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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Get Real Philippines


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"I would rather have a Philippines run like hell by Filipinos than a Philippines run like heaven by the Americans" -- Manuel L. Quezon

Is that so? Were we consulted? On the fourth of July, 1946, we sentenced generations of Filipinos to live their entire lives in a country run like hell by their compatriots. How does pride in self-rule stack up to the reality that in the more than 50 years of independence, the majority of Filipinos lived in absolute poverty and countless others suffered, died, or disappeared as a result of the greed and lust for power of our leaders.



Our country is sick in every sense of the word and we are a morally, intellectually, and spiritually bankrupt people. Our virtues, once comforting when invoked, now, at best, point out disturbing ironies about us: packed Sunday masses and images of presidents, mayors and congressmen knelt in prayer, 'third largest English-speaking country in the world', 'where Asia wears a smile', 'Asia's most vibrant democracy', etcetera, etcetera.

Let's give it a break! (1) our brand of Christianity is medieval, (2) we not only cannot speak straight English, we are trying to banish the language from our education system, (3) we laugh at just about anything, even our own stupidity and on every conceivable medium ' mobile phones, the Internet, etc., and (4) showbiz personalities are dancing and singing their way into office. Growing pains, yes, but we could have had as our mentor, a country that already had more than 200 years worth of lessons in democratic governance. But no! In 1946, we chose to learn to walk before we could even barely crawl.

Any way one looks at things, the reality is this: we're stuck with each other and that stigma of being Filipino that was aggravated by Erap's presidency. The first step in the right direction is to swallow the bitter pill and take a good look at ourselves. That's us! Non-partisan, nothing personal. It's all in the culture which in GetReal-speak is defined thus:

Culture is the collective character of a people who have given themselves a collective identity.

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