China products are everywhere, even to the remotest barangay in the Philippines. Filipinos buy products with Chinese characters they couldn’t understand. This is just the obvious part of the bigger problem. There are more alarming truths underneath. Made in China Product Made in China Label of a Box Made in China with Characters Unrecognizable to Common Filipinos From the Filipinos Perception Before we go over the complicated "Made in China" thing, let me first share with you this short conversation among Filipinos. This conversation  with my co-barangays in Batangas  about substandard quality of products being sold and used in the Philippines by the Filipinos started on a morning cooking session for a despedida party. One guy complained: “Ano ga naman yan, ano gang pagkakanipis naring siyansi na are! Pag may kaunti pang diin ay pihong bali.” (What the heck, why this spatula is so thin! Some more pressure and this will surely break.) This guy is in-charge ...

This post is written in memory of Henry Sy Sr., founder of SM. Thank your Mr. Henry Sy for the inspiration you gave me in writing this post back in 2012. And thank you for bringing SM into the Filipino lives. Salamat po. Stare at the logo of SM and think for a second on why this very simple logo became very popular to the Filipinos. White traces at the center of the blue letters are an elementary color combination that is now worth around 300 billions pesos. That is Henry Sy’s worth. He is the founder of “Shoemart” which is now known simply as “SM”. On the Photo: SM City Clark as Advertised on a Hot Air Balloon On the Photo: SM City North EDSA Why Filipinos love SM? Compared to decades ago, there are now thousands of reasons why. One of them is that it is a shopping mall for almost everything under the sun. As the SM slogan says "We've got it all for you." Walk back and forth inside the SM department store and its likely impossible that you cannot fin...