Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza
Magandang hapon! Good afternoon!
The term ‘Olympic player’ is synonymous with the term ‘world-class player’. No agency, institution or country today can ever make claims to being world-class without passing through the baptizing fires of the Olympics games and winning medals in them, and any claim to the contrary will be laughed off with guffaws as mere delusional braggadocio. Play the games, be among Top 10 at least, and the team can be considered ‘world class’.
As a development expert, I was asked no more than once to express my opinion about what is the formula to make good athletes. I am very firm on this formula till these days, a formula that I learned since the late 80s yet (when I began my weight training), which I will sum up in a semi-aphorism below:
· SPORTS SCIENCE makes Olympic athletes, while
PHYSICAL EDUCATION makes athletes.
In my own country, which has a very long tradition of physical education or PE institutionalized by the Americans more than a century back yet, we have never been lacking in good PE trainers. I am very certain about this, being an athlete myself (Powerlifter, middleweight division, competed 91-92). However, to my mind, the PE track is not the best pathway to optimize the conversion of ‘raw warm bodies’ into world-class athletes. The formula lies more in Sports Science or Sportsci which is the raging fire in the sports world of the North today.
The main difference between PE and Sportsci is this: while PE can improve one’s ‘kinetic intelligence’, Sportsci improves emotional, social, and mental intelligence as well. During the dinosaur years of the Victorian Era, athletics was looked down upon as mere physical talent thing, and that ancient era (ancient relative to today’s Information Age) gave rise to PE. Unfortunately, that ancient toolery of PE was the one planted by Americans in the Philippines, which is taught as a subsidiary of pedagogy (education), and we got stuck up into it. Bad, too bad, very bad! America had already moved to Sportsci a long time back, while the former colony is stuck up in the mud.
We development experts know our lessons very well concerning our field, and development includes sports & leisure among its facets. The most important aspect of development is the institutional-‘social capital’ side (the stuff of ‘social technologies’), which comprises of over 77% of the success stories of prosperity. Raw materials constitute a measly 5% (the stuff of biotech), while infrastructures-physical intervention comprises 18% (the stuff of physical technology). Among all intervention measures for development, 77% comes from ‘social technologies’—from methods, tools, strategies, tactics of intervening in social capital, capacity-building, human resources and the likes. Build your people well and you’ll build your prosperity well.
Take the case of Japan and Singapore. These countries do not even have a natural resource base to embark on ambitious development pursuits, but hey! look at where they are now. That’s because they knew the development formula well. Natural resources, to repeat, do not constitute the decisive factor in development, which the World Bank & international agencies proclaimed as forming only 5% of development prosperity’s yardsticks. A country such as Burma is so wealthy in natural resources, yet so poor economically and likewise a poor performer in international sports, see?
In today’s context, the moron reasons of ‘lack of money’ and ‘lack of information’ to explicate weak institutions (eg. weak sports capabilities) are simply that: MORON. Those ‘problems’ were the problems of the ancient past. What we have today is a global situation of (a) exceedingly huge money stocks (which in economics is termed as ‘excess liquidity’) and (b) excessive information. Let me stress that: only MORONS keep on saying outmoded lines that do not cohere with reality. And incidentally there are too many of them in society, though I’d prefer not to pinpoint anybody out there lest I be accused of slandering.
In the Philippines for instance, in order to re-engineer our athletics well, all of our trainers have to be re-tooled in the ‘social technologies’ of Sportsci. All new professionals from the university who will handle athletics should get degrees in Sportsci as well, and they should better sustain this with enormous self-studies and a PhD at the maximum. Not only the trainer, but the TRAINING TEAM should be constituted to take charge of the formal training of athletes who should better begin training even as grade schoolers. The TEAM comprises of the Trainer, Nutritionist, Psychologist, Sociologist, Physiologist/Doctor, and not just the old-fogey Trainer of dinosaur days. The TEAM should then be backed up by sufficient provisions at the input level (backward linkage) and output level (forward linkage), the inputs & outputs thus depending on the sport concerned.
This is surely a tall order for the Philippines. Indeed, it is very tall an order, very challenging. It amounts to waging a ‘sports Revolution’, which it is. But what choice do Filipinos have, and likewise those underperforming athletes of powerhouses of emerging markets such as India, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, South Africa, than to go the way of a ‘sports Revolution’, a total innovation or re-engineering of the sports & leisure field.
Even without examining or evaluating the sports successes of Korea, China and Japan, I believe that these countries performed well precisely because they seriously undertook a ‘sports Revolution’ via the technologies of Sportsci. Rather than wallow in cesspools of indecision and mediocrity (eg. MORON reasoning of ‘lack of money’ and ‘lack of knowledge/ information’), the experts of these countries took the challenges head on, first by Japan, then followed by Korea (Seoul), and lastly by China. Look at how their athletes perform today, they lead Asia’s players by many folds!
If one were to ask me today what to do with the dinosaurs, I’d honestly and strongly cogitate to “KILL ALL DINOSAURS BEFORE THE DINOSAURS WILL KILL US.” And yes, we underperformers in sports are dying of SHAME each year, and each time an Olympics comes, precisely because we refuse to kill the ‘dinosaurs of our minds’ concerning our reality modalities such as sports & leisure. Let’s all ‘sustain’ our being dinosaurs, and all the more shall we heap up shame and guffaws from the world community.
As for the peoples of developed countries, better be vigilant about your advances in Sportsci. Don’t ever loosen on your cutting edge, never be lackadaisical in your attitudes, but never be arrogant and condescending too. By being otherwise, you too will become dinosaurs of the morrows, and will see your country slide from Olympic fame to the Hades of shame every time the games are held.
So much for those reflections. Have a nice day again!
[27 August 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Finalist-PhilBlogAwards 2010
Finalist for society, politics, history blogs
Showing posts with label nutrition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nutrition. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
MANILA’S EMERGING OBESITY: IGNORE OR ADDRESS IT?
Bro. Erle Frayne Argonza
Nutrition-related issues and problems in the Philippines constitute a long list. Among all the related issues and problems, hunger stands out as the most highlighted today. While there is no question about highlighting hunger and addressing it with determination, over-focusing on this single issue tends to mask the other issues involved.
Among the emerging issues and problems in nutrition, I would handily pinpoint obesity as the most focal. Needless to say, it challenges development stakeholders to highlight the issue as well, and address it on the same level as hunger is being addressed today. Addressing it would mean resorting to public policy tools, strategies and programs at a national level, and creating necessary institutional frames to accelerate the problem’s solution.
While doing the study on fair trade & food security for the KAISAMPALAD in 2005 (this NGO is a national center for fair trade & food security), I stumbled upon both problems of hunger and obesity. At that time, the latest data from the Social Weather Stations regarding hunger indicated a 12% incidence, a figure that I found alarming as anything past the 8.5% index is considered significant. So I included the hunger issue among those food insecurity ailments that must be salved pronto, recommended policy measures, and even recommended the formation of a Hunger Fund as the multi-stakeholder executor of the anti-hunger mission.
The same study made me stumble upon the findings of nutritionists of the state’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute, which indicated a 25% obesity at the turn of the millennium. That average had its expressed distribution among age groups, with varying indices per age bracket. What was alarming at that time was the 25% Phliippine obesity rate was already 5% above the global average of 20% (the USA’s was 66%).
While I was aghast at the obesity incidence, admittedly I wasn’t prepared to tackle it then, and so I remained silent about the matter in the final research report, save for citing indices of over-weight across age brackets. Today the obesity incidence had risen well above the previous 25%, and certain popular media estimates indicate well pass the 30% mark already (we still need some more update nutrition research on the subject).
Obesity is markedly higher than hunger in the Philippines, surpassing the latter by over double the incidence. The problem with hunger studies is that the methodology is often subjective, since they employ surveys (e.g. asking the informant if s/he has been eating sufficiently or not. In contrast, obesity measures are objective and very exact, as calibration entails the use of weighing scales administered by licensed nutritionists.
I admit that I still am relatively unprepared to tackle the issue as of this day, that is as a development issue. I can only think now of the typical lifestyle intervention to address it, such as combining physical regimen with diet program and a total lifestyle change. Being athletic and a health buff (I was formerly Silver Medalist in national powerlifting –middleweight division), I often offer myself as a prototype of an optimally balanced physical-nutritional wellness person, even as I can easily lecture on lifestyle change and personal intervention to address obesity.
I would end this piece by tossing the query to my fellow Filipinos in the country and to friends overseas: will Manila continue to ignore obesity altogether?
[Writ 28 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Nutrition-related issues and problems in the Philippines constitute a long list. Among all the related issues and problems, hunger stands out as the most highlighted today. While there is no question about highlighting hunger and addressing it with determination, over-focusing on this single issue tends to mask the other issues involved.
Among the emerging issues and problems in nutrition, I would handily pinpoint obesity as the most focal. Needless to say, it challenges development stakeholders to highlight the issue as well, and address it on the same level as hunger is being addressed today. Addressing it would mean resorting to public policy tools, strategies and programs at a national level, and creating necessary institutional frames to accelerate the problem’s solution.
While doing the study on fair trade & food security for the KAISAMPALAD in 2005 (this NGO is a national center for fair trade & food security), I stumbled upon both problems of hunger and obesity. At that time, the latest data from the Social Weather Stations regarding hunger indicated a 12% incidence, a figure that I found alarming as anything past the 8.5% index is considered significant. So I included the hunger issue among those food insecurity ailments that must be salved pronto, recommended policy measures, and even recommended the formation of a Hunger Fund as the multi-stakeholder executor of the anti-hunger mission.
The same study made me stumble upon the findings of nutritionists of the state’s Food and Nutrition Research Institute, which indicated a 25% obesity at the turn of the millennium. That average had its expressed distribution among age groups, with varying indices per age bracket. What was alarming at that time was the 25% Phliippine obesity rate was already 5% above the global average of 20% (the USA’s was 66%).
While I was aghast at the obesity incidence, admittedly I wasn’t prepared to tackle it then, and so I remained silent about the matter in the final research report, save for citing indices of over-weight across age brackets. Today the obesity incidence had risen well above the previous 25%, and certain popular media estimates indicate well pass the 30% mark already (we still need some more update nutrition research on the subject).
Obesity is markedly higher than hunger in the Philippines, surpassing the latter by over double the incidence. The problem with hunger studies is that the methodology is often subjective, since they employ surveys (e.g. asking the informant if s/he has been eating sufficiently or not. In contrast, obesity measures are objective and very exact, as calibration entails the use of weighing scales administered by licensed nutritionists.
I admit that I still am relatively unprepared to tackle the issue as of this day, that is as a development issue. I can only think now of the typical lifestyle intervention to address it, such as combining physical regimen with diet program and a total lifestyle change. Being athletic and a health buff (I was formerly Silver Medalist in national powerlifting –middleweight division), I often offer myself as a prototype of an optimally balanced physical-nutritional wellness person, even as I can easily lecture on lifestyle change and personal intervention to address obesity.
I would end this piece by tossing the query to my fellow Filipinos in the country and to friends overseas: will Manila continue to ignore obesity altogether?
[Writ 28 July 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Thursday, June 12, 2008
FAO SUMMIT OVER: WILL FOOD OVERFLOW OUR PLATES THEREAFTER?
Erle Frayne Argonza
Good afternoon, Fellows of Planet Earth!
The FAO just concluded the global food summit recently in Europe, and many concerned fellows are asking whether there will be an overflowing of food in our plates after this conference. For the simple folks, the double query is whether there will be food in their plate, and whether food prices can go down a bit to alleviate the hurt on their pockets.
You see, when folks’ pockets are in pain at the same time that food prices are prohibitive and food availability insecure, chances are that they’d go out rioting. We saw the rioting take burst forth in at least thirty-seven (37) countries across the globe.
So, after the FAO summit, is food guaranteed for everyone else (food security) at fairly affordable price (fair trade)? And, may it be added, without those anarchic riots that go with food-related protests? Whether these answers were responded to in the summit isn’t really clear after all. It seems that the food body ended with more questions to answer than for a reduction of those that already hound the food sector.
Let’s take the issues one at a time. First of all, the food prices went up sky high couples of weeks back due largely to predatory financiers’ speculations on the food commodity futures. And this speculation was made possible largely due to the liberalized currency, financial and monetary markets, thanks to the GATT-Uruguay Rounds and the preceding liberalization efforts that began way back 1971 yet.
That’s why, when tasked to re-draw the policy architecture for the food sector in the Philippines, this expert, acting as project consultant for a national NGO coalition here, recommended the strict enforcement of monetary and financial control measures as part of ‘fair trade’ policies. Volatile currency and financial markets redound to food insecurity in the short run, as the facts now reveal. (See the book E. Argonza, Fair Trade and Food Security: Framework and Policy Architecture, Kaisampalad, 2005/08.)
Next comes those affecting the backward and forward linkages of the food sector. The monopoly of patents (note Monsanto case), inefficient production technologies, pest management issues, and other related issues continue to pester the supply side. Hoarding and smuggling pester the sector on the demand side. Then, there is the high protection walls of Northern economies on the sector, trade barriers that are nowhere near to being addressed.
There are much more issues to reflect about. Name a contentious issue, and find out whether this was answered by the summit. FAO summits are now turning to be more like the WTO meetings that ended in fiasco. With fiasco comes violent protests as expected. Incidentally, we can’t put protests on our plates to nourish our bodies.
[Writ 11 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Good afternoon, Fellows of Planet Earth!
The FAO just concluded the global food summit recently in Europe, and many concerned fellows are asking whether there will be an overflowing of food in our plates after this conference. For the simple folks, the double query is whether there will be food in their plate, and whether food prices can go down a bit to alleviate the hurt on their pockets.
You see, when folks’ pockets are in pain at the same time that food prices are prohibitive and food availability insecure, chances are that they’d go out rioting. We saw the rioting take burst forth in at least thirty-seven (37) countries across the globe.
So, after the FAO summit, is food guaranteed for everyone else (food security) at fairly affordable price (fair trade)? And, may it be added, without those anarchic riots that go with food-related protests? Whether these answers were responded to in the summit isn’t really clear after all. It seems that the food body ended with more questions to answer than for a reduction of those that already hound the food sector.
Let’s take the issues one at a time. First of all, the food prices went up sky high couples of weeks back due largely to predatory financiers’ speculations on the food commodity futures. And this speculation was made possible largely due to the liberalized currency, financial and monetary markets, thanks to the GATT-Uruguay Rounds and the preceding liberalization efforts that began way back 1971 yet.
That’s why, when tasked to re-draw the policy architecture for the food sector in the Philippines, this expert, acting as project consultant for a national NGO coalition here, recommended the strict enforcement of monetary and financial control measures as part of ‘fair trade’ policies. Volatile currency and financial markets redound to food insecurity in the short run, as the facts now reveal. (See the book E. Argonza, Fair Trade and Food Security: Framework and Policy Architecture, Kaisampalad, 2005/08.)
Next comes those affecting the backward and forward linkages of the food sector. The monopoly of patents (note Monsanto case), inefficient production technologies, pest management issues, and other related issues continue to pester the supply side. Hoarding and smuggling pester the sector on the demand side. Then, there is the high protection walls of Northern economies on the sector, trade barriers that are nowhere near to being addressed.
There are much more issues to reflect about. Name a contentious issue, and find out whether this was answered by the summit. FAO summits are now turning to be more like the WTO meetings that ended in fiasco. With fiasco comes violent protests as expected. Incidentally, we can’t put protests on our plates to nourish our bodies.
[Writ 11 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
SALTY FILIPINO FOODS: ANTIDOTE TO ASWANG, GOBLINS, DARK CHANGELINGS
Erle Frayne Argonza
Let me get back to Filipino food, to highlighting the salty taste of our foods. Whether one eats Filipino foods in the archipelago or overseas, the deli-taster will notice this salty facet of Filipino foods.
Saltiness of food is like a 2-bladed sword. One sharp side of it has to do with the positive effects of salt on the body, of salt’s function to preserve body water in high temperature and humid environments. The other sharp side has to do with salt’s inducement of hypertension.
Coming from a family with a history of cardio-vascular ailments, I already decided to cut down on salty foods. Cardiovascular ailments are now among the top killers in the archipelago, surpassing the once endemic tropical diseases like tuberculosis, cholera, malaria and broncho-pneumonia. Well, the latter ailments are still prevalent among our poor folks, but among the middle and upper classes cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the tops.
The question is, why do Filipinos love to eat salty food? This is a tough though fulfilling theoretical problem, and as a former professor I loved to challenge my students to think hard by giving them theoretical problems. My students often end up feeling smarter with these kinds of exercises.
In this piece, I’d choose to highlight the mystical-esoteric side to the problem. As a mystic, I am aware that salt is a very powerful substance to neutralize and scare away goblins and other earth elementals. During my training as a mystic (by a Guru of Light), depowering goblins and malevolent spirits was among my menu of courses, and salt was a standard substance taught to us in our neutralization of goblin psychic attack.
I can very easily see, based on this information, that the ancient Filipinos (called Maharlokans, or the inhabitants of the Maharloka subcontinent of the larger Lemurian continent) could have known well the power of salt applied to neutralizing negative energies most specially earth elemental energies. Till these days Filipinos are aware of elementals of earth and water (not much about air & fire elements), aware about possible attacks from bad elementals (not all are bad please).
Another purpose of salt could be that it is, together with garlic, a strong neutralizer against Dark changelings more so the Aswang variety. The Aswang is human at daytime, who by nighttime changes into an animal such as a dog or a giant chicken with half-body and wings (manananggal).
Well, as to the authenticity of changelings, this a subject that I wouldn’t rather touch, as it borders superstition. I would leave the matter to a mere belief for now, a belief that evil spirits can transmogrify a ritual practitioner into an abominable animal that sucks the blood of babies (manananggal). The dog-shaped Aswang will kill and taste blood of victims of all ages, as the belief goes.
Taking the above belief as a basis, the inclination to cook salty food could be a preventive measure to keep aswangs and goblins away. Not only that, maybe the old generation folks were even admonished to always keep a pack of salt with them along the road, as this could deter some bad spirits from tailing them.
Now, dear reader, are you satisfied with this kind of explanation? Please try explaining it yourself, and do feel some fun in the process. Theorizing is a tough thing, but full of fun too. Try it.
Saltiness of food is like a 2-bladed sword. One sharp side of it has to do with the positive effects of salt on the body, of salt’s function to preserve body water in high temperature and humid environments. The other sharp side has to do with salt’s inducement of hypertension.
Coming from a family with a history of cardio-vascular ailments, I already decided to cut down on salty foods. Cardiovascular ailments are now among the top killers in the archipelago, surpassing the once endemic tropical diseases like tuberculosis, cholera, malaria and broncho-pneumonia. Well, the latter ailments are still prevalent among our poor folks, but among the middle and upper classes cancer and cardiovascular diseases are the tops.
The question is, why do Filipinos love to eat salty food? This is a tough though fulfilling theoretical problem, and as a former professor I loved to challenge my students to think hard by giving them theoretical problems. My students often end up feeling smarter with these kinds of exercises.
In this piece, I’d choose to highlight the mystical-esoteric side to the problem. As a mystic, I am aware that salt is a very powerful substance to neutralize and scare away goblins and other earth elementals. During my training as a mystic (by a Guru of Light), depowering goblins and malevolent spirits was among my menu of courses, and salt was a standard substance taught to us in our neutralization of goblin psychic attack.
I can very easily see, based on this information, that the ancient Filipinos (called Maharlokans, or the inhabitants of the Maharloka subcontinent of the larger Lemurian continent) could have known well the power of salt applied to neutralizing negative energies most specially earth elemental energies. Till these days Filipinos are aware of elementals of earth and water (not much about air & fire elements), aware about possible attacks from bad elementals (not all are bad please).
Another purpose of salt could be that it is, together with garlic, a strong neutralizer against Dark changelings more so the Aswang variety. The Aswang is human at daytime, who by nighttime changes into an animal such as a dog or a giant chicken with half-body and wings (manananggal).
Well, as to the authenticity of changelings, this a subject that I wouldn’t rather touch, as it borders superstition. I would leave the matter to a mere belief for now, a belief that evil spirits can transmogrify a ritual practitioner into an abominable animal that sucks the blood of babies (manananggal). The dog-shaped Aswang will kill and taste blood of victims of all ages, as the belief goes.
Taking the above belief as a basis, the inclination to cook salty food could be a preventive measure to keep aswangs and goblins away. Not only that, maybe the old generation folks were even admonished to always keep a pack of salt with them along the road, as this could deter some bad spirits from tailing them.
Now, dear reader, are you satisfied with this kind of explanation? Please try explaining it yourself, and do feel some fun in the process. Theorizing is a tough thing, but full of fun too. Try it.
[Writ 03 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
WHY FILIPINO FOOD IS SALTY: JOLLIBEE, ANCIENT SCIENCE, LEMURIANS
Erle Frayne Argonza
Filipino taste is peculiar in that it loves salty food. One who is accustomed to less salty food, such as those cooked in the USA and Japan, will easily recognize the peculiarity of Filipino food.
One is free to think of the cultural behavior as either good or bad, depending on where you are in the health & wellness scale. If you are in a hot region where water is relatively scarce, salty food may serve you well as the salt can help in retaining the body’s water and prevent dehydration. On the other hand, if one suffers from perennial hypertension, salty food could be bad.
Take a look at the Jollibee hamburger. Why do you think is this burger, which doesn’t taste like the originals (European/American), did good in the Philippine market? So good did this burger start off in its early origins that the love for it spread like wildfire, and had already crossed the borders to as far as the USA. Jollibee Corp itself is now a global corporation, thanks to people’s love for its burger.
Packaging has got nothing to do with it. Branding could possibly explain it, most specially the mascot of a (a) ‘jolly bee’ that signifies the happy side of Filipinos (jolly) and (b) the capacity to do things impossible even under the most rigorous circumstances (bumble bee’s wings are too small to carry it theoretically, yet it can fly! Impossible!).
But no, those marketing strategy things of packaging and branding are merely secondary. The real reason is that the originator of the burger, Mr. Tony Tan himself, was able to capture the Filipino taste in the burger, resulting to a Filipinized or salty burger. This successful consumer story is a case of indigenizing foreign food so as to suit the local taste and, ergo, create a big market for the product.
Now, the deeper question is, what explanation can be advanced to explain the salty taste of Filipinos? This is the tougher question which is a good problem for students of social and cultural theories.
One explanation could be that ancient science—of the Lemurians, the forefather of Malayo-Polynesians including Filipinos—could have resulted to prescribing food that are salty. The Philippines, located near the equator, always exudes humid and hot climate throughout the year, save for the few months of rainy monsoon season.
Salt, mixed with the proper diet of fish, vegetables, and fruits, may have served well the need of the islanders to preserve water in the body. No matter how abundant the archipelago may be in waters, surrounded as it is by oceans and seas, it is hot and sultry almost the year round. And so the ancient islanders, who were the survivors of past cataclysms (including the ones that destroyed the Lemurian continent), easily recalled from their collective memory those bits of science that could make them survive in a drastically changed terrain and climatic condition.
Nice thought for the day. Meantime, for those who haven’t tasted the Jollibee burger, please try to savor one yourself. Enjoy your meal!
[Writ 03 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
One is free to think of the cultural behavior as either good or bad, depending on where you are in the health & wellness scale. If you are in a hot region where water is relatively scarce, salty food may serve you well as the salt can help in retaining the body’s water and prevent dehydration. On the other hand, if one suffers from perennial hypertension, salty food could be bad.
Take a look at the Jollibee hamburger. Why do you think is this burger, which doesn’t taste like the originals (European/American), did good in the Philippine market? So good did this burger start off in its early origins that the love for it spread like wildfire, and had already crossed the borders to as far as the USA. Jollibee Corp itself is now a global corporation, thanks to people’s love for its burger.
Packaging has got nothing to do with it. Branding could possibly explain it, most specially the mascot of a (a) ‘jolly bee’ that signifies the happy side of Filipinos (jolly) and (b) the capacity to do things impossible even under the most rigorous circumstances (bumble bee’s wings are too small to carry it theoretically, yet it can fly! Impossible!).
But no, those marketing strategy things of packaging and branding are merely secondary. The real reason is that the originator of the burger, Mr. Tony Tan himself, was able to capture the Filipino taste in the burger, resulting to a Filipinized or salty burger. This successful consumer story is a case of indigenizing foreign food so as to suit the local taste and, ergo, create a big market for the product.
Now, the deeper question is, what explanation can be advanced to explain the salty taste of Filipinos? This is the tougher question which is a good problem for students of social and cultural theories.
One explanation could be that ancient science—of the Lemurians, the forefather of Malayo-Polynesians including Filipinos—could have resulted to prescribing food that are salty. The Philippines, located near the equator, always exudes humid and hot climate throughout the year, save for the few months of rainy monsoon season.
Salt, mixed with the proper diet of fish, vegetables, and fruits, may have served well the need of the islanders to preserve water in the body. No matter how abundant the archipelago may be in waters, surrounded as it is by oceans and seas, it is hot and sultry almost the year round. And so the ancient islanders, who were the survivors of past cataclysms (including the ones that destroyed the Lemurian continent), easily recalled from their collective memory those bits of science that could make them survive in a drastically changed terrain and climatic condition.
Nice thought for the day. Meantime, for those who haven’t tasted the Jollibee burger, please try to savor one yourself. Enjoy your meal!
[Writ 03 June 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila]
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