Pinoy Burger

(This essay was included in the book "100 Essays: Voices of the Tamaraws, published by the FEU Press)

“You are truly Pinoy if you mourned the passing of FPJ,” Benito, a schoolmate, remarked to me at the height of the grieving of national proportion at the sudden death of the so-called Da King.

I didn’t.

“Or when you catch yourself unconsciously humming to the tune of ‘Anak’,” he further remarked.

I haven’t.

To be honest, I sometimes find myself asking the question of whether I am truly Pinoy---that is, whether I have the sentiments and nationalistic fervor of a through and through Filipino. My self-query would sound really nutty for a person who was born and raised in the Philippines, educated for the most part in the Philippine public school system, has never travelled abroad yet, and fluent in Cebuano and Tagalog.

I am plagued with self-doubt because my friends and acquaintances usually point out my being an avid fan of everything foreign, most especially American.

I have to confess: I don’t watch Tagalog movies, I abhor Pinoy soap operas, I hardly give a fig about local showbiz nor to the people who inhabit in it, I prefer spaghetti and pizza to pancit and puto, the list goes ad infinitum.

On the other hand, I love watching foreign films (especially Hollywood flicks) and American TV shows, I tune in to CNN and BBC not ABS-CBN or GMA, I look up to Hollywood stars, I read foreign magazines and find some of the local ones really tacky; by force of habit I pick books by foreign authors and writers, I dream of someday studying and then living in New York or London or Sydney. But do all these make me less Pinoy?

On the other hand, I am proud of Lea Salonga, Lou Diamond Phillips, Tia Carrere, Jasmine Trias, Rob Schneider, Jessica Hagedorn, and other Filipinos who are making good abroad. I am indignant when the Philippines is or Filipinos are being discriminated by other nationalities; I usually let out a string of “Ano ba ‘yans?” when the Philippines make headlines as the most this and that---mostly negative---due to the shenanigans of some of our countrymen. (Do not forget Marcos, the creator of the “Love” virus, Imelda and her shoes, Erap’s millions and mistresses, corrupt politicians, senseless murders of journalists, the Abu Sayaff and their links to Al Qaeda, etc.).

At the core, I believe, I am still truly Filipino. It just so happen that I embrace foreign, particularly, American influences. I believe there is inherently nothing wrong with this. Globalization is a reality we cannot escape. We will constantly be bombarded by influences other than our own.

Embracing foreign influences is really not a bad thing as long as along the way one’s standards are improved and there is a better ideal to look up to.

It cannot be denied that the Philippines is steeped in corruption; mediocrity may still be prevalent; and various conventions and perceptions which are outdated and should have no place in a modern scientific world still abound. (Where else can you find so-called documentaries on manananggals, barang, aswang? Far from finding the scientific explanation to supernatural phenomena, our T.V. stations would instead feed us with coverage of preternatural creatures, without fail, every Halloween season.)

A true Pinoy is one who is proud of his roots, nationality, and culture but is not unaware of the not-so-positive side of his upbringing and orientation and in fact wishes to chuck them. A true Pinoy is one not afraid of the barrage of foreign influences for he knows that he will retain his identity by only embracing what is good in other cultures and adding that to what is also inherently good in his being Pinoy.

A true Pinoy abhors the mediocrity of his fellow Filipinos in the same magnitude as he abhors the blatant display of hegemony of other people. A true Pinoy is one who may now be wearing a coat and tie and has a Cockney accent but deep inside him still beats the same heart as that of his ancestors.

A true Pinoy as it may be defined in these times is one whose heart beats and whose mind operates locally but is simultaneously endowed with a global perspective.

From the above self-made criteria I now have a categorical answer to my conundrum: “Yes.”

How about you? Are you truly Pinoy?