WE HAVE BECOME UNTRUE TO OURSELVES By Felix Bautista/Marnie Reyes With all the force and vigor at my command, I contend that we have relaxed our vigilance, that we have allowed ourselves to deteriorate. I contend that we have lost our pride in the Philippines, that we no longer consider it a privilege and honor to be born a Filipino. To the Filipino youth, nothing Filipino Filipino is good enough anymore. Even their Filipino names no longer suit them. A boy named Juanito Juanito does not care or is unhappy to be called Juan. No, not Juan he must be called “Johnny.” A girl named Virginia would get sore if she were nicknamed Biring or Binang. No, she must be Virgie or Ginny. Cristina, in the early years would be so proud proud to be called Tina or Tinay, but now she has become Cris Cris or Cristy. Roberto has become Robert or Bobbie; Maria, Mary or Marie. Before, Julita is Huling but now it’s Julie. And because they have become so Americanized, because they look down on everything “Filipino,” they now regard with contempt all the things that our fathers and our fathers’ fathers held dear. They frown on kissing the hands of their their elders, saying that that it is unsanitary. They don’t care for the Angelus, ssaying aying that it is old-fashioned. They belittle the kundiman/classic opm, because it it is dripping drippingly ly sentimental sentimental in comparison comparison to Justin Justin Bieber, Bieber, or Miley Miley Cyrus’s Cyrus’s hip and upbeat music. But which genre speaks more wisdom? “Lumang Simbahan” or “Party in the USA?” Is it “Magtanim ay di biro” or “The Lazy Song?” Are we going to allow ourselves to stoop down in mediocrity just to be called “in”? I don’t think so. They don’t even respect the elderly anymore! If you happen to pass by an elder and a little kid, you would notice that there’s an invisible barrier that’s missing. It is called respect. Hopefully, po and opo will not be an endangered Filipino tradition, just like kissing our grandparents’ hands. We don’t want the basic cell of our nation to be polluted polluted by another another country’s country’s tradition tradition through through media media poisoning. poisoning. Elders Elders are are no longer longer perceived perceived as wise men and women in this country but wrinkled and senile beings! How many hours do you spend talking to your parents and grandparents for wisdom? Next question, how many hours do you spend on Mark Zuckeberg’s Facebook and other social networks? How many hours do you spend playing that online rpg called DOTA? Without even realizing it, these things have obviously made our priorities in life, disproportionate. The youth are what they are today because their elders; their parents, peers, and their teachers – have allowed them to to be such. They are incongruities because they cannot be anything anything else! And they cannot be anything else else because their elders did not know enough, or did not care enough to fashion them and to mold them into the Filipino pattern. This easing of the barriers that would have protected our Filipinism, this has resulted in something more serious, much more serious. I refer to the de-Filipinization of our economic life. life. Let us face it. Economically speaking, we Filipinos, have become strangers in our own country.
And so, today, we are witnesses to the spectacle of a Philippines inhabited by Filipinos who do not talk and act like Filipinos. We are witnesses to the pathetic sight sight of a Philippines controlled and dominated and run by non-Filipinos. When are we going to be leaders in our own country? After ten? Twenty years? Or never! Filipinos would rather be underpaid puppets of the Americans, and Australians! Why? Because “Bayanihan” is already marked in oblivion! Our social cancers: crab mentality and colonial mentality continues to corrupt our minds to the extent of decay! My dear friends, we have failed our own country! We have become traitors traitors to the brave Filipinos who fought and died so that liberty might live in us today. Look back at our rich history, seek first the beauty and wonders of our country, and then seek within yourself if you have embodied what our forefathers fought for. Have we served our country enough to be even called a Filipino? Let us not be an alien in our own country, lest we have become untrue to ourselves, and to the true essence of being a Filipino.
