Love It Or Leave It
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home. Sir Winston Churchill Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, to be put right. Carl Schurz
“ONLY IN the Philippines” is a phrase we Filipinos love to parody ourselves with, often derisively rather than self-deprecatingly. We like to think of them – not us, excuse me! - as a peculiar race, rightly or not; an odd mix of cultural pigeonholes labeled according to one’s own stereotypes; a bizarre hodgepodge of undesirable characteristics that put a bad taste in the mouth or make one’s head drop in disgrace.
The list of ‘undesirables’, or a semblance of it, is rather long -- mostly embarrassing, a little amusing; at times downright funny, sometimes pitifully so; now and then inexplicably humiliating, but always with a tinge of sarcasm that tells a lot about us as a people. More is the pity, because instead of raising the bar of our national consciousness, we plunge ourselves deep into the global gutters – and we seem to take immense pleasure in doing so.
Aren’t we a masochistic society? How did we become what we say we have become anyway?
Not that the images reflected in the mirror are mere figments of the imagination. Reality bites, rather painfully, and truth is often stranger than fiction. However, to paraphrase a pundit, it doesn’t hurt to acknowledge once in a while that this country isn’t in flames yet; that there are people in the Philippines other than politicians, entertainers and criminals. That there is hope, in fact, if only we’d start believing in ourselves more and stop bashing one another like mad.
What is so wrong, anyway, with being Pinoy in this age of ultra-high technology and worldwide diasporas; when good old-fashioned values have been seemingly consigned to the dustbins of history and acknowledging one’s roots has become such a crying shame?
Discipline is an alien virtue? The cynic only has to look at Subic and Marikina, even Davao and Bohol, to realize that the Filipino is ‘controllable’ and ‘manageable’ after all. In fact, when we are in Rome - or elsewhere on the planet - we do as the Romans do, for fear of being deported or having one’s fingers cut off.
We drive cars (the latest SUV model, no less) the way the rest of the world does. We fasten seat belts, stop at intersections, obey traffic signs, heed traffic enforcers, observe speed limits, defer to fellow motorists, and follow common road courtesy --- that is, when we are not in the country’s chaotic interchange of tapered lanes and frenzied highways; when obnoxious drivers are the rule rather than the exception, and vehicles run like rats blinded by the light.
When we are in Singapore, LA, Toronto, Tokyo or Jeddah, we cross the streets using pedestrian lanes, overpasses, as well as underpasses. We throw away garbage at designated times and appropriate places, properly wrapped and segregated. We do not toss cigarette butts, candy wrappers, chewing gum residue and paper scraps any which way but the trash can.
We queue up at bus and railway stations, patiently and without raising a fuss. We don’t bother neighbors with boisterous karaoke singing, all-night card games, stereos blaring at mega decibel, rowdy laughter heard a block away. We toe the line, conscientiously (no spitting and vandalizing, for heaven’s sake), lest Big Brother knocks us off our feet. and rams down our throats a ticket back to ignominy.
Here at home, we don’t clear tables after eating at McDonald’s because we are used to having someone else clean up behind us. Maids, we grew up with them at our beck and call, didn’t we. When we are lazy to reach for a glass of water sitting at our elbow’s end, they do it for us, don’t they? And we don’t have to be rich to have one in the household, do we.
They do our laundry, cook our food, clean our rooms, arrange our closets, clean the sink, blow off the cobwebs of our shoddy existence. Which are exactly the things we do, less for ourselves but more for other people, when we depart for greener pastures or settle in some land of milk and honey.
‘Filipino time’? There’s no such thing as arriving fashionably late for an appointment or event, elsewhere in the world. Either you’re on the dot or you’re kaput. If anything, we make use of our waking hours to the max – taking on an extra job to pay the bills and send money to the folks. On off days, we do the tedious chores no one else will do at our dwelling places. Thus, there’s really not much time to be late for anything – fashionably or not.
We adapt very well, chameleon-like, to new environments, taking on an entirely different way of life like second skin, assimilating novel cultures and lifestyles like there’s no tomorrow. We acquire the local tongue and speak the same like natives, with a nasal twang to boot, even if back in high school we couldn’t utter a straight sentence in English. We change our wardrobe with the change in seasons, dressing up in stylish clothes straight out of Cosmo and Vogue, strutting around as veritable fashionista wannabes.
Nothing wrong with all that, actually. Like it or not, we are citizens of the world – we do fine out of the box, either by choice or circumstance, and we pay our dues quite faithfully. We stand out in the international arena as award-winning artists, champion athletes, blue-chip professionals, clever entrepreneurs, high tech wizards, ingenious inventors, excellent seafarers, innovative designers, multi-skilled workers – at par with, sometimes even superior to, other races.
Inside the box, however, is another story. We pull each other down like crabs racing to get out of a tight hole. We thump our leaders like it’s the only thing we do everyday, to the point of wanton disrespect and sheer disregard for authority. We even compete with each other in being the first to scale the world’s highest mountain, setting off on two separate expeditions at the same time. Whatever happened to the Filipino’s vaunted ‘bayanihan’ spirit? Where have all the heroes gone?
What of the very few who run this benighted land like it is their sole birth right ---those who’ve had their time at bat, and those who couldn’t wait for their own time to come? Aren’t they a cacophonous mix of graying political has-beens who think no one else can do better, and overfed political scions who think they are God’s gift to Juan de la Cruz? They have made it their personal crusade, bordering on obsession, to remove those who are more corrupt and more dishonest than they are, day in and day out. Pray tell, where have all the smart ones gone?
Many of them upped and left the country to break away from being identified with the Sick Man of Asia. The few who opted to remain are securely ensconced in their private comfort zones, steering clear of politics, believing it is beyond them to engage in the game’s dirty tricks. And those who do not have the means to do either become part of the self-styled silent majority – fence sitters, if you will, but just minding their own business and eking out an honest living.
Do migrant Filipinos, especially the ones who have acquired another citizenship, possess the moral ascendancy to rant and rave about what is happening in the Philippines while doing nothing more than just paying the requisite lip service from where they snugly sit and watch? Rizal and Ninoy, nearly a century removed from each other, decided to leave the safety and comfort of Madrid and Boston, respectively; to face the ‘battle field’ here, not there, as it were. They bit the bullet, went for the jugular, put their money where their mouths were, and their deaths fanned the flames of two disparate revolutions.
On the other hand, Joma and Jalandoni, ageing ideologues both, prefer to go on living it up in the Netherlands, in exile so-called; while their lesser cadres have been lurching for years and years in the hinterlands of Samar and Quezon, the two of them apparently not sharing the heroic notion that the Filipino is worth dying for. No way, Jose, oh no.
Foreigners looking in have a better perspective of us as a nation than we have of ourselves. To the outside world, we are a cheerful, hospitable people; decent and laid-back; talented and industrious; respectful and morally upright; strong and resilient; and famously good-looking, as we have a bevy of beauty queens to prove it.
Our country is blest with an abundance of natural wealth that other countries only dream about, and yet we take the first available chance to leave its shores to find “a better life”. In contrast, strangers who come adrift find it hard to leave for one reason or another. “The place grows on you”, they say, but we don’t know that because we grew up looking the other way, not really seeing, never listening.
Only in the Philippines.
posted by Denn A. Meneses at 3:01 PM
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