Isn’t it that one of the key teachings in Christendom is that one needs first to deny one’s self and acknowledge his sinful ways before he could take up the cross and follow Jesus Christ supposedly down the path to salvation?
Sometimes you need a re-boot, a clean slate, a return back home to the basics, a regard for your own backyard and the mess in it that we’ve become desensitised to in order for a fresh approach and a real solution to be implemented.
Interestingly enough, I was challenged by Nick to re-consider my assertion that the Philippines is a pigsty. I’ll re-visit it alright, by re-quoting what I said earlier…
Do we “love” our country? Then why do we continue turning it into a pigsty?
… and for the purposes of this particular article re-issue the challenge to all:
Anyone beg to differ?
By all accounts so far, save for Bert’s quaint clarification of the literal aspect of the matter here, nobody’s stepped up to come to rescue the dignity of the Mother Country in the wake of such an outrage. Pigsty, indeed. Tell us the Philippines is not such a thing with a straight face please.
And then there was silence.
So much for the task at hand of regarding where we are as a people through an uncoloured lens.
My reading here is that the best schooled and most be-credentialled of our lot would spend time and bandwidth whipping up a froth for the icing used to coat the proverbial cake rather than regard the cake itself. Interestingly, for example, we stumble across the eminent Dean Jorge Bocob‘s take (finally, after a number of friendly nudges) on what makes one a “Filipino”:
You gotta bring them here and tell them all these good things you’ve been saying about THEIR race.
Your kids are just as Pinoy as the people you’ve been berating.
[...]
Coz they are Pinoy and you are Pinoy
For once, the Deano here makes it simple. For him it is about race. You need to have the right genes to be “Filipino”, right professor?
At first, I thought that I had another one of my epiphanies:
So that is why racism appeals to simpletons!
It reminds me of how some Aussies for their part believe that being white gives them exclusive claim to the label “Australian”.
But then in a rare burst of relevance, Mr. cvj pipes up with this beauty:
Based on genetic sampling of Filipinos, the combination is around 40% Y-DNA Haplogroup O1-M119 (the genetic marker of the ‘Austronesians’ which has replaced the obsolete ‘Malay’ label), 35% to 40% Y-DNA Haplogroup O3-M122 (the genetic marker most prevalent among Han-Chinese) and the remainder mixed including Haplogroup C3-M217 which is the genetic marker of the Mongols who are descended from the Australian Aborigines.
I’m thinking, yeah, whatever (an example of the expert froth I mentioned a while earlier). My real takeaway from cvj’s “input” is that a genetic basis for a political label is not simple. When you use genetics as a basis for attributing “Filipino”-ness (or whatever else-ness), you will need to cite a specific gene or set of genes that are clear determinants of those attributes. So until we discover some kind of a Pinoy gene, I doubt that “race” as a determinant for Pinoyness will ever be a sensible position to take, Dean.
So now, lest this blog be labelled “ad-hoministic” by Jon (strangely because of the mere citation of the illustrious names behind the concepts I explore here), I might now seque into the insight that may be gleaned from the latest pontifications of our resident “expert” minds that I collected from my previous piece.
It seems that if we allow ourselves to see FV as a microcosm of Filipino society, we will find and go as far as generalising that the most be-credentialled of our lot are the ones that disappoint the most. Whereas we look to these “experts” for thought leadership by virtue of their knowing better — presumably a distinction arising from their hard-earned education credentials — we find a disturbing lack of reflectiveness when it comes to the simple child-like questions. We instead get technical references when all we actually seek is a fundamental reference point.
And the reference point we seek can’t get any more fundamental than this:
What does “the Filipino” stand for?
Take an expert out of the comfort zone of the world of jargon and pompous verbosity that they’ve become so dazzlingly good at navigating and you get a fish out of water. It’s sad indeed. A sizeable chunk of the “Philippine debate” is all about evaluating the posturings and edicts of our politicians. All the while we seem to have lost sight of The Point in all this.
Where are we headed? In light of this question, I recall that MLQ3 himself makes the point here that…
[...] theres no such thing as an unstoppable trajectory [...]
I agree. But in order to stop a loser barreling down a trajectory to nowhere, you need to understand both the loser and the said trajectory. Which is why said trajectory and the loser coasting along its curve should be pointed out and highlighted ad infinitum until evidence of a change in said trajectory and loser can be found.
And so…
You want my kids to be really conscious about their Pinoy ancestry, Dean? I can do that. I can raise them so that they routinely go strutting around their school yard wearing our proud bandila on their sleeve. Easy. What I cannot help them with, however, is when someone ultimately takes notice and asks them:
So what if you are Filipino?
Indeed, there is something about embracing the traditions and approaches to thinking of a culture that failed to prosper that I consider quite insane.
And then there is silence.
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let me press you here:
“Indeed, there is something about embracing the traditions and approaches to thinking of a culture that failed to prosper that I consider quite insane.”
so prosperity is the ONLY reason to embrace a culture?
i think what bothers a lot of people about the questions you pose is what they suspect to be a strong element of intellectual dishonesty in what you write. now this may simply be reading too much into what you write, or oprojecting too much of what they fear onto what you write, but the bother is there and so the unease colors every possible interaction with you.
personally what bothers me is the underlying assumption of cultural inferiority that is the bedrock of what you write. once assumed -that there are inferior cultures and societies- then really, there is no appeal. it is a self-fulfilling system of classification. engaging it only legitimizes it.
the real indictment of philippine society then is that it produced someone who would still hold to theories of cultural superiority and so forth, that were fashionable in the west in the 19th and the 20th centuries until nazism made it simply too shocking to uphold in the west. it continues to manifest itself, as one writer’s argued, in places like singapore, where harry lee has crafted the confucian equivalent of the unter and ubermensch argument.
but to try to engage your point regarding how can people who love their country treat it like a pigsty, this is a non-argument say for the indians and the chinese,and only becomes one when they raise their hackles in response to western lectures on the environment, etc. to which they reply this is the cost of progress, the price of development, the europeans ruined their own environments as they sought wealth and empire. hypocrisy of the west to speak of environmentalism, helping the poor, etc, when allyou have to do is read charles dickens to see the way nature and poor are there to be squeezed to produce wealth and with wealth comes power and prestige.
but in the end it is pointless to go down the path of what is filipino when the person debating you will then point to the glory that was ming dynasty china, and rome, and the british empire and so on -again because of its infallible assumption of inferiority for the native, now discarded identity, and the fetishizing of the adopted western identity: for it it’s based not on a collective judgement but a personal experience -the one starting the whole debate, saying i have seen the light, look at me now or, more accurately, here i am, no longer a little brown brother and lookit you monkeys.
which is schadenfreude on your part but really, not very helpful because the collective judgement has been made and can only be escaped by means of individual escape by means of denouncing one’s origins.
but what is the filipino, anyway, but a changing definition the way your being an australian was impossible to consider not so long ago, the filipios being considered fit for inhabiting australia formerly being the mestizos, primarily. the filipino himself defines himself in ways that may not even resemble your definition. for example, as one french scholar pointed out, filipinos view themselves as filipinos more in the german than the french manner, grounded in ties of blood rather than in ties to the soil. and those blood ties in turn involved changing definitions of relations by means of ethnic origin, much in the manner of say, the germans and italians, unable to get beyond squabbling for centuries then forming a nation and wrecking that nation time and again on extravagant claims of collective achievement.
the products of individual genius or even collective golden ages are due to many things -including luck- and not always the same things; the simple answer to a child like question is the obvious one. who are filipinos? we are. what did we do? we exist, we sing, we dance, we eat, we tell stories -for most cultures that is the sum total of collective identity because that is the sum total of the common aspects of humanity. if you consciously, however, adopt as your benchmarks, achievements of particular cultures, then the relevant question is why this benchmark and not that, and for what purpose -which then raises, again, whether there exists an honest quest for understanding, or a sinister effort to validate a prejudgement.
benign0 earlier had commented:
The point I make is really this: note that it is exceedingly easy to “diss” the Pinoy but apparently hard to prop up her dignity convincingly and coherently.
benign0: if “to prop up her dignity” you expect DJB or cvj to state why another country should strive to be like Pinas (today’s incarnation or a version of many years ago) apparently they can not. DJB had already posted : … SIRIT
And I suspect that many will agree with mlq3′s words above: who are filipinos? we are. what did we do? we exist, we sing, we dance, we eat, we tell stories -for most cultures that is the sum total of collective identity because that is the sum total of the common aspects of humanity. Similar to cvj’s response — Pinas no better nor worse.
If you were hoping for someone to say “Pinas is a great country!!!”, or even “Pinas was a great country once!!!”, and here are the reasons (so you can tell them to your kids in case someone says “so you are a Filipino, so what?!”), then so far no one has met your expectations.
But “pigsty” is to classify Pinas among the worst of the worst countries. Somalia with no functioning government and piracy in the high seas, that’s among worst of the worst — Pinas, no. A middling management-consultant or speechwriter, using anecdotal and statistical evidence, should easily be able to write a position-paper against such label.
So while Filipinos were embarassed about importing rice from Vietnam, they’ll scream down anyone with a bad attitude who claims that Vietnam is a better country than Pinas. [I did say Pinas per-capita GDP way higher than Vietnam's, right?] While Malaysia’s per-capita-income is the envy of a number Filipinos, Filipinos will again scream down anyone with a bad attitude who claims that Malaysia is a better country than Pinas. [I did allude to Pinas having won more Olympic medals than Malaysians, I am sure.]
Apparently, benign0, it is the middle-choice you’ll have to use to describe “Pinas” and “Filipino spirit” to your children. Not the best because no one yet has identified some criterion that the Philippines has been in “TOP 10″ for. But do remember — it is easy to argue why it is totally to use “worst”.
But AVERAGE works. The Philippines? It is an average country. Filipinos? Regular folks, just like –fill-in-country-name-A-here or —country-name-B- here.
In a larger scale, group psychological abuse is the willful infliction of mental or emotional anguish by humiliation thru repititive blogs or other verbal or nonverbal conduct. It goes far more deeper than skin . It mentally beats another’s conscious mind into submission or to surrender your thinking process and accepting their ideas as absolute and unquestioned truth.
A moral issue or unethical behavior with malice aforethougt ( an intent). The worst kind is mental torture.
Benigs can be a bigot, an agitator for psychological abuse to occur. Watch out for further abusive behavior and consistent blogs of humiliation. This man needs a psychological evaluation.
Any psychologist out there. If proven, he can go to jail. :)
It is a BRAIN murder that is committed with premeditation, deliberation, willful or an attempt to perpetuate by means of brain poison, torture, or lying in wait. A first degree brain murder, a human rights abuse. :)
Consistency, frequency and repetitive abusive blogging can be used against you in the court of law. Please be aware of your intention :)
Benign0,
Are you ashamed of your kids being Filipino? Are you ashamed of your parents being Filipino? Are you ashamed that our lolo and lola were all born in and died in a pigsty? Are you ashamed that you will be a lolo of pinoys and a super lolo of more pinoys? Are you ashamed your issue will all be Filipino?
You should be if you really believe the things you say. Indeed, you should be most ashamed of yourself if you do believe the things you say!
benigno’s defense: “It’s simple really” and his famous ” Get Real Philippines” Both can be admissible to plea for insanity.
and then there was silence :)
IF WE CALL THE PHILIPPINES A PIGSTY. WE ARE TELLING YOU WHAT WE SEE. WE CALL A SPADE , A SPADE. IT MAY HURT YOUR FEELINGS. BUT, BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF BETTER WORDS. WE CALL IT A PIGSTY.
WE, FILIPINOS WANT BETTER GOVERNMENT. WITH
LEADERS THAT CAN LEAD US WITH VISIONS. LEADERS
WHO KNOW WHERE THEY ARE TAKING US. NOT JUST LEADERS WHO THRIVE ON THEIR CELLEBRITY STATUS. BUT HAVE COMPREHENSIVE AND WORKABLE PROGRAMS TO SOLVE OUR PRESENT PROBLEMS.
WE ARE ALSO AT FAULT, TO HAVE THESE LOUSY SERVICES. BY CHOOSING LOUSY SERVANTS. ALLOW
THEM TO DEFRAUD US FOR OUR RIGHTS AS VOTING
CITIZENS.
perhaps people here will agree with me that benigno has become one of the most prolific, if not the most productive, posters in this blog. i’m not saying that the man’s writing is one-dimensional but since he has taken it upon himself to write almost exclusively about what is wrong with “the filipino”, he got himself a treasure trove of topics to write about – a seemingly inexhaustible source for “self-loathing”.
i’m not sure what drives the man to do what he does but i’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. he obviously wants to be the conscience of the filipino in the collective sense or, at least, the spokesman for that conscience. one can ignore him or take him seriously – but he is there, like that guy at 5th av & 47th st. subway station in n.y. who used to deliver non-stop fire-and-brimstone homilies with hardly anyone paying attention.
i think something must have happened to him when he migrated to australia – something not good to his psyche.
From what I am sensing in MLQIII’s comments above though I am not 100% sure, he preaches multiculturalism, which arguably has gained currency in many countries. The concept advocates a society that will accord equal and equitable status to distinct cultural and religious groups in it, with no one cultural predominating. It aims to promote overall social cohesion, which is very commendable and may work up to a certain extent.
But in the US its many critics from all political and social sectors have come to associate it negatively with political correctness and with the emergence of identity politics.
Personally, I feel that taking sides in the concept of cultural superiority or superiority of culture lands one in a landmine, for to accept it would be catastrophic, as bad as being accused of being a Nazi. Or for to deny it especially in the Western cultures, would be akin to renouncing whatever they feel they have gained with hard work over the years.
Now who would deny that noble man has been created equal and free, regardless of ethnicity, race, or status?
First a couple of definition.
What is culture? Here are a couple of quotes:
” Culture Is the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artifacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning. ” umanitoba.ca
“Anthropologists most commonly use the term “culture” to refer to the universal human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences symbolically. This capacity has long been taken as a defining feature of the humans. However, primatologists have identified aspects of culture among human’s closest relatives in the animal kingdom.[1] It can be also said that culture is the way people live in accordance to beliefs, language, history, or the way they dress. (Wikipedia.com)”
In what context should we put the term superiority here, knowing and applying its proper definition? (As an aside, one comment here has implied that the number of medals won or the measures of GDP could be valid criteria for judging culture.)
The noun (superiority) has 4 meanings:
Meaning #1: the quality of being superior
Synonym: high quality
Antonym: inferiority (meaning #2)
Meaning #2: the quality of being a competitive advantage
Synonyms: favorable position, favourable position
Meaning #3: displaying a sense of being better than others
Meaning #4: the state of excelling or surpassing or going beyond usual limits
Synonyms: transcendence, transcendency
Now my dilemma has been how do we describe, categorize, or compare the differences in manifestations of cultures around the globe? Even while staying on general categories, like western cultures compared with some eastern cultures, or anything similar.
How do the cultures, for examples, who treat women, minorities, or people with distinct sexual orientation in less than civilized or equitable ways compare with the others? Like in sharia law? Or in many cultures in the Middle East? Those cultures just as good, no more inferior or superior than the others?
What about the cultures that continue to keep their people and ways of living in very crude and rudimentary fashion when the rest of the world has advanced greatly in health, education , etc? Just as good as the others, no more inferior or superior than the others?
Of course, all comparisons on the premise that the term superior be narrowly defined. Like maybe superior in the sense that one manifestation of one culture is morally better than the other? That some cultures value life and the pursuit of happiness better? That some cultures allow greater latitude for man to reach his potentials?
Bencard, thanks (I think). But if I were you I wouldn’t knock myself out trying to figure me out much less speculate on whether or not I love or am “ashamed” of my kids, parents, or grandparents, whether or not I came to Australia with an immigrant/resident visa or the so-so kind that OFWs use, whether I am insane or not or, as you put it here, that…
Think for a moment if all of the above speculations were true or not and then look back to my writing and ask yourself if their trueness or falseness changes the validity (or invalidity) of what I write.
While others are more comfortable navigating the convoluted world of pompous verbosity, others are able to at least take a stab at the question and come up with a few gems (which I can then respond to properly):
Apparently, benign0, it is the middle-choice you’ll have to use to describe “Pinas” and “Filipino spirit” to your children. Not the best because no one yet has identified some criterion that the Philippines has been in “TOP 10″ for. But do remember — it is easy to argue why it is totally to use “worst”. — UP n grad
Fair enough UPn. Asserting the Philippines is the worst of the lot (which by the way I DO NOT assert) makes the assertion impossibly debatable (typical schmoes will cite the Bangladeshs and the Somalias of this world to refute such an assertion). Be a bit clearer with your “average” qualifier though by telling us whether you are citing it as what defines Pinoys or as what Pinoys stand for. There’s a BIG difference between the two.
It’s actually a very simple question with a very simple answer: Filipino stands for parochial. [...] Parochial means – insular: narrowly restricted in outlook or scope; being provincial, being narrow in scope, or considering only small sections of an issue; narrow-minded. Ever heard a more concise description of a Filipino? — Rom
You cite this as a “stand”, smoke, but to me it stills sounds like something that defines us or comes across as a mere quality of ours. America for example has many qualities and is defined by many things (among which “parochial” has also been cited by one of your commentors). But America asserts that it stands for “truth and justice”. Maybe it falls short of that ideal in practice at times. But at least it has a stand on things. That is why it is clear to America where Bush’s presidency failed as it is now clear to Obama where he needs to take America back to.
Do we Filipinos have such a bar to provide us a similar context for where we need to take ourselves to?
mlq3, I beg to differ that I start with an assumption about Pinoys as you assert here:
Rather, I simply put forth a hypothesis about Pinoys and proceed to test it. Maybe my methods are not very scientific and unorthodox. But then Web activism — and now blogging — are applications of new technologies where one can take a bit of license to use new approaches (as those of us who can’t get over their being “bloggers” love to point out). ;)
As to what you believe can be attributed to me here…
… I’d challenge you to cite specific examples where I assert my superiority over all the rest. On the contrary, I do not direct attention to myself. I direct attention to The Filipino. It just happens that I find nothing good to cite (from a collective/macro perspective) and even more disturbingly that NO ONE seems to be able to provide a convincing refute to that assertion.
This article and the quality of the response to the challenge it puts forth is merely the most recent of such demonstrations of this reality. Pinoys make it easy to “re-hash” getrealism. That’s because the target isn’t moving.
Since you asked, here’s one:
Yes, cvj, indeed I am a superior performer compared to most. But is that evidence that I assert that I am a superior human being?
World-class thinking as usual, cvj. :D
Here’s one more:
So what does the Philippines stand for? In my opinion, it is “Average stuff” that the Philippines stands for. It goes like this.
——————
Jesus Christ, DJB rants, doesn’t he? But DJB rants because Pinoys whether in the privacy of residence or in a street corner in Singapore will say that Pinoys stand for Jesus Christ. Pinoys, along with many hundreds of thousands of two-legged creatures from Peru to Canada, profes to their country standing for Christianity.
Similarly, Pinas like every other country(plus a few more) stands for liberté, égalité, fraternité a hundred years afer the French Revolution. And Pinas, like the United States of America, stands for — swears allegiance to — principles in the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights. And because Pinas is signatory to quite a number of UN documents, if Pinas does not stand for “truth and justice”, then we are obliged to.
So simple arithmetic will tell anyone that Pinas is like the many, many, many nations of this planet who say they stand for “truth and justice” and “Bill of Rights” and “egalite, blah blah blah”. Conclusion — We stand for a lot of good stuff (including pro-family policies and environmentalism and others), but nonetheless Pinas is quite average in what Pinas stands for.
Benigno,
Kasi naman eh nilalahat mo ang mga Pinoy. When observing, analyzing, criticizing you should focus on the behavior and not the culture or the race. That way you don’t dead-end yourself.
@CVJ
hahaha! good one. i’m sure its clear to all that he claims he is superior. But is he a superior human being? i dunno, we don’t know him personally.
@benign0
so its clear now what you are after:
“America for example has many qualities and is defined by many things (among which “parochial” has also been cited by one of your commentors). But America asserts that it stands for “truth and justice”. Maybe it falls short of that ideal in practice at times. But at least it has a stand on things. That is why it is clear to America where Bush’s presidency failed as it is now clear to Obama where he needs to take America back to.”
you want a mission vision statement of sorts.
next, this truth and justice thing that you CLAIM america stands for… who wrote this and why did it become what you CLAIM america stands for.
why does america stand for truth and justice?
when we can answer that, maybe we can make some headway into what kind of answer you want to your original question.
Benny For President
Nope, GabbyD, just a stand. A crusade is an example of a mission. But it is not a stand.
And if you think we don’t stand for anything, that’s ok. It’s still an answer to the question I pose. ;)
By the way, “I don’t know” is an answer too, in fairness to Dean.
OK. :) i think the philippines stands for truth and justice.
oops. sorry, the filipino pala.
KA FLOR. Pigsty, he says.
Pigsty can’t be the Fort Boni area and many differently-designed but laudable communities of Marikina, Quezon City, Cebu, Davao and others. And pigsty can’t be the truth/justice, pro-family, pro-children, pro-progress slogans that Pinoy stand for (Ka Flor voted for them).
What I read (in Ka Flor’s entry) is a rant against the performance of the partnership. His rant is against the failure of the linked hands of the citizenry and elected or self-appointed leaders to remove pigsties.
The question is less about the slogans that the linked-Pinoy-hands stand for. To be questioned is the actual effort — what again is the partnership working on? And then, there is the matter of what the partnership achieved.
Benign0 is in denial about the undeniable–that he IS quite simply, a Filipino.
Thus, Bencard hit the nail on the noggin applying the term “SELF-LOATHING” to Benign0′s peculiar convolvulus. This is the name of the meme that has conquered the brain of Benign0.
It is a very serious viral infection that is worse even than those tragic cases of men being trapped in women’s bodies or vice versa. Imagine detesting a race of men to which you belong. At least those others can get medical relief through sex change operations. But how does Benign0 get out of his Filipino body.
Can he get skin transplants, special contact lenses, hair implants, hypnotic reacculturization?
How can we help this poor suffering soul become something other than a Filipino as the only way to relieve a devastating but unreachable itch?
In the Multiple Prisoners Dilemma, you would be the ultimate defector, Benigz. Only in this prison, that is evidently ostracizable behavior. Hehe. Serves you right. But blog on! I am sure now that you are at least a Good Sport.
Dean, what makes you think I am in “denial” that I am a “Filipino”.
Cite examples please.
posted by cvj from benigno.
examples of expression to deny…
both are substantial evidence of DENIAL in expressive form. :)
Good grief, if the majority of Pinoys in the blogospehre were to read this kind of inane navel-gazing and Filipino self-hate, there’d be lynchings in cyberspace!