Filipinos are always on the wrong side of the fence. We keep fawning at America and consider it critical to our survival as a nation the recognition that America would bestow upon us. We do not need anyone for our survival except ourselves.
Other nations have crossed-path with America and instead of looking at these nations with disdain, America had tried to persuade them to become pro-Americans and spread the good things about America. Only when these recalcitrant nations persist in their anti-American sentiments that America would subvert their government by funding the oppositions under the guise that these leaders are corrupt that continue to enslave and subjugate their people.
Iran under Ahmadinejad and Venezuela under Hugo Chavez had stood against America for years and they have earned both the contempt and respect of America. She is contemptuous about these leaders simply because they are Anti-Americans, but she is also respectful of them because they were able to soothe the yearning of their people for democratic ideals and hold American to a standoff for values Americans had thought for long to be her exclusive entitlement.
Fidel Castro had put up with America for decades but America’s distaste for Cuba does not go beyond ceremonial protocols of banning official travel to Cuba by Americans for the simple reason that American interest is somehow best served by American entrepreneurs who operate practically all tourists resorts, big malls and hotels in Cuba in partnership with Cuban leadership she considered corrupt and American tourists are like seashells and adornments in Cuba’s exotic seashores. And if you consider that Guantanamo which is in Cuba and home to Al Qaeda U.S. prisoners of war, then this contempt for Castro or his brother Raul is proof enough that this scorn is but an apocryphal urban legend worthy only of the cinematic spin in Hollywood.
Musharaf, a dictator of Pakistan is one ruthless leader who is the darling of America. Mr. Marcos who held the same distinction as Musharaf was America’s darling too to the end that U.S. planes were ready to fly him anywhere in America in 1986. Reza Shah Pavhlavi before the triumph of Khomeini in Iran was one corrupt leader that found home in America after he was deposed from power in 1979. Ponder also that Osama Bin Laden was an American stooge during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1978.
Fast forward those American liaisons with corrupt and blood-thirsty leaders and “pseudo patriots” and look at President Obama’s snub of GMA now. It has nothing to do at all with the human rights violation of her government nor of all the corruption being heaped against her or her husband by the licentious press and blogsphere. America is quite comfortable with aligning herself with the most corrupt and the most duplicitous character in this whole wide world as long as it will promote American interest in that part of the world.
The Philippines is no longer of any strategic importance to the U.S. and does not hold the allure for U.S. consumer markets and offshore companies. It does not serve anymore of the imperatives for U.S. interest.
Okinawa has taken over the strategic attraction the Philippines had once enjoyed in the past as a launch pad for any military maneuver in the Pacific and there are hundred American fleets that police the vast oceans that can be mobilized at a moment’s notice to address any contingency in the region. Add to this the fact that the landscape of war has been totally redesigned by technology that bombing of targets is being done now in the comforts of a war-room by a touch of a button or inside a submarine while it is several hundred feet under.
China, with her more stable government is a haven for American offshore companies and her bursting population is a dream consumer market as well as a source of cheap labor.
Filipinos must wake up and start looking for another ally that can jolt America from her slumber and treat us as a sovereign nation worthy of her notice. Aligning the country with the sentiments our separatists muslim brothers or the jihadist is one way to fleece America out of her largesse. Or pretend that we are about to develop our nuclear weapons. If we do that, America will be crawling back and beg us to sing the Star Spangled Banner once again instead of us reciting the verses in the Koran and this is good for the country. After all, politics has no morality.
Contributing Writer: Jose C. Camano
Popularity: 100% [?]
jcc,
LOL, great blog. :) who would be interested in a country CONSISTENTLY and OBVIOUSLY corrupt and immoral? In Business, almost everybody play the games, making sure that the end products and its consumers are mostly satisfied. If not, the business will lose its marketability and market share. Same concept applies to politics.
In doing business, the Philippines rank is almost at the bottom of the game of morality. We are at 140 out of 181 countries.
We’re not good in this game.
It’s simple. The Philippines has to make itself relevant again. At the moment, it is as you have described it — of no strategic value and therefore of no particular consequence to anyone.
Even the discussions here in FV reflect this reality — all inward looking, all focused on petty politics, the trivial posturings of our politicians and tribal/feudal chieftains, Arroyo’s “pantsuits”, etc.
A continued propagation of our Heritage of Smallness by our so-called “experts” on various matters of national “importance” (by Pinoy standards of course).
Maybe the best way to break the thread of trivial discussion going on over the past few days is to ask this simple question:
Will there be a fundamental change in the course of World History — or the nature of global politics and economics — if the Philippines were to be swallowed up by the sea tomorrow?
Tough question, ain’t it? :D
Marketability and Market Share are the responsibilities of the Managers -the CEO, CFO, COO in the corporate world. In Politics, it is the executives, the senate and the justice court who can be responsible for marketability and market share in the global world, making sure that the end products and its customers ( the people) are satisfied and happy with the service.
I don’t know why benigno always blame the people ( customers) of this country :) Have you heard of the business saying that ” customers are always right” . Please apply the concept so that we all can move on in the same direction.
Fundamental Change should be coming from the leaders or the policymakers to make our country marketable to gain market share. hay naku…. parang sirang plaka na talaga ako dito sa FV. ikaw rin benigs… tumigas nang tumigas ang ulok mo , ay ulo pala… bakit kaya?
on benign0′s question : Will there be a fundamental change in the course of World History — or the nature of global politics and economics — if the Philippines were to be swallowed up by the sea tomorrow?
Of course, there will be. A possibility is (i) that war between Vietnam and China (because Pinas’claim on Spratlys disappears). Another — USA moves into the Mindanao/Palawan area (as members of the Alcantara clan (living in California) go partner with “Team-USA” to protect their rights (air- and sea and whatever any islands that remain); (3) Europe definitively concludes that Christianity is a mockery of a religion.
My thesis is the following : If Pinas were to be swallowed up by the sea tomorrow, then the Pinas-nation less than fifty-years later will have a higher per-capita-GDP than Thailand, Hongkong or maybe even Hawaii. Chaos will not happen. Cooperation makes more sense in order to better use the immense reconstruction-dollars that will pour into the disaster-area. A significant number of PhD’s will be earned because of the disaster. Reason — the wiped-clean slate allows for more creative social- and macro-economic engineering.
UPn, actually i meant swallowed up without a trace — not even the concept of “the Philippines” remains (i.e. there is nothing to “reconstruct”). And given this scenario, I’ll put it a bit more bluntly:
Will ‘the Philippines’ be missed?
the world will lose its “number 1 pound-for-pound” boxing champion=)
if the philippines gets swallowed up by the sea tomorrow, all of the ofw’s/filipinos overseas (millions) will lose a homeland and that will lead to a plight similar to what jews and palestinians are experiencing. i’d say let’s choose to squat on hawaii!
benigno,
petty politics, trival blogs/posts, the sum total of our identity as Filipinos. :)
LOL :)
leytenian,
;)
JCC,
One of the strangest manifestations of “colonial mentality” among modern Filipinos is their peculiar brand of anti-Americanism, which is so recognizably American that one is forced to realize this anti-imperialism is itself a form of colonial mentality since its major concepts were learned from the US Anti Imperialist League and Mark Twain, even if most think they are having original thoughts.
You can barely hide your own dismay in this post at America’s apparent neglect of her orphaned daughter the Philippines, (“of no strategic importance”!) and urge that we find some other ally. Who? China? I hear Gloria is practicing her Mandarin already. Obsequious Mandarin that is.
You should go with her. You can carry her water.
Regarding your title. I am puzzled since nothing you said leads to it or even flows from it.
In my opinion this is a FATUOUS statement that you pulled out of the air and gratuitously slapped on this muddle-headed, substandard post.
UPnGrad,
If the Philippines were swallowed up by the sea tomorrow that would imply a sea level rise at least to the peak of Mount Apo, roughly 11,000 feet elevation above the present oceans surrounding Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Such a catastrophic event would surely drown all the major capitals of the world, except Macchu Picchu and Lhasa in Tibet, maybe. But New York Paris London Shanghai Tokyo, Canton, Seoul, Mumbai, Karachi, Melbourne, Sydney, Quetta, would all be drowned, by the enforced laws of Physics, “if the Philippines were swallowed up by the seas tomorrow”
I don’t know where you are right now Benign0, but you are a supernal genius. If and when such a catastrophe should occur, the answer to your silly question is a resounding YESS.
“Filipinos are always on the wrong side of the fence. We keep fawning at America and consider it critical to our survival as a nation the recognition that America would bestow upon us. We do not need anyone for our survival except ourselves.”
Ulol, you left the country because you could not survive here and joined your wife who is a nurse in the U.S.
Now you are lecturing us here about being self reliant.
Tangina,the U.S. economy is insolvent where it not for savings from outside and you are talking self reliance.
May sira talaga ang ulo mo.
Leytenian,
There will be no fundamental change in the world until there is a fundamental change in Benign0.
Trust Dean to come up with his “expert” take on the rhetorical question I pose.
As Han Solo tells C3P0 in the movie Star Wars: “I’m glad you’re here to tell us these things.”
- :D
__________________________________________________________
“Ulol, you left the country because you could not survive here and joined your wife who is a nurse in the U.S. J_AG
___________________________________________________________
If you cannot make a good post just keep your mouth shut. It showing your pettiness and your triviliaties that is very Filipino.
I agree with J_AG. This post is an “ululation” from someone whose own modus operandi is probably “fleecing America of her largesse.” A worm within, as it were?
JCC, Benign0–you seem to have a common problem that I have seen before. It is the alienation of the Pilgrim from his homeland and fellow men. I heartily recommend a fresh re-reading of the story of Joseph and His Brothers. In particular the novel trilogy of Thomas Mann with that title, taking off from the Bible tale. It will refresh your tired and angry souls and re-channel your energies in more productive directions.
djb,
america’s position that it is pro-democracy and would help only democratic countries is an immoral hypocrisy. this is okay because politics has no morality.
that we align ourselves with our local jihadists so we can fleece out america’s largesse is an immoral politics and that is all right becaue politics has no morality.
benign0,
It doesn’t take an “expert” to reduce the premise of your question to its logical conclusion that in fact it would take a world history changing event for the Philippines to be “swallowed up by the seas” as you have asked. But pointing out the dreary architecture of your mind is really nothing but a Cheap Thrill for me. What I really want is for you to change, to let go your Self-Loathing .. you know, be like a real live literary character in a good play or novel. Evolve and show us something different!
What’s the matter, professor?
Unable to answer a simple and child-like question in a way that actually adds a bit of real insight to this thread?
- :D
djb,
Not at all helpless in RP contrary to your submission. No desire at all to relocate until my wife literally brought me to U.S. embassy for interview.
That I am in America, I should be able to appreciate her values as well as be critical of her faults, that is very American. I do not lose my way because I am already in America the same way that I did not not lost my identity as Filipino because I am already in America.
I have a good law practice in RP despite malicious insinuation to the contrary.
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:ChujZfjALvQJ:ca.supremecourt.gov.ph/cardis/CV69255.pdf+jose+camano&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us
bahala na si benigno sa buhay niya.. LOL :)
Even autistic children, people with bad memories, or the ignorants can be trained. I don’t believe that the filipino culture or its values are the issues on why we cannot move on as a country. I believe in Management, good governance and the rule of law. A good example of a filipino being trained to become a productive employee is Benigno but why change the basic concept and fundamental of Management? and instead use the concept of swallowing of the SEA? :) OMG.
Whether you are a Muslim, Catholic, or raised from hell, it doesn’t matter…. people are manageable. Until now, officials as a team of management experts in the area of public service have not been able to find solutions. The overall blame goes to the church or to the citizens. The people are the shock absorbers of all their wrong doings. And please don’t tell me that the people vote for them. That’s not an excuse.
Again, people can be trained to vote for the right person. It doesn’t even cost more except finding the right strategy and communicating the right information. People can be ready to listen. The youth are easily accessible thru the department of education.
When you guys have time… check out the Comelec’s website. It does not contain information about the importance of people’s right to vote and the consequence of voting for the wrong person. Many may assume that this is common knowledge but not to the many Mang Juans…
i agree with jcc. most filipinos have a mindset that if they behave “properly” and look “good”, uncle sam will love them and shower them with goodies. fat chance. america couldn’t care less what kind of leaders filipinos have unless they are “useful” to america’s interest. what’s wrong with that?
if america believes in the importance of the philippines in its war against terror in the region, thereby ensuring peace and safety to americans, i’m sure both hillary and obama will be more attentive and solicitous to gma and the filipinos.
It is naive to expect America to act in any other direction than on behalf of her own legitimate interests. But I think it says something about those Filipinos who obviously expect her to sometimes rise above those interests in the service of some ideal even greater than American nationalism. They usually express this greater appreciation of America than even many Americans, but by criticizing America’s failure to live up to that higher standard.
But what we are observing here in the Obama-GMA sideshow is that the new US administration is smart enough to distinguish between the Filipino People and the President they happen to have. Much as some would like the identificaiton to be closer, it cannot be helped that GMA was the running dog of George W. Bush. The distance can only grow bigger and the distinction greater.
JCC,
I assure you, I have no interest in your personal circumstances or history. All that matters are your ideas and your expression of them. Even if we disagree, there is no need to be disagreeable. Hehe. I’m a really, really tough hombre though.
JCC provided a general idea. It’s different than the specific idea of being swallowed by the sea.:)
Benign,
You? “Simple and childlike?”
With a mind that can conjure up a question that contemplates the drowning of 90 million Filipino men, women and children, as the seas swallow up the Philippine Archipelago–and suggest such a tragedy would be a matter of no great consequence or fundamental change to the political and economic history of the world!
Well, it makes me wonder what your cruel classmates must have done to you in high school. Or was it some Professor in your past who wronged you so terribly and ruined your chances?
Move on man, and let go such NIHILISTIC thoughts. Bad for the Kidneys.
Leytenian,
Okay, could you be just a wee bit more specific then, than “being swallowed up by the sea”?
LOL djb :)
” being swallowed up by the sea” it will never happen. It’s not the reality. you know what I mean. only mother nature can do that and the rest are in our hands. benigno’s comment was not a be all it all. it was intended for thinking maybe? The problem with that assumption will result to a lot of confusion ( that’s the specific intent that benigno may not be aware of). It can be very typical of benigno but he can also be trying just to be a friend or another blogger who may be trying to push a button. That can be normal according to his personality and it’s up to the other person to understand or reject it. If his intention is only around FV then i can accept it. It’s no big deal. I took it for fun. :) heheheh.
ang sarap kasi awayin si benigno… that’s all :)
One thing I love about the Pinoy vernacular ‘ulol’ is that it can mean fatuous in every semantic way.
Natamaan ang ulol since the word fatuous was a more diplomatic.
fat⋅u⋅ous
Show Spelled Pronunciation [fach-oo-uh s] Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1. foolish or inane, esp. in an unconscious, complacent manner; silly.
2. unreal; illusory.
________________________________________
Origin:
1625–35; < L fatuus silly, foolish, idiotic; see -OUS
fat•u•ous (fāch’ōō-əs) Pronunciation Key
adj. Foolish or silly, especially in a smug or self-satisfied way: “‘Don’t you like the poor lonely bachelor?’ he yammered in a fatuous way” (Sinclair Lewis). See Synonyms at foolish.
Main Entry: fatuous1
Part of Speech: adj
Definition: inanely foolish and unintelligent; stupid
Etymology: Latin fatuus ‘foolish’
Fatuous
Fat”u*ous\, a. [L. fatuus.]
1. Feeble in mind; weak; silly; stupid; foolish; fatuitous. –Glanvill.
2. Without reality; illusory, like the ignis fatuus.
Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
Cite This Source
fatuous
adjective
devoid of intelligence [syn: asinine]
JCC even your post about Cuba is all wrong. Have you ever been there?
The only way for you to make your way there is either through Mexico or Canada or any other European country. If you so wish and if you have an American passport the Cuban immigration will not stamp your passport. The same with Israel.
Most of Europe and Canada and most of Asia do not have a trade embargo with Cuba. Most of the white folk that visit Cuba are mostly non-Americans and there is almost no U.S. investment in Cuba.
Where did you learn your global political economy? From the same school that bO attended or did you hear it from your neighborhood barbershop in your barrio?
Look all of us are under our wives so it is not a crime to be a house husband. I though am not.
Your power and standing in any family and community is based on your individual economic power. You have almost none in your present personal situation. That is politics.
now, now J_AG. All I said was “fatuous”. You are putting words in my mouth from the dictionary! No faire.
leytenian,
benign0 is like those friends we all had in high school that never smiled or laughed or cracked jokes…until one day you found out they had a truly wicked sense of humor.
i suspect benign is is like that…
“Politics has no morality!”-jcc. I agree!
“We keep fawning at America and consider it critical to our survival as a nation the recognition that America would bestow upon us. We do not need anyone for our survival except ourselves.”-jcc. I also agree!
On the former because I believe jcc was speaking of GMA’s (and her types) politics which I dare say almost everybody but the factotums and the blind would chorus it’s true.
On the latter because I believe our survival do indeed depends solely on ourselves.
But this not about America, this is about us, the Philippines, and us the citizen, the Filipino people. We must either condone corruption or stand against it…for our survival!
“Filipinos are always on the wrong side of the fence.”-jcc I disagree!
If only that corruption and its practitioners are the wrong side of the fence, then you are wrong, jcc.
By this post, as a Filipino, you are.
Someone has said that Cuba is accessible only from Mexico and Canada. Wrong. It is also accessible from the Bahamas. Cuba is also accessible from Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Guatemala, Haiti, Cayman Island, Dominican Republic. Americans take any of these circuitous routes then slip through Cuba.
Individual Americans invest in Cuba through their dummies. Most Cuban-Americans are not prohibited from going directly to Cuba from U.S. ports because they are allowed to visit their families or relatives in Cuba. Most Cuban-Americans used their relatives to operative casinos, hotels and resorts in the island.
In Florida alone, there are more than half a million of Cuban-Americans. Other States have certain percentages of Cuban-Americans. Andy Garcia is a Cuban-American with power and money. There are lots like him in America who do not want to severe their umbilical cord back home and do their investment.
One’s effort at breast-thumping that he is the man of the house is admirable. But Benigno would only classify this as “kulang sa pansin”.
http://wikitravel.org/en/Americans_in_Cuba
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20704879/
DJB,
Thank you. At least we can disagree without being disagreeable. :)
Bert,
We Filipinos is a polite way of saying we, the our corrupt Filipino politicians, bureaucracts, “pseudo nationalists” and myopic bloggers. We erase the tone of self-righteousness and the writer is included as part of the problem and is not about “breast-thump” any claim for immaculate character.
BTW, My being in America is not inconsistent with my position that we should be self-reliant in order to survive. I come to America for my wife and my children but like others who are similarly situated, they too think of the country and how we can get out of the present rut we are in.
No one can deny me my birthright to speak my mind as a Filipino.
I dont want myself to align with Jihadists,
Al Quedas, and other Muslim Fundametalists. They
have dysfunctional religious and political
ideologies.
Spreading Islam thru Jihad or violence. Bombing
people. Converting the Infidels. Ordering women
to wear Burkas. Cutting heads of people on TV.
Asking Suicide Bombers to attach bombs on their
bodies. Bombing everybody. Telling them the
reward is Paradise, with 72 virgins, 72 beds
and 72 mansions.
Who would align themselves with these Oxymorons ?
Filipino politicians, not politics have no
morality. They had traded it with their “lagays’.
flor,
not at all serious in suggesting that we align ourselves with the jihadists. it was just to highlight the point that the most rabid anti-americans paradoxically, are being noticed and given undue importannce by the U.S.
OMG. You guys have been out of the country too long. You are just clueless as to the true state of affairs in the Philippines.
Except for the insecure, leaders who still look up to Uncle Sam to legitimize their rule, things have changed pretty much. It is now the ‘Chinese Lake’ (borrowing from the 1800′s reach of the British Empire)that is at play in this part of the world.
The Chinese connection are now the biggest employers of Filipinos not only domestically (SM, Robinsons, San Miguel, etc ) but also of the overseas Filipino diaspora: Hongkong and Singapore.
It is only Obama’s audacity that some feel-good for the U.S. of A is returning. And why not, all over the world that chap is looked up much better than their own leaders.
I suggest that you U.S-based posters stop romanticizing the American colonial times.
philmanila, which u.s-based posters are you talking about? no wild generalizations, please.
“feel-good for u.s. of a” because of obama? i doubt it (may be except kenya). they may “feel good” about obama for some reason but not necessarily the u.s.a. (“great satan”).
Bencard,
What do you think of the central assertion that “Politics has no Morality!” ?
djb, in the sense that politics is about people (leaders and followers), an immoral people will have immoral politics. as a spring cannot rise above its source, “moral” politics cannot sprout from an immoral populace.
Issues in the Philippines is a direct result of the lack of ethical framework among public servant. We need a system of rules and principles( ethical framework) that will guide all public servants in making difficult decisions when moral issues arise. This requires education and seminars among public servants.
we have been relying on emotion, instinct, and personal values, and these cannot supply an adequate answer to moral dilemmas. According to our foundation, values and culture, we as a people can demonstrate between “bad” or “evil” acts. But why is it the country is immoral?
There must be a strong ethical foundation that must be formulated within our Constitution to reflect the real attitude of the Filipino people. Public servants INACTION that allows “bad” or “evil” to occur is the weakest link.
We have a weak system of governance.
There is nothing wrong with Politics only the people that plays it.
Howdy! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after checking through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be bookmarking and checking back often!