I've never read such sophomoric writing from a national daily. I've seen some pretty bad commentary before, but this is really piss poor. Please, Jose Ma. Montelibano, go back to your cave. And, on your way, pass by your editor's desk and kick him in the shins for me.

First off, the story never gets to the point. Instead the author's wheels come off with his thoughts on this unnamed and undescribed (or poorly described) incident. (Am I the only one who doesn't know about these scams? Ignorance certainly isn't my fault if I'm reading off a newspaper of such wide circulation.) But it's the clunkiness of the piece, and the poor grammar that gets to me:

After reviewing what several people have e-mailed to me about the experience of a certain Filipina and her daughter at a plush Makati hotel, it quickly crossed my mind that a lot of scams have barged into the local scene for many, many years.

But it seems that the scams are getting more crude, so unlike what we see in the movies. It must be a pattern, the growing level of gullibility of a people who move more quickly than they think. It could have started being like this with the "fast food" mentality. There is less effort to know the process of cooking and simply more attention given to churning out meals as fast and as uniform as possible.

Use some imagination: you don't "barge" into the local scene across a time frame of "many, many years." You *barge* within a moment. "So unlike that we see in the movies"? What movies, and which scams in which movies are finer or less crude than the one you are talking about (which you have not discussed at all and never will)? And:

It must be a pattern, the growing level of gullibility of a people who move more quickly than they think.

is not a sentence. And you could use a semi-colon between "mentality" and "there" (see previous quote) instead of a full stop, although I doubt you understand the proper use of a semi-colon.

This is the very same trend that makes everything so cheap, so mass-produced, that the creativity and ingenuity of Filipinos is being set aside for the speed and consistency of machines--or Chinese labor.

That's "creativity and ingenuity of Filipinos *are* being set aside for". And what the heck are you doing slamming on the Chinese, you racist pig.

I wonder what it is that gives the hint to hotel cowboys that a guest can be a victim.

Um, what's going on here? What is a "hotel cowboy"? Is that the same as the naked cowboy on Times Square except that he's playing in the lobby?

How many times on television have been shown pitiful scenes of victims who lost their money to crude scams?

You must have been one of those "pitiful" victims, seeing that you feel this is proper and compelling writing.

Being gullible perverts the intended design of the Creator for His children to be in His image.

This is not your worst sentence, but, boy, is it ever up there. It's almost complete nonsense, if not a good indication that you are one pretty righteous knucklehead. All those human traits -- dishonesty, insensitivity, greed and gullibility included -- hence perverts this "intended design"? Being gullible is being human: blame the Tree of Knowledge instead. However, you made me cry so hard from laughing at this sentence that I almost choked from regurgitating my dessert.

But gullibility has been a more consistent part of human history than intelligence. Or else, how can violence be the primary definition of human life over the thousands of years of recorded history?

Tara Reid plays a better anthropologist than you do it seems. And, how did we jump from being gullible to violence? And, how can you imply gullibility precedes intelligence when gullibility requires one intelligent being taking opportunity of another's apparent lack of the same trait? Those lacking intelligence can only be defined by those who do. Those are called intelligent people, and the opposite are simply referred to as morons.

Well, being gullible or stupid makes way for many professions to emerge and provides a livelihood to many. Lawyers and doctors lead the pack of those who depend largely on a serious lack of intelligence, or the laziness to exercise intelligence, to earn the oodles that many of them make. Common sense and simple education can tell us what is bad for us, what can make us sick--that later gets us into trouble with the law or with our health.

That's it, you're just too plain dumb. I don't know if you're knocking on lawyers and doctors for taking advantage of their patients, or knocking on their patients for being too dumb. Either way, why do you have to? Besides, your sentence construction is too god-awful anyway to merit a discussion of your points.

When I think about the scams that victimize balikbayan, I am led to think about the scams that victimize my kababayan.

God, this thing is printable?

One day soon, we must allow the sunlight to penetrate and destroy our nightmares. We must allow our native intelligence and courage to burst forth from the cobwebs that have imprisoned them. We must break the pattern of gullibility and stupidity that has allowed our national slavery to the few who know how to take advantage of our weaknesses. We must, or our pain and suffering will cause an implosion that will trigger a social tsunami we will all regret.

Okay, now I just hurled all my dessert. The keyboard is a mess. You know what, I wrote more lucidly when I was in high school. I really hope this writer didn't quit his day job.