I have to thank someone’s heroic efforts to keep an interesting discussion on track in the face of quite a number of hollowheaded “commentary”. Commendable, indeed, and to be fair, some of the less pompous among us have stepped up with their 2-cents.

But then this sticks out like a sore thumb:

I actually want to hear what Abe Margallo, now a long-time US citizen, would say. Does Abe even define the Philippines to his children, and if “yes’, what does Abe say? Leytenian seems to be bowing out; what about cvj? Or Ding G? Does Nick (him also a US citizen) describe Pinas to his children, and what does Nick say?

How many more calls have you made since that first (or second?) one, UP n grad? Three? Five?

Silence speaks loudly, doesn’t it? ;)

So far all you get for your trouble from our esteemed “experts” on politics is this one from the venerable Dean Jorge Bocobo:

sparks,
I really like “Seychellois”…must be nice there!

There were quite a number of more insightful input from less be-credentialled folk. Trouble is, most seem to have cited character traits rather than describe something that we as a people stand for. Taking a stand demands more and is fuelled by something potent, whether it be a hatred for another people (to take some liberties with a few concepts you introduced, UPn) or genuine conviction of superiority as to invoke a collective warlike belligerence (the kind that built the great empires of the past) or a crystal-like clarity of one’s place in the scheme of humanity as to underpin a drive to uphold and even spread one’s cultural and politial influence.

If we prefer instead to be content with a definition of an identity, then of course we will succeed at hopping over such a low bar as Bencard easily demonstrates:

what does the ‘Filipino’ stand for? it stands for membership in that unique group of men/women who are joined together by common race, ethnic origin and ancestry, sharing a common heritage, cultural values, aspirations, a defined home in the face of the earth (from which they may or may be absent for the moment), and belief in the same constitution and set of laws which they themselves enacted to govern themselves.

[Sorry Bencard, you seem to confuse defining a stand with the mere effort of defining ourselves as a country, the latter of which for its part also falls short of defining ourselves as a people.]

Achievement however demands as a prerequisite the setting of a high bar to aspire for. Even as we struggle with the low bar of defining an identity, the aim for a stand — the higher bar — I realise seems a virtual impossibility for a people such as ours based on what I’ve seen so far.

What does the “Filipino” stand for?

The question remains unanswered; not that it ever will be convincingly.

Then again isn’t conquest of perceived impossibility the very essence of achievement? Maybe not so if you are a Filipino. And that kind of regard for achievement is probably what defines us.

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