From these articles, it can be surmised that majority of Filipino society seems to treat its children quite poorly. Contrary to being “child-friendly”, it seems that our apparent “wholesomeness” is just a front for more disturbing aspects of our society. Of course, I know that there will be those out there who will once again go into denial and pretend that the Philippines deeply cares for the welfare and happiness of its children even when its actions and attitude towards the little folk seem to say otherwise. Well then ladies and gentlemen, let’s have it out now because if anyone’s going to start change in our country, it’s going to have to be parents and how they raise their children.
We Kill The Imagination Of Our Children
I grew up during the 90’s and, back in those days, having fancy gadgets to play with was a rarity. Heck, I never even got started on video games until I was 12 or so. Anyway, while I didn’t have many cool toys, my grandfather imparted to me something that no new-fangled gaming console ever could: a powerful imagination. Of course, I’ve always had an imagination, but my grandfather saw it fit to feed my imagination. We would sit for hours at a time, with him reading to me stories like Treasure Island, A Christmas Carol, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (which still scares me to this day) and Moby Dick. Anyway, my father never really understood and often wondered why, even when I lived with a well-to-do family, I didn’t even have a Gameboy. My mother, however, did understand and one of my happiest memories was when she used a bunch of cardboard boxes and tinfoil to make me a robot costume with a roll of red cartolina for my sword. While I know I must’ve looked really idiotic back then, pretending to be a giant robot with my Lego set as people, it was probably one of the brightest moments of my childhood.
To this day, my imagination continues to be a powerful force in my life and has helped me tremendously in spicing up my school reports and inspirational speeches. While my grandfather doesn’t tell me stories anymore (although he still loves his books), I’ve found the joy of storytelling to be as equally gratifying as reading or hearing a story. Whether it’s telling a spooky story here on GRP or Wattpad, narrating nasty erotica/porn in [DATA EXPUNGED], telling funny stories to classmates or acting as a GM for various RPG’s, I will go on to say that there’s nothing like sharing a good story with people.
Remember, imagination is the key to creativity and that, by feeding one’s imagination, one feeds one’s creativity, allowing them to come up with new and interesting ideas to improve themselves and those around them. As I’ve said in a previous article, I believe that one of the chief concerns about children in our country is improving their imaginations by showing them creative and educational programming.
Unfortunately, as I’ve cited in another article, if there’s anything we Filipinos excel in, it’s destroying the minds of our youth. Instead of presenting to them unique ideas that will help them improve their worldview as they grow older, we instead bombard them with themes of immorality from our teleseryes and cruel humor from our crass game shows. While some claim that there are “lessons” to be learned in some of our local programs, these are few and far between and are easily overshadowed by the unwholesome elements, both implied and overt, in many of our shows which center on sexuality, dishonesty and violence.
We Look At Childhood With Contempt
I don’t really understand it myself, but a lot of typical Pinoys often have a wrong conception of what it means to be “mature”. I’ve mentioned this all before but allow me to say it again for those who missed it, a good number of us seem to think that enjoying animated programs and collecting toys is “childish” while producing dozens upon dozens of children without thought of their future and overindulging in various destructive vices is “mature”.
Let me remind you that the real definition of being childish is refusing to be corrected and seeing the world in an overly simplistic manner. Being “mature” is about being willing to take responsibility for the mistakes one makes and atoning for them and seeing things from different perspectives. Also, there is nothing wrong with enjoying escapist entertainment so long as one still has a strong grasp of reality and the consequences of what they do. A good example of immaturity is when one fails to know the difference between reality and what is merely propaganda or entertainment and seeing people as simply “all good” or “all bad” without considering the possibility of said people falling somewhere in between.
We Do Not Protect Them From Sexual Immorality
I actually find the idea that the Philippines being “child-friendly” as completely laughable. Sure, the MTRCB keeps stuff they consider “immoral” out of local TV (like anime, for instance) but what do they replace it with? Themes of illicit relationships and teen pregnancy? I could go on and on about this but what good would it do, eh?
On our local programming, we seem utterly oblivious to things like sexualization of children and the highly suggestive advances that Vice Ganda makes to young contestants on noon-time TV. Some of us even outright cheer this on as if it’s completely normal for grown men to make sexual advances to children of both sexes and we don’t even raise a brow when our media uses very young actors and actresses for roles that are often risque or subtly sexual.
What’s worse is that while our local media can go on and on about “wholesome entertainment” but make no visible effort to control the explosion of porn in our country. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if a good number of Pinoys watching Pornhub are underage and are influenced into engaging in similar activities.
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