On Divisiveness and the Overseas Filipinos
The article Sons and Daughters by Jose Ma. Montelibano in his Inquirer column Glimpses is almost accurate to a tee, good read for Overseas Filipinos. It has some minor points that he may have missed. I don’t blame him though for the slight inaccuracy since he wants to send a message to these fools’ errrr people that one of these days we may find the unattainable dream of “unity”.Overall I believe he did a good job in his take on divisiveness but I will have to disagree with some minor points, after all we are in a democratic society and only through open discourse will we have a clear grasp of our reality. Here is a quote from the article which hopefully we can decipher for the benefit of our people and those aspiring to make a difference:
Filipino-Americans, though, and Filipino-Canadians to a lesser degree, will have the most say among overseas Filipinos. They are the richest, and they are American citizens to boot -- meaning they can make Uncle Sam listen to them if they find the secret of strategic alliances. It is unfortunate that the virus of divisiveness that afflicts the Filipino psyche here has found its way to
First off that VIRUS causing divisiveness in case people have not noticed is known as EGO, symptoms of which are longing for self-recognition (their mama & papa never gave them any), tribal or animal territorialism instinct, ignorance (emotional outburst and feeling of self-importance confusing their advocacy’s goal for personal glorification as just some of it’s characteristics) and of course hypocrisy.
One only has to look at the yahoo groups and you can have a glimpse (to borrow Montelibano’s article title) of what I am talking about. A great portion of the discussion are oftentimes telling their life story telling a lie that oftentimes readers and the writer themselves gets confused if the issue being raised is all about them or the advocacy they are promoting.
Why then have we not found the “secret” to strategic alliance? Well, for one there is no secret to strategic alliance so don’t waste your precious time trying to search for it like the so-called Marcos bullions buried somewhere that may turn out to be in peoples’ minds. The key to strategic alliance that will open up the door to a strong advocacy towards a better
All these can be done once we bring those knights in shining armor back to earth and down their white carabaos of their ego laden mind will we then see the problem clear of the cobwebs and solutions that has been there for the taking all along. Will the Filipino-Americans and Filipino-Canadians deflate their ego or stay like the Filipino Canadian joke of kana dito kana doon kana diyan (hit here, hit there, hit everywhere) going nowhere but probably inflate their egos larger than it is. Speak Out and be heard…… berate this Jaywalking Cyber Pedestrian Observer for his blasphemous babbling errr I meant say your piece.
Overseas Filipinos
Labels:
Divisiveness,
OFW,
Social Issue
3 Speak Out:
I am not a social scientist but I have been around, so to speak. So I would try to contribute a little of what I know about the issue based on my experience or existential observation, if I may recall right what I was taught about that term from that so called parochial school along Katipunan Avenue so many seasons ago.
And I like your NEEDLE SOLUTION to what seems to be the divisive factor among our people not only sa Pinas but everywhere. An inflated EGO ni kuya o ni ate ang problema. I was afflicted with that malady too specially when I was young and fresh, unmindful then of my failures or mistakes. It is so big sometimes that many of us, who are stricken with this cultural curse, seems to think that it is all about life.
But there is something ironical about all of these. If we take a closer look at this Pinoy Ego, we will find out that it is same EGO that is the driving force why si Pinoy is able to withstand the forbidding conditions of distant and strange places, working to support those left sa Pinas and to be able to tell oneself that he is not a prodigal son or daughter or a useless parent. It is also the very same EGO that augers well and pushes our Kababayan to shine like the North Star every December evening, when he is with people other than his kababayans!
Yet, when si Pinoy finds himself in the company of his fellow countrymen, the great PINOY EGO THAT HAS BEEN A GREAT COMPANION AND A BOON in his quest to provide the best for his family and himself, has now turned into a bane, like an albatross hanging around his neck. The selfless, altruistic hero has transformed himself into a waggling ALIMANGONG BUKID!
What is wrong then with the PINOY EGO? Is the problem really the Pinoy Ego or is there something deeper from our past that we have not yet totally overcome and that what we observed sometimes as aberrant in the Pinoy Ego is simply symptomatic of that deeper problem? I would not want to say that this problem is a monopoly of the less educated among us or that the problem is definitive of those among us with plebeian background.
Manny Villar, Chiz Escudero, Allan Peter Cayetano and Francis Pangilinan are the best argument in favor of my position. All are truly educated and all came with impeccable credentials. Yet, they acted no different from an ALIMANGONG BUKID from Bocaue, Bulacan. They squandered a once in a life-time chance to be great for our long suffering people, who trusted them to be their champion against an abusive executive department , when the 4 newly re-elected senators, realigned themselves with administration senators in order to position themselves for their own benefit in 2010. These 4 senators disregarded any compunction, what so ever, the reason why, in the first place, our long suffering people had brought them to victory, in a most fashionable manner, during the last election.
But then this is another issue or is It?
Of the Ego of the Alimangong Bukid:
In terms of Ego who does not possess it? I find the Britons to be more bloated than any American. And the French Ego makes the combination of the Brits and the Yanks a mere childish impudence. Filipinos? Their ego is but a lame attempt to be egoistic. Really, the Filipino has only the pretensions for ego the reason why it assumes the sheepish humility in the midst of other nationalities. To think of it, what history can any Filipino flaunt against the face of the Brits? What culture so grand can it brandish at the pecking nose of the French? And what wealth and its vulgarity can it ram on the throats of Americans for it to consider an equal? The Filipinos cannot allude to Cromwell, Napoleon and Washington as heroes or peeved icons. It surely cannot rollick at the thought of Locke, Voltaire and Henry James as part of the race endowed with so fertile a mind. Rizal? An American made-up hero? Give me a break! Spanish idiotic colonization came to an end because America bought this our land for Twenty Million Dollars without it Rizal can be buried again and again and this our land must have remained in the claws of arrogant Spaniards. Truthfully, our independence was given not earned! What the Filipino can really be proud about is a Marcos. None with this may agree but if one takes a little closer at how Napoleon became an Emperor and shook the world in fear was not entirely as noble as Washington when he snatched away America from the Brits. Cromwell is not entirely a Democratic Knight of the Shining Armor because upon his shoulder hanged thousands of impaled bodies. My point here is the extraordinary ability of an individual to forge his destiny and make himself larger than life which whether we agree or not Marcos single-handedly achieved. Remember that what Marcos had become, he earned it and what he was fated at the end was a fitting recompense. In this respect any Filipino can claim that it too possesses cunning and creativity to make a nation surrender under its power. Are we proud of this extraordinary feat whether it resulted to ominous evil or not? No we are not! And that’s the pity! As for myself I do not wish to remember it and if only I could blot out the memory of this dark past in our history I would do so. But history had been written and thus, be that as it may but I cannot deny Marcos the credit.
It’s not the Ego but the clinical expertise we possess in understanding that we are a bunch of worthless son of gun in a one godforsaken archipelago nobody knows about and couldn’t give a fart if it is known and we cannot come to terms with such fact. It’s our lack of acceptance of the very being that we are! While the rest of the gnomes in the world had wealth and history to shout with pride till they pink and blue in the face we possess none to boot. Oh, it’s a sad fact indeed! But, really what is wrong with the fact that we had nothing? What is wrong with the fact that we had no history because we will be making one? What is wrong with being poor? We, as a nation and as a people, find no nobility in poverty. We find no honor being an Indio and worst no humanity in being a Filipino. It is in every Filipino the consciousness that our country is poor as it is also in every psyche the knowledge that our political system is steeped with failure yet, it is either a joke that we are poor because of the malls and the mill of shoppers that do not let up even to the wee hours of the night or it is hearsay that our political system is a fluke because we do not act upon them. And who said that Marcos was pure evil because he mounted coup d’etat and plunged this country in martial rule? At present in this our land Coup d’etat is not immoral because it is the most fitting manner to ascend to honorability. Aren’t Gringo Honosan and Trillanes by now shall be addressed His Honor? A hearty laugh that I am guilty of.
Unless we as people begin to accept the fact that we had nothing we cannot begin to do something. The Britons knew the blood and murders in their history; the whirl and twirl of their precarious fate; the haunting images of Jack the Ripper, the agonies in the Gaul, the London Tower, the pikes and the stakes but they understood how and why all this things must come to pass and come to terms with all this things. The French knew about the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the harlotry of its government with the Nazis and the indifference with the Jews which led to the infamy of a lifetime: Holocaust. There is nothing worth bragging about with these things yet they accepted the fact that they were beasts once and their acceptance brought the struggle to be the most civilized human race in the face of the world. In our case we knew we were poor, without grand history of kings, queens and conquerors to boot but we are humans and are fated to make wealth and history because by the way aren’t we blessed by the same breath and potentialities as all these mongrels in the world are?
You summed up your point here when you wrote:
“It’s not the Ego but the clinical expertise we possess in understanding that we are a bunch of worthless son of gun in a one godforsaken archipelago nobody knows about and couldn’t give a fart if it is known and we cannot come to terms with such fact. It’s our lack of acceptance of the very being that we are! ”
While I may not totally agree with some of your conclusions with regards to some of your historical vignettes about the Philippines , however, I do agree with you that we, Filipinos, lack acceptance of who we really are, with all our faults, greatness and empty spaces from the past. It is for that reason, I think, why we almost always tend to expect to have something more, in addition to what we have, before we could BELIEVE that we could make a difference for others. Many of us still believe that it is what we have that matters, forgetting all the while that many of our parents’ successes in their lives were the result of their firm belief in the righteousness of their actions and their EARNEST EFFORTS TO MAKE THE BEST OF WHAT THEY HAVE.
That is the same success formula adopted by many of our people in Diaspora. To a large measure, it is the same idea that gave us our modern heroes in the Philippines such as Tony Meloto of Kawad Kalinga, Josette Biyo, the science teacher from Iloilo, who has a planet named after her, the Kapatiran candidates, Governors Podaca of Nueva Viscaya and Among Ed of Pampanga and countless other ordinary and unknown souls, who are living, probably living but still missing or dead and who, during their watch, did not wait for the sun to shine for wild flowers to bloom but with their God given gifts, created a glorious dawn in the hearts of those around them so that all may savor the hope that springs from every gilded light of a new day.
Why could they do it for themselves and others and be successful at both?
Why then could we do it for ourselves and yet find it a daunting and monumental task for others?
Why can’t we do it for La Patria?
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