We are a people known for our hospitality and long suffering. We can be hospitable to a fault. We can easily bend over. We can be more accommodating to foreigners than to our fellow Filipinos.
We self-deprecate by laughing at ourselves, saying we really have “mental colony” – our dismal, private joke to lessen our shame. Yes. We’ve been plagued by colonial mentality since forever. And yes, we have this habit of turning the most shocking, desperate, despicable things into a joke. To lessen the sting, the stigma, or our shame.
Many times we use our Pinoy humor like an anesthetic. So we suffer, persevere, swallow our pain, allow ourselves to be insulted and pushed around. In recent decades, we’ve been crushed by the crippling blows of – guess who, of all people? Fellow Filipinos who seem to get meaner and uglier, the more powerful they become.
It’s unbelievable how we’ve been willing to suffer – for decades – in the hands of Filipino tyrants who stole our dignity and dreams; emptied our pockets and advertised their plunder with such glee; killed and tortured us with such insatiable bloodthirstiness that we became inured to death, torture, rape, massacres and kidnappings.
We were either too scared or so numb that it took a brazen, cold-blooded execution to shake us out of our stupor. We had to see, for hours, a corpse sprawled on a Philippine tarmac – before the first stirrings of “I cannot take this anymore” collectively disturbed us, haunted us, and stole our sleep. Yet it still took us some time before we stood up, and finally took action.
Matiisin kasi tayo. That’s one of our greatest strengths. And perhaps, also our greatest weakness.
Perhaps it’s from centuries of cultural conditioning – after all, we were colonized for centuries by foreign invaders who made us their vassals, serfs, personal slaves. We’ve heard this before from our poli-sci teachers. But it didn’t really register because we were too engrossed with our personal lives.
But now, I think we’ve come to another historical “it’s time to wake up” moment for us Filipinos. Tragically, our worst enemies these past decades are fellow Filipinos who chose to make us their vassals. Their serfs. Their slaves. I believe this is a far, far more despicable situation than being subjugated and colonized by a foreign country.
To wake up with courage is to vote for leaders who will not enslave us, kill us, steal from us, manipulate us, lie to us, sell us out, spit on our faces, and strip us of our rights.
We must do this, first of all, for God – because He made us to live righteously, with honor and dignity.
Then we must do it for ourselves – like putting on your oxygen mask first before putting it on your child’s, when the plane is about to crash.
You have to save yourself first, before you can save others.
So let’s all wake up with courage, and live with courage. No more living in cowardice, helpless whining, and shame.
Let our votes totally annihilate and decimate any leadership that is tyrannical, abusive, and godless.
