Will ‘the Philippines’ be missed?
February 12th, 2009 by benign0Seven months ago, the eminent attourney Abe Margallo published his seminal piece Imagine a world without Filipinos in which he quotes the words of a certain Abdullah Al-Maghlooth which he lauds as “another adulation that certainly should again make us Filipinos proud of ourselves”:
We have to remember that we are very much dependent on the Filipinos around us. We could die a slow death if they chose to leave us.
So today in a burst of that usual brilliant insight that my fans have come to expect of me, I pose yet another one of those simple child-like questions that, in its quintessence as a follow-through on other related questions I’ve asked before, escapes the capacities for insightful response from the Vulcan minds of our resident “experts”:
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?
The question though elegant in its simplicity is by no means original as it traces its roots to a piece I wrote a while back that focused specifically on the imagined importance of Pinoy labour in the world economy. In it I assert…
The bottom line is that we should not be too cocky about our presumed place in the economic scheme of things. If cheap Filipino labour suddenly disappears from the face of the earth, advanced nations will, in the same way, manage to find SOLUTIONS to overcome such a setback and certainly will be able to explore alternative sources. They may struggle FOR A WHILE but, hey, I can have faith in civilisations that’ve survived the Dark Ages, the Inquisition, rebuilt from innumerable wars, pulled themselves together after being nuked, re-invented themselves after being flooded by Asian automobiles and electronics, and keep their noses up DESPITE their politicians.
… because quite simply put:
Like Arab oil, Brazilian rubber, and sub-Saharan diamonds, the only real thing that gives value to cheap Pinoy labour are the vast capital base, industrial might, and immense purchasing power of the advanced world that CREATE EMPLOYMENT for the rest of the labour-added-value world (of which our society happens to be a sizeable subset of — to the tune of 90 million).
Even more sobering is that the very things we cringe about are so trivial in the scheme of things when approached from a more real perspective. The latest of such cringes manifests itself in the matter of this perceived snub of the Philippine President by U.S. President Barack Obama that’s been tossed around in such value-crushing volumes all over the Philippine Media (including this blog site). The real perspective it seems is a lot simpler, making this latest cringe less worthy of the attention it gets:
[...] 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.
All this is just all too consistent with the underlying (or maybe more appropriately, over-arching) mother question of it all that, as I observed earlier, has so far elicited no more than an embarrassed silence…
What does “the Filipino” stand for?
… a question that echoes my clarification of the earlier ’swallow up’ question to UP n grad:
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?
Funny (and I digress a bit here) that the above clarification, while going a bit of a way to crystallising the essence of the rhetoric behind these questions apparently just flies over the head of our man Dean:
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”
And check this one out for good measure:
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!
That’s right. Trust the venerable Dean Jorge Bocobo to lend us his usual “expert” take on things. Aren’t we all glad such esteemed personalities hang around here to tell us these things? :D
And we wonder why the spirit of not just the Law but the very Constitution of our “country” succumbs to the perversions created by those who are “experts” at navigating the technicalities of how these concepts are articulated in black-and-white…
So as we presume to struggle to find our place as a people in the overall scheme of human civilisation, and meaning in our continued existence as a sovereign state, it comes across as a bit ironic that we shy away from the simple questions whose answers (if we can come up with them) would have served as the cornerstones of that quest to find said place and meaning.
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February 12, 2009 at 12:26 pm
LOL :) pastilan benigno.. I admire your consistency… bahala na..
February 12, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Okay. We dont measure up to the Great Civilizations. There is no argument there. But I am sure we have some people who lie to themselves and pretend we do.
So what’s your point Benign0?
Do you want us to just drop dead and die?
That’s like telling some isolated kid in high school, someone who is still trying to get his bearings after being liberated from abusive parents: Hey Kid You Suck! If you died tomorrow, nobody would f@cking care!
February 12, 2009 at 1:09 pm
“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!”
Very Nazi, Mein freunde! The extermination of the Jews according to NSDAP would not be of consequence to the rest of the world. This is like exterminating 90 million “ipis”. But then again, the ipis lives on courtesy of adaptive fitness.
Since Filipinos have been selected for a survival, expect them to persist.
When Australia collides with the rest of Asia ( it will happen in a few million years), expect Australians to be swamped by Indonesians. I don’t think you blokes will be able to persist.
Now Benign0 there is an island group that if it does sink into the Tasman, nobody would even notice.
New Zealand! hahahahahahahaha!
February 12, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Well we really are drowning in mystery now [sic!] benign, or as you once designated yourself, the International Man of Mystery (ahem.)
First you ask a silly question, and getting what you had coming, now you insist on being taken seriously??
After showing us your pink pudenda you want us, your avid and undeserving fans to ponder on your insipid interrogatories and give you creativity and substance for your delectation and approbation?
With straight if not chastened faces?
With gratitude for your greedy grab at the dinner table of FV?
What do you take us for, granted?
Eat Bencard’s shorts, ok?
February 12, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Your premise is as stupid as asking the Leyte lass as to how many men she can have sex with in a given day without let up and have orgasms with each.
Some islands in the Pacific and other bodies of matter are destined to disappear.
So what? For a bunch of islands in the Pacific that has achieved partial economic and political sovereignty only 60 years ago in comparison to civilizations in the Indo-European, Chinese land mass that have existed for 10,000 years and beyond we are not doing too badly.
From less than 500 million people during the Copernican revolution in Europe we have not done badly at all.
If we do not make it due to some natural calamity so what.
We are after all a hybrid race of people.
In East Asia and S.E. Asia you have the Malay and Sinic races predominant.
We can never disappear as the descendants of hominids.
For a planet in existence for millions and millions of years man you are really stupid.
Filipino is the label simply of a hybrid cultural construct based on physical and psychological evolution of the present natives on these islands.
Similar species will evolve based on their natural environment.
To put a score on which humans are superior from the other betrays a complete lack of knowledge of human evolution.
That sperm that pierced your mothers egg did not know that your parents were natives of these islands.
Is it planed that your sperm did not come from a man named Ayala?
We are all simply accidents.
Look at all the pinoys posting who are living in developed economies.
Like you b0 ashamed in your skin. It is all an illusion anyway.
February 12, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Ummm…our chaps are Down Under already. So some of us are Aussies, too. Two of them just perished in that awful bushfire…all who died and suffered and their surviving loved ones over there have my condolences, as I hope they have yours.
Our genetic material is also spread throughout the globe. And so long as there’s YouTube and the like, we’ll live on through the minstrels and troubadours of the Cyberage…ha ha!
But, seriously folks, what on earth brings on this kind of rant anyway?
February 12, 2009 at 6:00 pm
The subtext is that Benign0 wants to belong to a group that would be ‘missed’. All he wants is for the Philippines to belong to the in-crowd with the main criteria being material wealth. That’s why he resents the poor among us and wishes them to die.
February 12, 2009 at 8:33 pm
this is not a childlike question…not evem childish.
This is the mentality of a person with mental disorder.
Who would think of killing all just to prove something? only those with dark minds. Only those suicidal people who like to inflict guilt to their loved ones and make them feel miserable because he killed himself.
Only those who toasted the Jews because they like to eliminate this race.
And i thought it was already extreme hate for Filipinos that drove B0 to throw his Filipino passport to the toilet. now his subconcious is revealed by this article.
He hates Filipinos. He wants to erase the Filipinos from the face of the earth.
A normal person’s worst scenario to prove the importance of Filipino labor to other economies is merely to assume that these countries will ban all OFWs. To think of killing all, including his relatives is rather bizzare.
someone has to check his mental health.
February 12, 2009 at 9:55 pm
No, the Philippines will not be missed because we are only a segment of the so-called Industrial Reserve Army.
What do Filipinos stand for? Part of the army who can perish if Benigno so wants to.
February 12, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Obviously , some people do not appreciate the fact that much of the Philippines’ beauty is actually under water. :D
I’ll be in Coron two weeks from now. The dive sites there are great, so they say. Can’t wait. ;)
February 12, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Cheap labors will always be with us. Until we
learn to share the bounties of this Planet Earth.
If we dont offer cheap labor. Other countries
who are poor will take our place.
February 12, 2009 at 11:53 pm
benigno,
My professor in college asked this question after grilling one of my classmates and failed to give a coherent answer:
“Do you know where the Lost City of Atlanis? My classmate said No. Do you know why the Dinosaurs are extinct now? My classmate again said No.
My professor barked back: “They are extinct now because they were big mammals like you with very little brain”.
Going back to your question: “Can the Philippines be missed?”
I think nobody missed the City of Atlantis nor the Dinosaurs…. :)
April 7, 2009 at 11:06 pm
The philippines will be missed like the fecal matter you miss when you take a dump in the toilet.
The islands will still be there – and so will its residents.
What won’t be missed is a farcical Philippine state imposing a Luzon-centric policy in the other islands. Till the day when Mindanaoans finally say – Get off my island, go away, stay out, and good riddance – THE PHILIPPINES, WILL NOT BE MISSED, THE EARLIER IT IMPLODES THE BETTER.
February 13, 2009 at 12:04 am
We will not be here to miss it.
February 13, 2009 at 12:21 am
Is DJB wondering the same question?
Because GMA will be missed, or at least GMA will remembered (maybe not in the same high regard as Tansu Çiller of Turkey or President Agatha Barbara of Malta) as, well, a President and a UP-Diliman alumnus.
February 13, 2009 at 3:19 am
i will be in lake tahoe to ski in two weeks. the pervert J-AG should get a life. He is sounding very uptight and may not be getting enough of it :)
Jon .. have fun in coron. I love el nido and that area too. spend your money to stimulate the local economy… ok? :)
February 13, 2009 at 3:28 am
Apparently Pinoys don’t miss the petty politics either as evident in just 2045 out of a target 1 MILLION overseas voters have registered:
As usual, the solution is a Pinoy favourite — a lowering of standards:
- :D
February 13, 2009 at 4:41 am
Marietta,
What degree did GMA earn from UP Diliman?
Leytenian,
Lake Tahoe, eh? Wow***envy*** Hehe. It wasn’t the nicest or fanciest place, but it was one of my favorites in the area long, long ago in another life: King’s Ranch. Affordable for working college students back in the 70s. Hope it is still there.
February 13, 2009 at 5:58 am
I’d like to reverse the question…
if the rest of the world vanishes (ala the left behind series?), will the philippines/filipinos miss the rest of the world.
i think your answer holds as well…
it’ll be hard at first, but we will manage and even thrive. we can use ur old paragraph:
“The bottom line is that we should not be too cocky about our presumed place in the economic scheme of things. If cheap Filipino labour suddenly disappears from the face of the earth, advanced nations will, in the same way, manage to find SOLUTIONS to overcome such a setback and certainly will be able to explore alternative sources”
replace cheap filipino labor with “foreign capital”, and the rest of the paragraph stands…
is this the discussion we should be having?
February 14, 2009 at 12:29 am
if the rest of the world vanishes I will return to the most remote place of the Philippines where I came from. the folks there do their livings, and happy too, with nary a care for the rest of the world.
though from where i am now i have to have an advance notice of when it’s going to happen for that to happen, heheh.
February 14, 2009 at 8:08 am
i kinda asked that coz i was thinking about writing a script about a similar premise for a movie or TV show (short story na lang, para magawa ko!).
imagine, the developed world is downed by a disaster, leaving the philippines as one of the most powerful countries remaining in the world… sort of like “jericho” meets “Battlestar Gallactica” in the philippines!
April 7, 2009 at 11:08 pm
if the filipinos disappear in america, many other nationalities will take their place – indian, chinese, mexican, bangladeshi, pakistani.
so, puhleeze, all this cheesy romanticizing gives me the creeps. it’s sooooooo baduy and crappy.