Why is da Pinoy so easily butthurt? Is it an excuse?

March 23, 2014

by Impaler Triumphant

GetRealPhilippines repeatedly points out the sensitivity of da Pinoy as something that is immature and something we should grow out of–and fast, for many reasons:

Ego distorts our way of thinking–it helps Pinoys make excuses for bad behavior instead of correcting them. Ego shifts blame–it helps insists that it’s Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s fault that the Philippines is in the dumps instead of looking for the REAL reasons in order to give the right solution. Ego helps people lie to themselves–The Aquino family saved us from total economic destruction. Then they wonder why their problems with money, with relationships, with their snatchers Manila traffic, and criminals won’t go away.

Pinoys just can’t, can they? Before you engage them, they insist you to have good social skills–someone with pakikisama. They want people to give them negative criticism “in a nice way.” They vilify the frank ones if they aren’t mentally-prepared for Real Talk. If you tell it as it is–bitter and full of ouch, they’ll assume you’re wrong. To them, there is no better method of you telling them their faults other than telling them that “in a nice way.”

You think you can sugar-coat your observations about them, but with no such luck. They make polite excuses when they think they are prepared for Real Talk–”I had nothing to feed my family, I was confused, I have a D, I was tempted. It’s just who I am.” Congrats, you’ve just been tuned out.

You can see how much they care about taking care not to get butthurt, therefore get real: PNoy rigs a Hope Christian School Q&A forum, Supreme Court ruled RA 10175 constitutional, politicians hold press conferences on national TV, celebrities file libel cases everywhere, your classmate whispering behind your back because you frankly told her she has bad breath two days ago in the privacy of your Facebook chat.

I guess it’s an international thing for people to be concerned about how people are supposed to say their two cents about anyone else. Many governments have been made Enemies of the Internet given the frank and spicy nature of bloggers and Anonymous.

So what?

Granted that many Filipinos truly need to refine their pakikisama, does that excuse the rest of their society to remain sensitive?

Why should Filipinos be so concerned about the way things are said about them?

In fact, why is da Pinoy so easily butthurt?

I offer a psychological explanation on the mechanism of denial. Denial, or perceptual defense as psychologists call it, is a form of defense mechanism employed with teeth, claws, and basest instincts for survival. When something is threatening, unpleasant, or negative, we employ varying degrees of perceptual defense so that we don’t get traumatized by them. Otherwise we go insane.

Survivors of gruesome accidents have one notable example on how denial works. Many of them saw themselves and others burned, broken, or torn apart before their very eyes. They look at all that meat and blood scattered all over the concrete. It’s graphic. Yet when they regain consciousness in a hospital days or weeks later, they will tell their doctors that they have no memory of what just happened. It’s self-censorship to the point of actually believing the edited version of memory.doc to be true.

Given the unpleasant nature of criticism, Pinoys’ perceptual defense goes up along with proselytizing everyone why it’s good to be Filipino. And given the truth from the criticism against them–the fiesta elections, the dancing politicians, the blame games, the excuses, and the over emphasis on showbiz and the squatters–its bitterness must be so traumatizing that it is a perfect excuse to deny its existence. Not to mention scolding you that you should have put it in “a nice way.” Excuse me? What’s nice about EDSA traffic jams? What’s nice about spitting on the ground? What’s so blessed for being poor?

So there you have perceptual defense. Then you have the bitter truth. Add that with the brainwashing from mainstream media and even certain social media sites. Put it all together and you have the perfect recipe for making an Ampaw Republic.

Of course their way of looking at things will make them fail the So What? Test. Their houses will still be dingy. BIR will still collect too many taxes from the middle class. They will keep electing the ampaw politicians because they can sing and twerk and their mother just died. They will still scream like monkeys in social networks and in public places and then shut up instead of using all their cunning to not let thieving legislators get away with their tax money ever again. Pinoy society will keep on consciously and unconsciously excuse themselves for their incompetence and for shitting on their pants–so long as they are in denial what truly went wrong.

So going back:

Granted that many Filipinos truly need to refine their pakikisama, does that excuse the rest of their society to remain sensitive?

No.

If you’re unwilling or unable to identify and consciously acknowledge your negative behaviors, characteristics or life patterns, then you will not change them. (In fact, they will only grow worse and become more entrenched in your life.) You’ve got to face it to replace it. — Phillip McGraw

Why should Filipinos be so concerned about the way things are said about them?

They shouldn’t. Like many confident men and women that succeed, they should, as Ilda said, take criticism with a grain of salt–with graceful contemplation.

GRP says it all the time. It’s time the rest of Philippine society bite the bullet and ask themselves the hard questions why the BIR collects too much taxes from the taxpayers; why many Manila are roads still covered in black grime, piss and phlegm; why the ampaw politicians, the pickpockets and the muggers keep coming back; and why they have to admit that they are accountable for it.

Anu ba yan ang nega mo naman! Nuod na lang kami ng Eat Bulaga.

I guess Pinoys would rather feel good and content with the dirty society around them rather than feel bad and then put their foot down and admit. “No. I don’t like this, and this is my fault, my friends’ faults, and practically everyone in this society.” I guess they would rather believe their own lies instead of saying, “This shit has to stop.”

Unwelcome Homecoming

Luke 4:24-30

Jesus said to the people in the synagogue at Nazareth: "Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian." When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

Introductory Prayer: Lord Jesus, as I prepare for Easter during this Lenten season, I turn to you once again in prayer. I believe that you are my creator and that you have created me to know, love and serve you. I believe that you want to help me fulfill my purpose in life; that is why you came to earth to suffer and die. I offer you my prayer today as a small token of my gratitude, a small token of my desire to live my life for you. I know that sometimes I can let things get between us. Now, during this time of prayer, I want to give all my attention to you so that you – and not my egoism or passions – may govern my life choices.

Petition: Lord, help me to have the humility to accept your will for my life.

1. No Special Privileges: Jesus’ fellow townsmen are upset with Jesus for pointing out that there were times in history that God showed his favor to Gentiles and not just Jews. They are upset because they had put their security in their Jewish heritage and the promises made to their people through the Patriarchs. They want to think that because they are Jews somehow God must show them more favor than the Gentiles. We, too, can make this mistake. We think that because we belong to this or that organization, or because we have this or that position, somehow God must give us more attention and special privileges. Isn’t this often the cause of indignation in our lives? We are upset when do not receive preferential treatment. We think that we are deserving of more.  Does that indignation ever grow so strong that I try to rid myself of Christ?

2. Seeking God’s Blessings: Why did God send Elijah to help the widow in Zarephath and Elisha to cleanse Naaman the Syrian? Surely it was not because they were more important or holier people. God chose them because they welcomed him. The widow in Zarephath happily went to fetch Elijah a drink of water when he asked  for it and obediently gave him the last of the food she had. Naaman repented from his indignation and went to bathe in the Jordan as Elisha told him to do. God gives his gifts to those who welcome him.

3. Willful Acceptance of Christ: Christ is perhaps too familiar to his townsmen. They are not able to recognize who he really is. They are upset with the way he speaks, and so they do not accept him. Will I accept Christ in my life? Perhaps he is too familiar to me. I think I know who he is. Perhaps I am unwilling to accept his teachings. Perhaps I am indignant that he has blessed others more than me. The people of Nazareth tried to throw Jesus over a cliff, but they could not get rid of him. Their assault was futile. Christ simply walked away. Christ cannot be gotten rid of. Perhaps there are times in my life when I want to get rid of Christ, but I can never destroy or blot him out of existence. He is always there waiting for me to accept him.

Conversation with Christ: Lord, please help me so that my ideas about how things should be will not cloud my vision of who you are. As I prepare for the approaching Easter, help me to purify myself of all egoism, sensuality, vanity and pride so that I can accept your love with an open heart.

Resolution: I will look for an instance during the day when I can welcome Christ’s teaching into my life.

Third Sunday of Lent: Living Water‏

Living Water

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there. Jesus, tired from his journey, sat down there at the well. It was about noon. A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman for a drink?” — For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.— Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you do not even have a bucket and the cistern is deep; where, then, can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this cistern and drank from it himself with his children and his flocks?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again; but whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst; the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband and come back.” The woman answered and said to him, “I do not have a husband.” Jesus answered her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband.’ For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, "Believe me woman; the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You people worship what you do not understand; we worship what we understand, because salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him. God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming, the one called the Christ; when he comes, he will tell us everything.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one speaking with you.” At that moment his disciples returned, and were amazed that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What are you looking for?” or “Why are you talking with her?” The woman left her water jar and went into the town and said to the people, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could he possibly be the Christ?” They went out of the town and came to him. Meanwhile, the disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat which you do not know.” So the disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work. Do you not say, ‘In four months the harvest will be here’? I tell you, look up and see the fields ripe for the harvest. The reaper is already receiving payment and gathering crops for eternal live, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For here the saying is verified that ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work and you are sharing the fruits of their work.” Many of the Samaritans of that town began to believe in him because of the word of the woman who testified, “He has told me everything I have done.” When the Samaritans came to him, they invited him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. Many more began to believe in him because of his word, and they said to the woman, “We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”

Introductory Prayer: Lord, I believe that you are present in my life. I believe that you are my creator and that you hold me in existence at every moment. I hope in you because I know that you created me and want what’s best for me. I know that you want to give me the living water you promised to the Samaritan woman. I am the one who places obstacles in your way. My lack of faith, attachments to worldly things, egoism and vanity all get in the way of receiving your gift. I come to you in prayer today with a humble and contrite heart. You know my misery and how much I need your grace. Accept my prayer today as a token of my desire to remove the obstacles that come between us.

Petition: Lord help me to turn to you, the Wellspring of Eternal Life, to satisfy my thirst.

1. Making Trips to the Well: The Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water as she has so many times before. When her water runs out and she is thirsty, she must go back to the well again. The water she draws from  the well has the power to satisfy for only a short time. We can go through life just like this woman, searching for the little things in life that satisfy our thirst – perhaps pleasure, the latest news, an interesting job or a friendship. All these things satisfy, but their satisfaction is limited and we must return to them again and again. To what do you turn to satisfy your thirst for happiness and fulfillment? Reflect on how that satisfaction is limited and how you must go back time and time again to quench your thirst.

2. The Living Water: The Samaritan woman comes to draw water, but this time there is a Jewish man at the well and he asks her for a drink. She is taken aback by his request because Jews do not associate with Samaritans. A Jew would not ask a Samaritan for a drink because, according to Jewish law, the buckets that the Samaritans used were unclean. In spite of her initial shock, she is willing to converse with him and is startled when he offers her living water. It is soon clear that he is speaking about something much greater than well water. He is speaking about the life of grace – the life-giving water he has come to give all mankind. He shares this life of grace with us in abundance – so much so that when we accept his offer of life-giving grace, we no longer have need for inferior satisfactions.

3. We Must Ask for This Water: Christ tells the woman, “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” The woman does not know she is speaking to the very source of life and grace. If she only knew she was talking to the Christ, she would beg for the living water that Christ has to offer. No doubt many times we are close to Christ in our prayer or  the Eucharist without recognizing him. We are like this Samaritan woman – unaware that we speaking with Christ. Only when we are truly aware of how close Christ and the great treasure he is offering us are to us when we converse with him in prayer, are we able to beg him for the living water of his grace.

Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, I want to see beyond the ordinary and grasp the reality of what you are offering me. You died on the cross so that I might partake in the living water that flowed from your side. Grant me your grace of living water, and teach me to thirst for it alone.

Resolution: I will ask Christ, by short invocations throughout the day, to give me the living water of his grace. 

Why some foreigners would rather go hungry than eat Filipino food

March 22, 2014

by Ilda

I love Filipino food!!! I never get tired of eating adobo. The taste is so primal because I just think it satisfies every human being’s craving for protein and salt – those two key ingredients that help keep our bodies from malfunctioning. For me, Adobo is one of those dishes that make you want to say, “I am so glad I am not vegetarian”. I like it especially when the pork and chicken have been fried to a crisp before mixing it back with the soy and vinegar sauce. We have adobo regularly and it is the default dish when everyone is too lazy to think of what to have for lunch or dinner.

For some greens, I like the bitter and sweet taste of pinakbet. Cooked right, the pumpkin melts in the mouth while the okra and eggplant is crunchy in light sauce mixed with bagoong (shrimp paste). I also like stir-fried kangkong(swamp cabbage) and ginataang gabi (taro) or laing, which my late mother’s best friend from Bicol used to cook for us whenever she drops by for a chat. Not everyone can cook laing with the same success as her in my opinion. I won’t even dare try cooking it myself because it is cooked in several stages the first of which is drying the taro leaves under the sun for a few days at least.

Filipino street food is something else also. I have to stop myself from eating too much balut lest I develop high-blood pressure. I don’t like the aborted duck fetus so much when the duck bones and little bits of feathers are already visible although sometimes when it’s dark or when I just close my eyes and not let my imagination go wild, the yuck factor goes away. Balut is very tasty, indeed but I wouldn’t force my overseas friends to eat it. I’d hate for them to throw up a good thing.

Isaw: No germs can survive this grilling!

Another street food that can be so addictive once you start munching on it is the isaw. It’s what we Filipinos call barbecued chicken innards. It’s so light and tasty that you end up eating more than the number of kilojoules allowed for the day. I have fond memories of eatingisaw in Boracay Island before dinner while watching the sun set in the horizon. It’s just one of those little joys that we Filipinos love to do when we have time.

I can list all the Filipino dishes that I love but it could take me all week and if I enumerate all of them, this article might turn into a book. Besides, listing all of them is not really the point of this article.

Do you want to know why I love Filipino food? If I tell you it’s the best, which I won’t because I don’t think it is, you’ll probably think I am just being biased. I love Filipino food because I am Filipino. For me it is good because I got used to eating it from the moment I became capable of chewing solid foods when I was a toddler. Had my parents introduced me to eating monkey brain the way they serve it in China and Indonesia — raw and occasionally directly out of the dead monkey’s skull — perhaps I would crave it too. But because I didn’t grow up eating monkey brain, I find the thought of eating the “delicacy” appalling and gross.

Yes, I am well aware of the fact that some Filipino dishes are too salty, sweet, loaded with fat and overall unhealthy if taken in large quantities, which is why I do not eat too much of it. Lechon, anyone? I realize the danger of indulging too much in some Filipino dishes because I know a lot of people who developed kidney stones from eating too much salty Filipino food, particularly those flavored with alamang or shrimp paste. I also know someone who is a little bit on the plus size because she dips just about everything she eats in sugar carelessly.

Most Filipinos who go abroad would find other foreign dishes too bland and flavorless. I know some kababayans or Filipino travelers who think the famous British food Fish and Chips is unappetizing and depressing. Personally, I would only eat it when there’s nothing else to eat. I haven’t tried African food yet but I doubt it would appeal to me, something I decided after just watching them prepare it on one of those documentary shows on television.

Because the world is getting smaller and smaller, people from around the world are getting exposed to different kinds of food from overseas. Aside from Filipino food, I love eating Thai, Malaysian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Mexican, Swedish, Greek and Italian food. I can live without Indian food because I think it’s too spicy, oily and fattening.

Animal rights activists might find the sight of lechon offensive.

This brings me to my point. Each society is different. People from different societies have different tastes. We all have been exposed to different ways of cooking our meals. I was told that some people from other societies do not like being reminded of where their food came from, which is why they fillet their fish instead of serving the whole thing, head and all, on the table. Furthermore, some societies prepare and flavor their meals depending on the available ingredients in their homeland. Historically, some societies have even gone to great lengths to put some precious spice for their meals by conquering other lands. Meanwhile, some societies make do with what little they have like salt for instance to preserve their catch of the day.

We cannot force people to love our food because they have been exposed to a different kind of food preparation regimen and their idea of what is edible and unhealthy is not the same as ours. In other words, people from different cultures have different standards. This applies to pretty much anything — including food.

The fact that Filipino restaurants overseas are not that popular with other cultures says a lot about our need to improve on it. We should also not feel offended, for example, when people criticize our food like how the young couple from Poland did when they blogged about their awful experience eating Filipino food while they were in the Philippines. We should see it as an opportunity to address where we get it wrong.

Eating out in the Philippines is an adventure!

Some Filipinos who were angered by Agness Walewinder’s claim that “she would rather go hungry than eat Filipino food again” appeared too defensive. They seem incapable of putting themselves in other peoples’ shoes. In the first place, the bloggers from Poland wrote valid reasons why they got turned off with Filipino food. I personally would not eat the stuff they ate. The picture of the adobo in the article didn’t look like it was cooked the same way I like it cooked. I wouldn’t like that adobo as well. The roasted poultry looked a bit grotesque piled up on top of the stand. I wouldn’t eat them even if someone paid me either.

Most Filipinos who got upset by the honest assessment of the couple from Poland missed their point. In the Filipino people’s defense some said that the couple should not have stuck with buying their meals from cheap local stalls that cater to poor Filipinos. But I think that the couples’ point was, in a lot of societies, the quality of food being served to the poor folk is not so different to that served to those in the middle and upper classes. In some countries for example, when a poor guy orders a steak, he will get a steak in the same quality as when a middle-income earner orders a steak. In a true egalitarian society, a steak is a steak. Meaning, food is not prepared according to your social standing.

Basically, these Polish bloggers highlighted the country’s gaping social divide.

Coming from a more advanced society, it was hard for the Polish couple to comprehend that poor Filipinos have their own standards in food preparation. Evidently, hygiene is not a priority when it comes to handling food. Unfortunately, because there are so many poor people from the Philippines, most foreigners visiting the Philippines will more than likely encounter street food that will not be enticing to them.

My advice to the two Polish travelers and other foreigners travelling the Philippines is to expect that the quality of food to be a lot different when the meals are prepared using a higher standard. And my advice to my fellow Filipinos is to take criticisms from foreigners with a grain of salt.

[Photo of isaw, lechon, and karinderya courtesy LifeOutofOffice.com,Dude4Food, and TropicalVacationSpotsblog.com respectively.]

Filipino cuisine: Culture of laziness in the kitchen consistently results in mediocre food

Filipino food regrettably ranks as one of the worst in the world - street food or otherwise. If you say to someone - 'how about Filipino tonight' - it does not conjure up going out to eat! The reason has little to do with poverty. In so many countries I visit it was the poverty which drove the initial creativity to maximise variety and flavor from very basic choices and to experiment with ingredients.

It seems more to do with a generic culture of laziness and lack of creativity which extends to the kitchen. It is also that few learn to cook or take on board a passion for food, and unlike the curiosity of foreigners, Filipinos do not explore a wide range of cuisines but stick to what they know and suffer withdrawal symptoms if no rice.

Food is predominantly basic rice 3 times a day (good luck with the diabetes), and anything thrown in oil and overcooked (good luck with heart disease) creating one brown mess on the plate (a forerunner of things to come!) and often served/eaten lukewarm. One's tastebuds soon go on strike. For the bone-idle there is the fallback which is the abomination and rip off called Jollibee - cruelty to the palate.

The Philippines is the land which cooking forgot and which gourmands will never remember. A blank in the Michelin guide - no surprise there.

It is regrettable because as with many areas it represents lost opportunity. Fusion cuisine has great potential and a natural affinity.

Fortunately the rest of Asia produces excellent food, with subtle and surprising combinations, beautiful and colorful presentation, all garnished with excellent service.

The joke for travellers used to getting the Delhi Belly, now it is the Manila Killa.

Visitors should just consider the Philippines as a culinary desert, with the schools providing assembly line 'chefs' for the cruise ships. Masterchef it ain't.

A few ex-pat chefs such as Billy King can muster a decent spread on a good day, and Sofitel remains consistently good, thanks to French flair and an excellent GM. Chef Pengson at the Goose Station may be pretentious but tries, and your wallet will remember the experience. But apart from high end restaurants, overall there is a need to improve, particularly if tourists are going to have an enjoyable and memorable stay (for the right reasons) and recommend the country, and also to improve the health of all.

And unlike the food, which is often as tough as old boots, Filipinos are emotional souls incapable of taking constructive criticism so food critics can expect to be 'persona non grata' if you have higher standards than a Chinese take-away or an American throwaway.

Gordon Ramsay would be on expletive overdrive, but Andrew Zimmern in 7th Heaven, and Dan Brown in hell's kitchen.

And if tourists have those views then people can either be butthurt and adopt an ostrich approach or be open, proactive and improve standards and change the reputation, or tourists can simply visit other countries in Asia.

Source:

http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2014/03/filipino-food/comment-page-1/#comment-228646

A Foreign Blogger’s Poor Opinion on Filipino Food And What’s Seriously Wrong About Filipino Food Blogging

March 21, 2014

by Paul Farol

Blogger Agnes Walewinder’s post on eTramping about her poor opinion of Filipino food isn’t going to get link loving from me.  Not because I am butt hurt or that I’m taking her criticism of Filipino food personally, but because I really think her blog post is so poorly written and its criticism has little value other than to call attention to herself.

Fellow Get Real Philippines blogger ChinoF probably has Agnes doing headstands and somersaults for getting some attention from some Pinoys who are only too willing to give it to anyone who’ll make even a mildly insulting comment about anything Filipino.

What is pathetic about Agnes is that she has to defend herself by commenting on Chino’s blog post: “I am not an ignorant traveler, but an experienced and respectful travel nomad who has been living and travelling in various Asian countries since 2011. I have tried a lot of different street dishes from Thailand to Sri Lanka and I felt disappointed with the Philippines cuisine the most. It’s my personal experience, but it seems like Filipinos hate everyone who has a different opinion. I’m so disappointed reading all of these mean comments.”

A few moments ago, I felt like going over Agnes’ post sentence by sentence just to point out each and every flaw, but I figured it would be just a waste of time.

So let me just point out the flaws that run through her entire post:

One. The title is a sweeping generalization.  It was originally “I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Food Again!” before it was changed to “I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Street Food Again!”  The thing is the blogger was too lazy to re-write the entire article to take out traces of the original title and you’ll find her referring to all Filipino food over and over again.

Two. Lack of crucial details such as where in the Philippines she went to sample Filipino food.  Even without a “selfie” to prove that she actually went to the Philippines rather than Google-sourced everything, mentioning exactly where she ate would probably explain why her experience of Filipino food was the way it is.

The thing is, Filipino food varies in quality from place to place and depending on the time of day, month, or year.

One paragraph in her blog says she went to the local market and found the food there to be of poor quality.  She didn’t say whether she went to a small market locally called talipapa or a big market, which makes a whole lot of difference.  And among big markets, there’s a huge difference between good ones like Suki Market which is clean, organized, and well lighted; and nasty ones like Galas Market or the old Divisoria market.  There’ll also be a difference in what you’ll find depending on the time of day, if you go in the morning you’re more likely to get the better quality stuff than if you go in the afternoon.  Why? Because most Filipinos do their marketing in the morning and the earlier, the better.  Also, you’ll also have to know which market sells the best particular produce.

For all I care, the blogger could have gone to some roadside talipapa in the afternoon and based her assessment of Filipino food from what she found there.  Even worse, she could have eaten at some hole in the wall karinderiaexpecting to be wowed.

Goodness! That’s like going to some random greasy spoon in the Bronx and basing your assessment on American food on that.  If that isn’t ignorance on multiple levels, I don’t know what is.

Three. The entire post lacks any sense of organization that would make it useful for the reader and I hardly got through the whole thing on the first reading.  It was ACTUAL WORK to try and make sense of what she was saying.

On the flip side of this fiasco, of course, are Filipino food bloggers who rave about almost any new restaurant or food product that they are introduced to and slug it out among themselves for invites to the opening of new restaurants or product launches — or so, I was told.

I don’t know whether it was last year or the year before that the word “Patay Gutom Bloggers” went around and it seemed some part of the Pinoy blogosphere was on fire.  But perhaps that is the impression that people will have when they see people quarreling over restaurant or food product launch invites.

Just recently, I was made aware that the PG blogger fiasco is still going on and has attracted even more bloggers into the fray.

If I were a PR practitioner looking at the whole thing and was told by my client that they wanted invited a couple of food bloggers to the opening of their new restaurant, I’d have to ask what value would they expect a self-professed food blogger’s post add to the overall communication campaign?

It would help a lot if the food blogger actually knows a thing or two about food other than being gifted with the ability to stuff their pie hole, work a keyboard, and snap photos all at the same time.

There are people who know food and people who KNOW food, do you get what I am saying?  There are people who spend a lot of time and money to find out about a particular dish or particular kind of food.

Take Charlie Gaw, the owner of Sabroso, for instance.  I thought I knew enough about lechon until I met him.  This guy claims to have traveled the entire country tasting the best lechon in every single province and he has come to the conclusion that the best lechon comes from Cebu.  Thing is he says that not all lechon in Cebu tastes great and there are actually just a few lechon makers there that really make great lechon.  Then among those lechon makers, there’ll be only be a limited number of the best of the best lechons.

Charlie is active on Facebook and I think still has a Multiply site for Sabroso (his brand of lechon).  He is well known among lechon makers because he used to supply a number of them with pigs for lechon.  He is also well regarded among restaurant owners in the Morato area in Quezon City and his social network includes some of the most well known foodies in the Philippines.

If I had a client who was launching an all pork restaurant, I’d probably recommend that they invite Charlie because I’d presume Charlie knows a lot about pork and his opinion about pork would carry a lot of weight.

Thing is, not all food bloggers or people who blog about food are like Charlie who can afford to educate their minds and palates.  But at the very least, they should take pains to know more about food — how it’s made, how it’s cooked, where it comes from, etcetera.

Thing is, if you are writing about anything, it really matters that you actually know a lot about what you are writing about.  Otherwise, you’ll come off like Agnes or some forgettable food blogger.

Conlusion: Agnes Walewinder’s review of Filipino food boils down to saying that she ordered a turd burger and is disappointed that it tastes like crap.

Culture as impediment: Why we were left behind

HINDSIGHT By F. Sionil Jose (The Philippine Star) | Updated March 16, 2014 - 12:00am

The other week, I was asked by Commodore (ret.) Jose G. Lansangan Jr. to speak before officials of the National Defense College, the Department of Foreign Affairs, and Department of Interior and Local Government at Camp Aguinaldo. The topic: the influence of culture on government, the Chinese input, the colonial experience, and “what traits we should improve to be more competent.”

I told them I am not a cultural anthropologist or a historian, that my most important bona fide was that I am much older than all of them, that I have traveled a lot not only in the Philippines but elsewhere, read a lot as well, and being a writer, I have been most observant.

Cultural values are, in themselves, neutral as well as universal and so much depends on how individuals or ethnic groups use them. Values are influenced by so many factors such as geography, climate, religion, the economy and technology.

When I visited the Trobriand islands in Melanesia in the very early Sixties, the natives — the men and women — were all half naked; they wore skirts made from shredded banana leaves. When they reach the age of puberty, they are sexually promiscuous. But once they get married, concubinage or adultery is punished by death. More than a hundred years ago, the Eskimos in North America lived in igloos and when a visitor came, the husband would lend his wife for the night to keep him warm. I saw a documentary on the Trobriands a couple of years back; no more in leaf skirts — all were in T-shirts and blue jeans. The Eskimo houses now are heated. Obviously, their culture, too, has changed.

The ethnic differences among Filipinos are very real. The paucity of arable land, for instance, explains the industry of the Ilokanos and the Cebuanos.

Self-respect, the value of “face,” is universal but is most pronounced in China, then in Japan where the Confucian ethic is most influential. With us, “face” is easily fused with yabang. All of us are afflicted withyabang, and more so the Moros who have a royalty system of datus and Sultans. If the Christian politician has five bodyguards, the Moro politician has 10.

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Maybe it is fortunate for us that we never really had royalty although there was an attempt by Imelda to create one. It was therefore easy for us to accept the institutions of democracy that the Americans brought here. They were not new; we already had the Malolos Republic. And much earlier we syncretized the Catholicism from the Spaniards.

The cultural mix, however, resulted in our inheriting the vices rather than the virtues of our colonizers, and worse, to this very day, we have yet to decolonize our minds.

After I spoke, two distinguished retired officer-scholars, Cesar P. Pobre and Rex Robles, contributed insights. Then from the audience, questions, and again: Why were we left behind?

Why, indeed, when in the Fifties we were doing so well — we were the richest, most modern in Southeast Asia.

One of the old excuses is corruption.

Let us now look at the Western powers—the United States and Britain. How was America built? The robber barons, the Vanderbilts, the Morgans, Rockefellers and Stanfords were not saints—they raped the land, exploited their workers and were pompous and self-indulgent. But they built railroads, steel mills, industries, universities; after they amassed all that wealth, they went into philanthropy. The richest man in the world today — Bill Gates—poured billions into his crusade to banish the major illnesses and poverty in the world. He has no equal in the Philippines.

The British Empire was envisioned in those smoky London clubs by the captains of industry, the admirals of the navy, the dons of Oxford and Cambridge. Read Charles Dickens — it is all there, how the industrialists exploited their workers. Those navy captains were also pirates, but together, they built an empire.

In our part of the world, the leaders who built Korea, Japan, Taiwan were not saints either. Many of them were also corrupt. Perhaps, the only recent leader in Asia who was upright but stern and purposeful was Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore.

For all their faults, these nation builders had vision and a sense of nation. These qualities, alas, are what our oligarchs never had and never will.

It is easy of course to blame colonialism for our poverty and other problems for what hindered us from developing are the chains of colonialism, many of them invisible. We got to grow comfortable with them and at the same time, complacent with our dependency.

Most of our elites came from the landlord class and landlords are often lazy, incapable of initiatives, used to sitting on their buttocks and waiting for the harvest, the rent.

We haven’t progressed because our elites have no vision.

Remember how more than a hundred years ago, Rizal thought of colonizing North Borneo? Shortly after the grant of Independence in July 1946, the British wanted us to help populate North Borneo. It was then ruled not by Britain but the British North Borneo company.

In the mid-Fifties, the late “Admiral” Tomas Cloma took me to Freedom Land in the Spratleys. We should have colonized many of those islands then. But we didn’t.

We are a maritime nation with a glorious tradition in shipbuilding and seamanship. Why did we not start a maritime industry? Build our own ships? Patrol boats—not battle ships or aircraft carriers to watch and protect our territorial waters. Korea has no such tradition, but the Koreans started building ships and they are now the world’s biggest shipbuilders.

Industrialization starts with the formation of capital — it does not matter how. It can be created by saving, by the state enforcing its will on the people, by the very rich themselves.

This is what happened in Japan, Korea, Taiwan which developed very fast — they did not let their money leak out until they had enough to modernize. The Koreans even subsidized their foreign ventures to earn dollars.

Our elites did not trust the stability of the Philippines. Worse, they did not trust the capacity of the Filipinos. Like the old colonial masters who ravaged this country, they sent their loot abroad.

What to do?

First and foremost, we must understand the culture of poverty and eradicate it through a massive re-education of our people, a decolonization of the mind — a revolution in fact which need not be violent.

We will then shape our institutions according to our aspirations.

We have brilliant managers, technocrats, economic planners in and out of government. Some of the best economic development plans were shaped way back, during the time of President Elpidio Quirino in the Fifties, on to the dictatorship of Marcos, and now, President Aquino.

But in all these plans, backed up by glowing rhetoric, there is one very important — in fact the most important- ingredient missing: patriotism, the iron will to fructify such ambition, such dreams. Development and the justice it brings can never be achieved for as long as a self-serving oligarchy — without social responsibility and patriotism- controls our economy. This is the primary reason why we were left behind, why we will languish for a long time — in spite of the soaring skyscrapers in our cities, the fat and glossy cars in our streets.

Not till we become truly Filipino.