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?

Purple peace

[Published in my column JUSTIFIED in The Mindanao Observer]

(The original of this essay won for the author 2^nd prize in the 2005 Palanca Peace Essay Contest, an annual competition of essays on Peace, sponsored by the Palanca Foundation. Certain portions of the essay have been revised and updated to reflect the zeitgeist, the “(election) spirit of the times.” Several of this writer’s articles have seen print in national dailies, and mostly in The Philippine Star. A holder of Bachelor’s degree from U.P. Diliman and Ll.B. from FEU, he maintains a blog at http://justifiedmaster.blogspot.com/)

          Some images can neither be ignored nor forgotten.

        It was supposed to be just like any normal November morn. A local politician, represented by relatives and accompanied by a convoy of supporters and media people, was about to exercise a basic political right accorded to any free individual guaranteed by the laws of the land and sanctified by generally acknowledged basic human rights.

But this was not any normal, ordinary day. Two days before the horrendous incident, a mass grave was prepared using a backhoe emblazoned with the name of a powerful political warlord, and apparently owned by his powerful political family.

Before reaching its destination, the convoy was stopped by one hundred armed men, who abducted and later killed most or all of its members. At least some of the victims were shot in the genital area. Others were mutilated. Many were shot in the face, rendering them virtually unrecognizable.

Many victims’ relatives and the general public were at a loss for words, as truly an incident of such magnitude, considered the worst politically-motivated killing in the nation’s history, is beyond description and human comprehension.

On a more benign note, ordinary citizens, office workers, students and even the often-derided politically apathetic youth are excitedly registering to volunteer for an election-vigilance drive launched by a national media organization. They vowed to use their time during the elections to patrol their votes and be on the lookout for election and poll-related anomalies and to report them to the media and the proper authorities.

It is quite illogical and irrational why the latter image and all its positive ramifications and consequences cannot be more dominant and prevalent. This voter education and vigilance are imperative for the realization of a long desired free, orderly, honest, peaceful and credible elections in particular and a more stable political environment in general.

“The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action,” said political economist Herbert Spencer. And in this case, education and vigilance are a few of the very limited tools any ordinary participant of the political process can use to contribute to a culture of political peace.

Education in the political sense involves getting acquainted with the political process even at a surface level and knowing your rights in each stage of the process; but most importantly, for any ordinary voter, education in the political sense involves going beyond personality politics: know who you are voting for: their background and qualifications, their platforms and plans for where and for whom they serve. But it does not all end there. Knowledge must spur one to action---vigilance.

Vigilance--but not aggression---involves speaking up and standing up to what ought to be within the realm of one’s rights. It entails something as ho-hum as actually voting. For any ordinary voter, it consequently entails patrolling (to borrow that ubiquitous but definitely appropriate media slogan) your vote and making sure that your “voice” is heard and ultimately counted. It may be one tiny, little voice, but it is strong. It is your strength, inalienable and free; for in our democracy not every strength is a shout. Not even the threat of a massacre can snuff out and cower everyone in fear.

Peace is not the absence of fear, or conflict, or opposition, or dissension. It is the resolution of such fear, conflict, opposition and dissension. It entails knowing and doing: education and vigilance. And it could come in various colors.

In this season of democratic exercise, let that color of peace be purple.

Love Quotes, Love Quotes Graphics, Love Sayings, Facebook Quotes (clipped to polyvore.com)