It seems that this whole Valentine’s Day Invasion (by the way, wrongly labelled by moi considering that it actually happened on the 13th) initiated a sort-of coming to terms with the reality of the burgis-ness of the small minority of Filipinos who read content off and inhabit that subset of the Pinoy blogosphere that I have come to be familiar with. Notable is Rom‘s three-part exposition — or more appropriately soul-searching — on the subject of the jologs-and-”us” ending with her piece Not the Enemy which collectively inspired my own Enclavement.
Now Stuart-Santiago‘s OMGWTFIDONTWANTTODIE, while in the context of Alex Maximo’s own reflections on the topic accepting that such a line between “us” and “them” exists, undertakes a tepid attempt to reconcile her burgis-ness and her regard for the jologs:
we are them. they are us. ang sakit ng kalingkingan ay sakit ng buong katawan. being burgis but concerned for the masa shouldn’t, doesn’t have to, be so hard. some tibaks have gotten the hang of it and do a pretty good job at balancing things
Indeed, “that clear line drawn between the jologs and the burgis” is very real, which is where my slight begging to differ here comes from. Being concerned for the jologs is hard, when you consider that most of us “burgis” grew up under circumstances in which being unconcerned was just too easy. So ingrained is this line in the psyche of the Pinoy burgis that in a very primal fight-or-flight situation it remains clear to most; so much so that …
[...] even some of the kindest people I know who were in the Fair that night drew the line between themselves and the jologs.
… as observed by Maximo.
As far as the circumstances surrounding the Valentine’s Day Invasion is concerned, where the line was drawn was clear: it was between the U.P.’s students/faculty and the “outsiders”. In general though, I’d argue that for most, the line exists between those who studied in private schools and those who studied in public schools — something that is real, as a matter of fact, within the U.P. itself. Indeed, within the U.P. the student body is also polarised between the U.P.-qualified jologs and the U.P. qualified burgis. In an institution in which the only criteria for inclusion (in most cases, that is) is academic and intellectual prowess, this is not surprising.
As evident, even here in FV, the level of intellectual and academic achievement does not distinguish the jolog from the true burgis, as evident in the way the whole Obama itinerary is now being pitched as the dramatic “snub” and a “slap” against our venerable Republic in the way that appeals to our jolog sensibilities, and in much the same way as Filipino movies abound with scenes of face-slapping, catfights, and campily-scripted shouting matches set in the Dorian-styled mansions that come straight out of the jolog imaginations of the industry’s set designers. [Addendum: Rom apparently beat me to the punch on this one here.]
To be fair, many have asserted that because of their presumed access to better-quality primary and secondary private education the burgis enjoy an advantage over the rest in a competition for a slot in the U.P. (progressively skewing the demographic towards the burgis as a result). The competition is particularly tough for slots within its Diliman campus, and specifically cutthroat for the handful of quota courses that are perceived to be tickets to lucrative careers in multinational corporations. One gets a bit of the sense of the Darwinian way by which unit upon unit of social advantage is built up — at some point collectively resulting in the emergence of the burgis “species”. It highlights the utter futility of socialism of which the U.P. was intended to be an educational bastion.
Hmmmm. Because I ducked out for a quick coffee in the middle of writing this piece, I now find myself struggling to make a point after writing all of the above. So I’ll take the easy way out and make it all about what deep inside is my favourite topic — me.
I was born, bred, and educated at one of the epicentres of Filipino burgis-dom and, as such, I was more acutely spared from having to struggle with this whole drawing-the-line-between-the-jologs-and-the-burgis dilemma than most. For me and the people I grew up with, it was crystal clear even at an early age. As a male teenager in mid 1980′s Quezon City, my world was quite small and simple. There was only Makati and Greenhills for hanging out, there was only the Ateneo and La Salle (okay, Xavier School and the Collegio de San Agustin as well) to study in, and there were only girls from Maryknoll, St Scholastica Manila, and Assumption to party with. When I finished high-shool, I applied to only two universities: the Ateneo de Manila and U.P. Diliman (banishment to a U.P. campus other than Diliman was unthinkable for most of us as well).
That inbred attitude changed of course within weeks of setting foot in the U.P. as a freshman. I grew a perspective over my stint as a U.P. student. But that’s a whole other story we can explore later.
But as a high-school student, that’s what I was — not because I was a pre-meditated snob, nor was it because my family is exceptionally wealthy — but because this was just simply the world I happened to have grown up in. In class, regional accents were the subject of ridicule, English was spoken only with a well-cultivated American (or at the very least, a “blue-chip private-school”) accent, and the noontime program Eat Bulaga was closely monitored to ensure that none of the music we played on our boomboxes had yet found awareness among the jologs. I was well into my early 20′s when I met for the very first time a person with a Bisaya accent who was in a career that did not involve manual labour (it did not even occur to me to think of the non-Manila students in U.P. as possibly being children of such people).
And here we see how the concept of ‘jolog’ (the word did not exist at the time) was far broader in my teenage circles than the way it’s so far been painted in the recent articles I cite. But in the usual way that true lateral thinkers add to the collective intelligence of humanity, I shall change the very nature of this line we draw between “us” and the jologs.
So now on to The Punchline:
When I mentioned that I grew a “perspective” during my stint as a U.P. Diliman student, I realised that this perspective was more of a mere result of the experience of getting my arse kicked in Calculus and Physics by a bunch of true scholars from some obscure (for me, at the time) city in Mindanao. That perspective was progressively subject to and chiseled away by cumulative reality checks, progressively replaced as I came to observe and experience how our politicians, bureaucrats, and our esteemed order of traditional “experts” — bristling with their academic “credentials” and textbook intellectual “prowess” gained from rote-learning — turn the Philippines into a flaccid joke and the “debate” around this joke into a single massive circular argument that comes full circle every couple of years or so.
To me [nod first to Obi Wan Kenobi in the venerable film Star Wars] it is these fools, and the fools who follow them and analyse their posturings in value-crushing volumes that are the true jologs.
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So within that Great Cultural Divide, UP has two kinds of inhabitants – the jologs and the burgis?
And that the academic or intellectual requirement, however the cutting-edge, results in fact, in undermining who should constitute UP?
I thought that maybe the Valentine Fair incident may have been so much romanticized by some of us who never could have known of any single instance when people from the outskirts of the UP Diliman Republic do now join activities sponsored by say the University Student Council.
Truth is, since the show consisted solely with the appearance of various local bands, that was the magnet created and naturally, interest in rock and roll music transcends every kind of intellecto-cultural barriers. There was to be a kind of management problem that ought to have been predicted before the conduct of the Valentine Fair.
Maybe, this is why fake tickets were sold and many condemn it because who wants to be victims of fake tickets, reason enough, entrance to the show will be not allowed?
And then for the first time, we see how graffiti seek to vandalize every corner of UP such as that we used to see at the UP Shopping Center. We thought the communists amongst us don’t have to post their slogans in the face of sacred walls?
Well, then, UP has its share of being bastardized – once in a while. It is so because, UP has also become favorite staging ground for militant advocacies – isn’t it the case dun sila nagsisimulang mag meeting sa Oblation then toward where they plan to march?
Today, no one enters UP without a UP ID – that turns it right away into an exclusive school for the burgis or back to its enclaved status.
Well this is refreshing, Benigz. It is always good to examine one’s life and be brave enough to reveal it to your friends and colleagues. You seem to be taking a breather from your usual curmudgeonly berating of the Filipino race? By the way, which one is you in the included college snapshot, if I may ask? :) — this is a rare smilee for me.
BTW you should see Greenhills and Makati now Benigz. Not bad actually. not bad.
DJB you rascal Manong, you beat me to the question.
Benigz, is the Philippines a caste society now? :)
benigs: kailangang mag-bigay ka ng exam bukas on critical reading. Ang tanong — “…according to benign0′s post “green hills, makati, ateneo la salle”, who are the true jolog’s.”
UP is now a gated community. Given its high fees, even the pre need companies consider it an “exclusive school”. I’m not surprised if the UP elite considers the so called “jologs” outsiders.
While attending burgis schools like LSGH or Ateneo may give advantage in the UPCAT but that doesn’t give any advantages in SURVIVING Diliman or the other campuses.
UP was never meant to be socialist. It will never be able to get rid of its colonial purpose and that is to create a new class of elite, a Brahmin class as you may say that will RULE THE REPUBLIC. This class was supposed to cut down the old elites (the Spanish speaking inbreds) but this never happened. The UP grad just tried to join the old elites and to a large extent transmogrified into them.
Since I am of the pure Brahmin class (UP Elementary, UP High and UP college) sourced from the salaried middle class, I could say that graduates of Ateneo, La Salle and all the graduates of schools who want to be the real elite, are the true jologs! :-) LOL!
But I never believed in the burgis- jologs class distinction at all. UP grads are supposed to cast away those distinctions and become the elite the colonial masters wanted them to be.
Erratum: The UP grads are meant to RULE THE EMPIRE ooops GALAXY as Father and Sons! :-) LOL!
The other face of benignO hidden for so long, the sunshine after a widespread stratus. Heartening!
“In class, regional accents were the subject of ridicule, English was spoken only with a well-cultivated American (or at the very least, a “blue-chip private-school”) accent, and the noontime program Eat Bulaga was closely monitored to ensure that none of the music we played on our boomboxes had yet found awareness among the jologs.”
ganun pala nung 1980s? buti na lang di ko panahon yun…
So why was Maurice Arcache so uppity back then? His accent is hard if you haven’t noticed.
Blackshama, your cum laudes are working as customer representatives in call centers. A U.P. Diliman degree don’t help much.
And after five years, not only has U.P. failed its original purpose, as you inform us, it also never evolved while other universities have changed much for the better.
Nice post, Benigs.
Same as Blackshama, I entered UP as coming from so-called laboratory public schools and a member of the true middle class and promdi-bred at that — but truth be told, I didn’t feel to a significant degree that there was a great divide between the likes of me and the private schools crowd when I was there. It was the opposite in my experience, the scions of powerful families who were primarily bred in expensive private schools had to kowtow a certain unspoken rule: thou shalt not be an asshole regarding your wealth/influence. OR if you do, you shall be cast into a pit of being declasse or a violator of the egalitarian UP ethos — an outsider. It’s simply déclassé to brag, whether directly or indirectly in UP. Survival in UP means accepting the fact that there will always be people who may be smarter, or more popular, or more attractive than you are and still maintain that equanimity you have a place there as an Iskolar ng Bayan (that is, as long as you pass your courses).
It was different when you come down to orgs and fraternities and sororities when closer relationships between students arise — there things such family background/influence do play a role and the more egalitarian aspects of the UP ethos gets diluted.
“I was well into my early 20’s when I met for the very first time a person with a Bisaya accent who was in a career that did not involve manual labour (it did not even occur to me to think of the non-Manila students in U.P. as possibly being children of such people).”
Find this hard to believe. As a freshie in UP, you will be assaulted by a cacophony of voices – coming from Appari to Jolo. In my experience, the Bisayans and Cebuanos were some of the wealthiest, most garrulous (most outgoing) and most attractive students who tend to talk in broken Tagalog and would swiftly talk in English instead when stumped. Say, Benigs, early socialization does kick in and tends to be prolonged, and if you grew up insulated, you tend not to see what are those right in front of your eyes.
In reference to your enclavement article, this insulated socialization develop into a sort of literally seeing, but inwardly noting that what doesn’t belong or is different from your own social milieu does not simply exist or have to be purged from existing in your mind. That is the great disease that afflicts us Pinoys – all of becoming mini-Imeldas, concern only with the “good, the beautiful “. Ngek, how could you see the true-blue good and the beautiful if you can’t deal with the simple truth that other people who are different from you and your crowd exist. Some don’t demean “jologs“ but become reverse-snobs instead. In any case, Imelda Marcos should be the patron saint of the true jologs. Kris Aquino is in the same league.
Jologs is more akin to bakya, not masa. Be that as it may, the middle class has widened.
And you have the sosyal types (e.g Lucy Torres, Mikee Cojuangco, etc) marrying pop culture idols Richard Gomez, Jaworski Jr., etc.
And besides, the elite culture in the Philippines is so copied.
…the elite culture in the Philippines is so
copied.unoriginal.— simply copied from elsewhere.
People look down from their Ivory Towers. They
are surprised that there is life down there…