Until lately, I’ve tried to convince myself that this country is still worth fighting for, that the supreme sacrifice of our noble heroes from GOMBURZA to Ninoy were not in vain; that pride for my race and people is a badge I would continue to wear. Yet, as I’ve come to terms with the realities that continue to hound and slap me on the face in a day to day basis since my inception into the world of local politics and demagoguery; that after experiencing and witnessing countless, recurring and palpable incompetent, idiotic, indifferent, fraudulent and deceptive practices of every conceivable bureaucratic nonsense in almost every branch, department, agency and political unit of our government, there is very little room for me to doubt that this country is ROTTEN and DESPICABLE!
I am certain many of my bleeding heart compatriots and the ultra-nationalists, jingoist types will denounce me for expressing such a cruel, unpatriotic and sweeping statement; that Pinoy Pride-bashing—which I doubt if it still has something left to bash—is the last thing we need to recover from the recent shame and condemnation from the international community as a result of last Monday’s hostage fiasco. It’s really comically absurd to hear Filipinos furiously react to racist slurs and criticisms from foreigners particularly from personalities like Adam Carolla, Claire Danes, Jay Leno, Alec Baldwin, Jimmy Kimmel to name a few, and the TV show Desperate Housewives where Teri Hatcher blurted a line about Filipino nurses, as well as the not so distant incident in Hong Kong where a sign was reportedly placed not allowing dogs and Filipinos vis-à-vis in some building or place—where it instantly became mass hysteria to demand for redress and apology while we fail to take note of our own racial insensitive jokes and insults about other people with darker skin color like Africans or Blacks and our very own Aetas by calling them all sorts of nasty pejoratives. This is not to mention how we paint racial stereotypes about other races like Indians, Chinese and Japanese—calling them ‘beho’, ‘bombay’, ‘singkit’ and ‘sakang’. What about our pejorative collective labeling of ‘igorot’ the indigenous people of the cordilleras? What about our discriminatory attitude toward gays, people with physical defects, deformities and disabilities, the ugly, the short, the fat, etc.—often the butt of jokes? Such is our penchant for double standard hypocrisy. We are sensitive to racial slurs against us by other races yet we are desensitized by our own against others. We demand for diplomatic and public redress for every grievance we hold against any foreign nation, state or entity yet we do nothing to improve ourselves.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that we are not inferior because of our skin color, we are inferior because of our culture. I am attacking this inferior culture of hypocrisy, unabashed arrogance for excuse or ‘palusot’; of cosmetic reparation instead of concrete solutions; of putting up rosy and gaudy facades to hide the glaring dystopia; of religious fatalism and passivity instead of educated rational and scientific approach to problems…
The incompetence and stupidity that we continue to witness from time to time from our government officials and personnel (this encompasses the executive, congress, judiciary, military, police and local governments) has cultural roots. It is us—the people—the possessors of knowledge, ideas, and practices—who put them there in the first place are solely to blame for every shame, criticism, condemnation, insult, racial slur and bigotry that we receive from other nations and peoples around the world. It is our own undoing. We can’t blame the people of Hong Kong for venting their ire to the whole Filipino nation for our government’s incompetence in addressing hostage situations that often involve foreigners. (I hope people can still remember what happened to the botched military rescue operation of kidnapped American missionary couple Gracia and Martin Burnham from the Abu Sayyaf where Martin was killed by friendly fire from soldiers of the Philippine army.) Perhaps, we would feel and do the same if our own citizens were taken hostages and killed too in China due to the incompetence of their police and government. Mind you, it was no ‘isolated incident’ as our officials so desperately would like to pass it off. How many more ‘isolated incidents’ of hostage rescue fiascos, bus accidents, sinking ships, kidnappings, massacres and murder of journalists, etc., do we have to count in order for our geniuses in the government to acknowledge their incompetence and stupidity? How many million more Filipinos have to leave and immigrate to foreign countries to become slaves only later to come home abused and murdered in order for the government to act and put up a sensible economic system that would create and generate jobs in this country? We can’t blame other countries for treating us the way they do—a nation of servants and whores—because our very own government is selling and pimping us for the dollars we earn to feed its burgeoning useless and corrupt bureaucracy!
We were led to believe in a delusion that we were a great nation and a chosen people of God, the so-called new Jerusalem—fed by the antiquated, revisionist educational system and the theocratic irrational machinations and mysticisms of the Catholic Church together in cahoots with the other organized Christian denominations that stunted our people’s minds. We became desensitize and dogmatically blind to our own defects and inferiorities. Morally and intellectually stagnated, complacent of our colonial and pluralistic cultural heritage, we refused to submit ourselves to the onslaught of political, social and cultural paradigm shifts that shook the world for decades, to focus on ourselves and improve our culture. As a result, our educational system has degenerated, mass-producing a half-baked educated populace that could not rise to the demands of a highly-sophisticated global economy and community—the same populace that feed and unwittingly perpetuate incompetent, corrupt and stupid politicians in the government. And now the domino has fallen.
The incident is now a wake up call to our nation that we need to improve our ways of thinking and attitudes. It is a glaring amplification of the condition of our culture—a backward, retarded, dysfunctional and inferior one. Notwithstanding the notable accomplishments of countless individual Filipinos in their respective fields and expertise throughout the world and within, our country has remained poor, staggering and left behind in a growing economically competitive and developing Asian region. We’ve been through almost every kind of political upheaval, revolutions, coups, rebellion, wars and insurgency yet our political system has remained stagnant, feudal, oligarchic, rent-seeking, booty-driven and predatory. A nation so obsessed with freedom yet it spits on freedom.
Where would you find a nation who proudly proclaims itself to the world as a bastion of democracy in Asia yet when the constitutional democratic process of transfer of power through electoral suffrage had arrived, a significant number of the electorate would sell their conscience and political right for a measly sum or favor either out of fear or for outright need? For the past 24 years, we have only managed to march on streets as a mob to oust one klepto-dictator only to replace it with a bungling plunderer and an avaricious, hubris-driven, power-grabbing midget who shamelessly manipulated and rigged an election. Ironically, the forces that our people sought to destroy and drive away decades ago are now back and restored to their seats of power—perhaps, just waiting and conspiring for the perfect moment for them to grab and seize to fully restore themselves to their former glory and political power. How distorted could be our sense of history?
Like most government institutions, the institution that was mandated to implement and oversee this democratic process (COMELEC) is itself spurious. It has never been the people’s ally but rather a complicit tool and co-conspirator to the designs of the power-obsessed oligarchs, plunderers and scrupulous criminals that walk from our corridors of power down to the grassroots colonies of the disenfranchised clueless ignorant village folks. I am privy to almost every sinister secret election fraud committed since I grew up and was raised in a politically active environment. Yet, it seemed every crime was committed with impunity and buried under the rubbles of apathy and indifference. We allowed this to happen. We committed mistakes, regretted them, only later to commit them again with appalling disconnect to the errors and horrors of the past. Despite of these experiences and knowledge, we allowed these things to become ingrained in our psyche to become what we call culture. We failed to discard the bad ones and retain the good ones and instead did the opposite.
If Rizal were alive today, he would be horrified to witness the country he yearned and fought for ruined by its failure to grasp his teachings and ideology—drowning in a cultural quagmire. Whether we can lift ourselves up from this bog of moral bankruptcy or not, a significant damage has already been done to our image and status as a nation. It would take generations more, if ever, granting our people and culture would improve to cast off ourselves of the stigma that mars us as a nation and as a people. It’s high time that this nation should stop supplicating the air it exhales and polishing the tiled floors and wooden pews of the church with their knees through pointless praying and instead start working, learning and educating itself.
Ok OP, you proved your point. Our culture is rotten.
Sorry for double posting…
But my point is… what do you suggest we do about it?
The same way we do with rotten food–discard it, retain the good ones. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes generations to improve it if we want to improve at all. I don't believe in utopian grand narratives. Every individual has to make it his/her choice.
F. Sionil Jose offers an interesting view: http://www.up.edu.ph/oldsystem/sionil_jose.htm
How do we know which to keep and which kick out? How do we know if its good enough to keep.
for example:
Patriotism. Its a good thing. Its good that we(READ AS: some of us) love our country.
But isn't patriotism getting commercialized, i mean have you seen the lactum ads(Panatag ka na ba?)? There are more ads and businesses that take advantage of our patriotism. Some people might not agree but i find it disgusting.
The article is interesting, but it will take more than literature to get us out of this shit. I think we need something like Carlos P. Garcia's Filipino first policy.
Anyways, remember when Quezon said:
"I would rather have a Philippines run like hell by Filipinos than a Philippines run like heaven by the Americans"
I think he got his wish.
[“I would rather have a Philippines run like hell by Filipinos than a Philippines run like heaven by the Americans” ]
Sometimes, I wonder if pinoys mistake Xenophobia for patriotism.
…or if there is even a difference at all
@Anon
[How do we know which to keep and which kick out? How do we know if its good enough to keep.]
It is self-evident. Any rational Filipino can identify the weaknesses in our culture.
in my opinion when quezon said that, hes an idiot, he would rather have his countrymen starve than having fed stomachs
@twin-skies
If you look at our history, we have a pretty good reason to hate foreigners(that's why i think we need a closed door policy).
We've been invaded and tricked multiple times. To have the fear of foreigners simply means we might have learned a good lesson.
@Anonymous
Nice name
Almost every country has been invaded by another in at least one point of its history, Anon.
That is still no excuse to be xenophobic, or to block ALL influence from another country: That was the premise of China's Cultural Revolution movement, and of Cambodia's Year Zero. And we all know how those ended.
@Anon
And if I may add..
[If you look at our history, we have a pretty good reason to hate foreigners(that’s why i think we need a closed door policy).]
By this logic, we should treat ALL Germans as Nazis, and every Japanese as a rapist.
Yes, this kind of cheap and distorted patriotism is among those we need to kick out. Quezon was a rambling cacique.
We don't have to close our doors to foreigners and mistake xenophobia for patriotism. We were exploited because we allowed ourselves to be exploited.
Hi Ian
I probably do not share your views on race (Frankly, with globalization, the term "race" is becoming less relevant), but I do share your views with regards to the political situation in Philippines (Have a few pinoy friends myself).
The way I see it, it will take at least several generations to make things right. And it is also about time politicians stop colluding with religious priests in order to get political mileage.
Hi Roy
How I wish that would be the case about people's views on race. But globalization has not removed these barriers so far.
Race is not a choice but religion is. In the end, it's not really on race that we should be concerned about but the question of "rational will" to improve ourselves.
Sad that the interesting tread here who is really questioning the core of the Philippine society and the failed dysfunctional state – is completely derailing after a troll attack.
In RD.Net such kind of exchanges ( e.g. only mudslinging back and forth) completely irrelevant to the topic should be removed from forum admin.
When seeing the higher than usual number of comments on this topic, I was hoping to find some more focuses discussions.
Don't worry about the nitpicking. It's part of the inception.
Hey, schopenhauer! You are most welcome to post here, you should be happy. In a lot of theists sites, they don't allow atheists to post. Haven't you figured out why all believers are irrational? You are a good example.
i'm not a theist, PinoyHeathen.
yes you are a rambling idiot. you don't need to mention that
I'm over here dude. You can stop talking into the mirror now
yes they are welcome but you generalize saying in effect that they are all irrational, and according to you immature is somebody who makes generalization; therefore you are immature.
is that the way you deal with dissenting opinions, you call them "troll" and dismiss their view, or worse, don't allow them to post in your forum. how tolerant!
can i be your resident troll?
There's a difference between one who presents their ideas in an ordered fashion, and a rambling idiot.
you mean, like what you "freethinker" do with the theists?
Theists are welcome to post their ideas here dude. They're as free to post them as other people are to criticize them.
And btw, it's "freethinkers."
I'm one of the resident grammar nazis btw, so deal with the nitpicking.
i like this article. i hope freethinkers be concerned more in improving oneself and others rather than self-promoting thier non-beliefs, immature opinions, ansgt, etc.
Thank you!
huh? twinskies, who are you talking to, your twin-brother?
immature is someone with a mind so petty he would attack your innocent misspelling because he is incapable to argue against your points.
Immature is somebody who makes sweeping generalizations about a group
"Immature," is a precocious poser who rants about the immaturity of others while forgetting to check his own spelling
I think you got something totaly wrong:
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquirerheadlines/na…
//RP a nation of heroes, says Aquino
President Benigno Aquino III Sunday urged Filipinos to “further deepen the spirit of patriotism in each of us,” saying that the Philippines is a nation of heroes…….. //
And you should be proud, at least Philippines is claiming the top ranks in Asia or globally:
Number 1 in corruption in Asia
Number 2 in the world for assassinated journalists (drug mafia controlled Columbia is “better”)
Top place in danger (robbery, hostage taking, theft…) for expats just after Iraq
Top spot in extrajudicial killing of political opponents.
Oh yes, I failed to take note of that. So far, that has been one of our greatest self-redeeming traits–patting our own backs and lifting our own stools.
Very good points.
You are very brave in being frank to declare that our culture is rotten. It is the truth, and I agree with you. I have told my friends that sadly, if the Philippines would be able to get out of this mess of being economically backwards and morally corrupt, it will not be in my lifetime. Our people continues to celebrate 'people power', but it is a failure. We may never have another chance to redeem ourselves as a good nation.
Thank you. I'll pass a quote from Rizal's "Sobre La Indolencia de Los Filipinos":
"Peoples and governments are correlated and complementary:a fatuous government would be an anomaly among righteous people, just
as a corrupt people cannot exist under just rulers and wise laws. Like people, like government, we will say in paraphrase of a popular adage."
It is striking that the same defects Rizal were talking about in the 19th century are still here.
Here's the link to the English version: http://www.fullbooks.com/The-Indolence-of-the-Fil…
Rizal said that a country deserves the government that they have. He may be just quoting another person of history, though.
Yes, he was quoting an adage.
I often wonder if the the defining factors that makes the Philippines unique in SE Asia was a bad mix – being the only democratic *and* catholic country in the region.
We're too immature as a nation to have a democracy which entails responsible self-governance and the ability to choose the right leaders (of which we have a sucky track record already).
Add to that we are practically a theocratic state as well since the church has the power to veto new laws like the RH Bill that hinge on progressive ways of doing things.
Put them together and its like having a room full of children with only a superstitious nanny to look after them, who's idea of disciplining them is to tell them that Santa Claus wont give them any presents if they're naughty.
I think Rizal already saw this coming… if he's as smart as they give him credit for, that is.
Rizal was right when he said the people were not yet ready to be free. He advocated an assimilationist stand and was pandering about the revolution when the Katipunan brought it to him. Much is still to be written and discussed about this topic. Thank you for your comments.