of a boatman, the sight of unfamiliar color in the woven skirts that hung on a drying line, the oddness of a word borrowed for a tool or a spice. The suba-nen kept to their rhythms: fishing before dawn in the shallow estu...

The Subanen Roots of Zamboang City ✏️ Glenn Junsay Pansensoy  ·  📁 History  ·  ⏱️ 3 min read The Subanen Roots of Zamboanga City Long before Spanish galleons appeared on the horizon, the land that is now Zamboanga City belonged to the Subanen (also spelled Subanon or Subanun). These indigenous people of the Zamboanga Peninsula and nearby parts of Mindanao were the earliest known inhabitants of the area. Their presence stretches back thousands of years, well before colonial maps were drawn. The name itself offers a clue to their way of life. “Subanen” is commonly linked to the word suba, meaning river. Early communities lived along riverbanks and coastal zones, fishing, farming, and trading. Official accounts from the Zamboanga City government describe the Subanen as the original people of the place. They arrived centuries—possibly millennia—before later groups and gradually shifted inland as new arrivals settled the shores. Place names, oral traditions, and local h...

Historical Article ✏️ Glenn Junsay Pansensoy  ·  📁 History  ·  ⏱️ 3 min read Indonesian Cuisine Before Dutch Rule Before Dutch colonization, Indonesian food was already diverse and well established. It developed from Austronesian cooking traditions involving rice, coconut, seafood, bananas, root crops, grilling, boiling, steaming, and fermentation. Trade with India, Arabia, China, and other parts of Southeast Asia also introduced new ingredients, techniques, and spices. Common pre-Dutch culinary traditions included: - Rice-centered meals, rice cakes, and leaf-wrapped rice. - Coconut milk, grated coconut, and coconut oil. - Fermented fish and shrimp pastes. - Grilled and skewered meat, which later developed into satay. - Spice pastes made from garlic, shallots, ginger, turmeric, galangal, lemongrass, and chilies. - Slow-cooked meat and vegetable dishes prepared with coconut milk. The Dutch later influenced Indonesian cuisine, but they did not create its basic cu...