Insulted much? Talaga lang huh!

June 13, 2014

by Ms. Mike Portes

The viral issue at www.hongwrong.com smacks of cultural ignorance on the publisher and on the educational system disseminating it. We are at an Age where Diversity is being embraced by the enlightened and I could have easily snapped back with this highly suggested “Widow” edit : “I am Chinese and my government is Asia’s bully, that’s why we take what can be taken when no one’s looking.”

So angry are we that a primary textbook and, even a few years before, a dictionary has defined our nationality to be synonymous to maids.

Insulting much? Is it really?

Then what?

Will doing that belie the fact that majority of the Filipinos in HK are INFACT Domestic Helpers? Not only in HK but in the Middle East and Italy, for that matter.

So angry are we that a primary textbook and, even a few years before, a dictionary has defined our nationality to be synonymous to maids.

Insulting much? Is it really?

Is that more insulting than having a BS Education degree but one is relegated to scrub bathroom floors and tend to children not their own?

Is it more painful than having to work stay-in with a family of complete strangers miles away from one’s own?

Couple those instances with the threat of abuse and maybe death even by one’s own hand

A risky trade off isn’t it?

All thanks to the lack of opportunities in our country, our educated do not earn what should be rightfully ours yet those who work around our dysfunctional system are living high.

Add the many local employees who face “endo” just so, companies can save on their OPEX.

Ah the disparity of the rich and poor widens yet tolerant aren’t we of the abuse of the politicians we elected into office and the companies we patronize rabidly.

We sleep consoling ourselves with the delusion of being a Proud Filipino yet the truth can never be consoled with lies. It haunts until we awaken and grasp it.

English butler, French maid.

Popular references to old world jobs that has found its way to new world pop culture in Batman’s Alfred and in a Cosplay costume but why aren’t the Brits or the French taking offense?

But with us Flipinos, we take on full metal gear online and annihilate ANYONE who dares slap us with the truth that we are trying oh sooooo hard to deny.

Suck it kababayans! This is what Rizal has written about a century hence:

“What is the use of independence, if the slaves of today will be tyrants of tomorrow. “

We were not ready for independence because we know not anything of who we are.

Suck it kababayans! This is what Rizal has written about a century hence:

“What is the use of independence, if the slaves of today will be tyrants of tomorrow.”

We were not ready for independence because we know not anything of who we are. Our pride is based on arrogance and not on merit. Our identity based on the dictates of the powerful, not owned and never understood. Thus, we hunger for POWER WITH OUT MERIT. We see it in our government, we feel its debility in our system, we breathe it like air and pass it off as normal. Like drugged prostitutes we go by, we exist but we know not anything about living.

We are here but we are not.

Ms. Mike Portes

Mike is the author of "Minsan may Isang Puta", an allegory which has been circulating since 2004 and with over 30,000 likes and shares in social media alone. It won a film grant in 2010 to be included in the multi-narrative Indie film "Ganap na Babae" (International title: Garden of Eve). The teaser, reviews and commentaries are here. The movie was honored as Cinemalaya 2010's opening film and has won international and local recognition. Mike's first sole authored book "The Dove Files", available at amazon.com endeavors to pay forward.The royalties from the initial 150 copies first went to a Project Malasakit scholar who graduated Cum Laude in April 2013, the rest was also paid forward to baby Mark who underwent a liver transplant in March 2013. The royalties from the succeeding prints of "The Dove Files", now go to a deserving Mangyan scholar who despite having been laughed at and nicked as "Taong-bundok", prevailed and recently graduated from High School.