Trends in Philippine Culture

The past few months, I’ve taken a spe­cial inter­est on Philip­pine cul­ture, pol­i­tics and soci­ol­ogy. It’s an inter­est­ing topic. It really started when I was work­ing with the youth in my “pre­vi­ous life”. I had to immerse myself in what they wanted, their desires, their fears, their prob­lems, in the hope of becom­ing more effec­tive in my work with them. I also had to study pol­i­tics, cul­ture, media and soci­ety for sev­eral MA classes in Ate­neo de Manila.

And then pro­fes­sional life came and I for­got all about the youth and cul­ture and pol­i­tics. Until Cory Aquino got sick and even­tu­ally died. And my love for the study of cul­ture, philip­pine soci­ol­ogy and pol­i­tics was revived. The ques­tions I ask myself these days have to do with our polit­i­cal cul­ture and psy­chol­ogy. How do we think as a peo­ple? Why do we act the way we act? What leads our politi­cians to get money from our polit­i­cal cof­fers? Why have they become so thick skinned and with­out fear of pun­ish­ment and pub­lic scrutiny?

And then on the other hand, is Cory Aquino. She is every­thing most of our politi­cians nowa­days are not. She is sin­cere as most of our politi­cians are only polit­i­cal. Her (non)formula for Peo­ple Power is this: “I don’t have any for­mula for oust­ing a dic­ta­tor or build­ing democ­racy. All I can sug­gest is to for­get about your­self and just think of your peo­ple. It’s always the peo­ple who make things happen.”

The prob­lem is that it seems the divide between pol­i­tics and the peo­ple nowa­days have become so wide that the feel­ing against politi­cians is gen­er­ally one of cyn­i­cism and suspicion.

Cory Aquino is the antithe­sis of this divide. For her, pol­i­tics was ser­vice to peo­ple. And her death is a reminder of this sin­gu­lar fact. Lest we for­get, before all these cyn­i­cism and sus­pi­cion, there was a time, not too long ago, when pol­i­tics is ser­vice. There was a time, not too long ago, when peo­ple hes­i­tated to be in pol­i­tics because it meant sac­ri­fice. There was a time when in join­ing pol­i­tics, serv­ing your con­stituents is all that you think about, and your good name is the only thing you can bequeath to your chil­dren. And that would be enough.

Today, join­ing pol­i­tics is one of the best get-rich-quick schemes around. Our econ­omy is a POLITICAL ECONOMY: it is run by politi­cians, in one way or another. That is why if you want to pro­tect your busi­ness, you either befriend a politi­cian, or become one. I won­der when we started feel­ing that a good name is no longer enough for our chil­dren and their chil­dren. I won­der when we started see­ing pol­i­tics as a way to enrich ourselves.

This arti­cle is a way to begin the con­ver­sa­tions and my attempt at begin­ning under­stand­ing. Using the phi­los­o­phy of crowd­sourc­ing, I would enjoin you to make your own arti­cles on cul­ture and social psy­chol­ogy and link here so more peo­ple can read and under­stand how we are as a peo­ple, and what we can do about it.

These are trends in Philip­pine cul­ture. Com­ment or add your own below:

1) Star Power and the Influ­ence of Celebrity

We do not have the exclu­sive hold of this trait among peo­ples, but it is very pro­nounced in our cul­ture. Our actors become politi­cians and our politi­cians dab­ble in act­ing. Our politi­cians do infomer­cials and come out in shows like Wowowee and Eat Bulaga (pop­u­lar noon­time game shows). It says some­thing about our cul­ture that we had an actor for a Pres­i­dent, and the King of Philip­pine Movies run­ning for the high­est posi­tion in the land. Imag­ine Clint East­wood run­ning for Pres­i­dent of the US for example.

Just a the­ory: maybe Arnold Schwarzen­neger won in Cal­i­for­nia because he had a lot of Fil­ipino Amer­i­can constituents?

2) Pinoy Pride

Thanks to Nike

Another trend is the grad­ual resur­gence of Pinoy pride. We see it in iconolo­gies around– Fil­ipino flags every­where, I AM NINOY plates, three stars and a sun shirts and jack­ets pop­u­lar­ized by the late Fran­cis M, that map of the philip­pines shirt worn by Mar Roxas when he declared his step­ping down as stan­dard bearer of the Lib­eral Party, yel­low rib­bons around the metro when Cory died. Pinoy Pride is also quite appar­ent in our music–themes of nation­al­ism abound in songs made and those yet to be made, and the song Han­dog ng Pilipino sa Mundo became an anthem for our peo­ple once again. And when Manny Pac­quiao fights, our nation stops and prays and fights with him.

Read (or reread) the arti­cle on The Legacy of the Two Aquinos to get more ideas about this.

3) Philip­pine Inse­cu­rity

I have a pet peeve about us Fil­ipinos. Every time a for­eigner says some­thing bad about us (think Fil­ipino choco­lates, or that Des­per­ate House­wives scene where , or that HongKongese (?) writer who said that Fil­ip­inas are slaves)–our politi­cians are all up in arms and have to meet for a con­gres­sional or sen­ate inquiry and ask for the issuance of a diplo­matic apology.

My peeve comes from two things: (1) Many of those who call for a diplo­matic apol­ogy should be called to task them­selves by the Fil­ipino peo­ple. Is there a way for them to issue a PUBLIC APOLOGY after their terms for enrich­ing them­selves at the expense of the rest of us? The height of hypocrisy is when you ask for a diplo­matic apol­ogy from for­eign­ers out­side our coun­try who may have said some­thing bad about us, while you suck the blood, sweat and tears of Fil­ipinos from inside on a daily basis.

(2) The fact that a Sen­ate or Con­gres­sional inquiry/meeting/discussion is needed (and pub­li­cized) to dis­cuss youtube videos and chi­nese arti­cles show us how low and petty our pol­i­tics has become.

I know this is a mat­ter up for debate, and there are pros and cons to all these (we have to defend our honor, etc.) but still. Our inse­cu­rity comes out because we have to defend our­selves all the time and for the pet­ti­est of things.

You can also read this arti­cle on The Myth of the Masa for more insights on this.

4) The Cult of the Small

If we look back at our his­tory, it is the small we find: the nipa hut, the barangay, the petty king­ship (three dif­fer­ent king­doms around a sin­gle Manila Bay! The sul­tan of Sugbu can­not even get con­trol of nearby Bohol.), minia­ture arti­facts, proverbs (mini dog­mas), the short story as crown of our lit­er­ary efforts, the decen­tral­iza­tion in gov­ern­ment (once a province becomes too big it becomes two provinces), our polit­i­cal par­ties keep spin­ning off and split­ting off. More recently, we have the Tama­raw FX phe­nom­e­non (a tingi spin-off: pinoys can’t afford the taxi, so they divide the fare among them­selves and came up with the FX), and the Smart and Globe e-loads with ridicu­lous incre­ments of P10, P30, P50, P115.

I have talked about this in some length in an arti­cle enti­tled: The Her­itage of Small­ness. You might want to check it out.

5) The Cul­ture of Migration

Since the 1970s, the Philip­pines — a coun­try of about 7,000 islands peo­pled by diverse ethno-linguistic groups — has sup­plied all kinds of skilled and low-skilled work­ers to the world’s more devel­oped regions. As of Decem­ber 2004, an esti­mated 8.1 mil­lion Fil­ipinos — nearly 10 per­cent of the country’s 85 mil­lion peo­ple — were work­ing and/or resid­ing in close to 200 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries. [Migra­tion Information]

Much of the country’s atten­tion and poli­cies, though, are focused on emi­gra­tion. A film released in June 2005, La Visa Loca, cap­tures an ordi­nary Filipino’s fever­ish quest for a US visa, the per­ceived ticket to a bet­ter life. In real­ity, the quest for a visa is not lim­ited to the United States. Other promised lands in dif­fer­ent regions — the Mid­dle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Ocea­nia — have become the objects of Fil­ipino dreams.

In the last 30 years, a “cul­ture of migra­tion” has emerged, with mil­lions of Fil­ipinos eager to work abroad, despite the risks and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties they are likely to face. A nation­wide sur­vey of 1,200 adult respon­dents in 2002 found one in five Fil­ipinos express­ing a desire to migrate.

6) The Fall of the Tisoy

Car­los Cel­dran, influ­en­tial blog­ger and self-described Tisoy wrote of the fall of the mes­tiz­e­ria in 2006, posit­ing the ques­tion: “But how did the ’tisoy’, once a proud, plen­ti­ful, and pro­duc­tive breed found freely graz­ing and set­tling in the open dis­tricts of Ermita, Malate, Pasay, and San Miguel, fall so far from the sta­tus that they enjoyed in the Philip­pines for hun­dreds of years?

From the 19^th cen­tury until the mid-seventies, the ’tisoy’ and his cul­ture were ubiq­ui­tous to the Philip­pine land­scape. From the hall­ways of the country’s cor­po­ra­tions to the bill­boards which trimmed our high­ways, the images of Span­ish mes­tiz­e­ria could be found man­ag­ing multi­na­tional cor­po­ra­tions or mod­el­ling the lat­est fash­ions. Man­ning shop coun­ters at the Escolta, count­ing cash behind bank win­dows, or serv­ing cof­fee in the sky, mes­ti­zos and mes­ti­zas were every­where. But in an amaz­ingly ironic turn of events, from being the dom­i­nant cul­ture which the pop­u­lace yearned to emu­late, they now find them­selves mar­gin­al­ized and strug­gling to find their posi­tion in a Fil­ip­inas that has decided to fully embrace its Asian roots in the twenty-first century.

Just turn on the tele­vi­sion or watch a movie and the glar­ing irrel­e­vance of the mes­tizo will imme­di­ately stare back at you. Gone are the days of the artista male roman­tic lead in the mold of Roge­lio dela Rosa, Edu Man­zano, or Gabby Con­cep­cion. Even mes­ti­zos de entre­sue­los (mes­ti­zong ban­gus or quasi-mestizo mes­ti­zos) like Kuya Germs Moreno or Red­ford White are also fast dis­ap­pear­ing from the show­biz fir­ma­ment. It’s obvi­ous that the white skinned, aqua­line nosed tem­plate has ceased to be the pin­na­cle of male phys­i­cal aspi­ra­tion and in its place we now find the chinky charm of the late Rico Yan or the moreno mein of Piolo Pas­cual or John Lloyd Cruz. And instead of liv­ing near to their forefather’s ances­tral lands near the walled city of Intra­muros, Span­ish mes­ti­zos now find them­selves com­mut­ing back and forth from the newer gated dis­tricts of Makati, Paranaque, and Ala­bang. The dis­place­ment of their home and their cul­ture was a cruel fate that had crept up with­out warning.

Read more about this from Car­los Celdran’s blog.

7) Polit­i­cal Awakening

The other week, Sen­a­tor Mar Roxas, the leader of the Lib­eral Party, gave up his seat as stan­dard bearer of the party, along with months of prepa­ra­tion, polit­i­cal strate­giz­ing and infomer­cials, and passed the torch to the for­mer President’s son: Noynoy Aquino. And while some peo­ple denounce it as another polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing, and are doubt­ful of Noynoy’s capac­ity to lead the coun­try, I would like to see it in another light.

Winds of change are blow­ing in our land. Peo­ple are more aware of pol­i­tics. Peo­ple are more angry at untruths and the obvi­ous dis­re­gard for right and wrong and decency. Peo­ple are incred­u­lous that our Pres­i­dent could dine in two (we do not exactly know how many more) really expen­sive restau­rants (the din­ner worth more than a person’s salary for a YEAR!!!) at a time when the Pres­i­dent who had the decency not to live in Mala­canang was being mourned. It wouldn’t have mat­tered two years ago. Media wouldn’t even have inves­ti­gated it.

Peo­ple are angry that the Pres­i­den­tial son has a ques­tion­able SALN (or State­ments of Assets, Lia­bil­i­ties and Net­worth). And that he could be so brazen in ask­ing peo­ple to sue him. Win­nie Monsod’s point is clear: it is the pub­lic official’s bur­den to prove that he is inno­cent, not the people’s. Del­i­cadeza is what we need from our pub­lic offi­cials. And it is time that we ask that from them now, more than ever.

See the Pres­i­den­tial son being grilled by Win­nie Mon­sod. See him squirm in his seat and sweat. And watch your reac­tion. Your reac­tion is indica­tive of what is hap­pen­ing to the Fil­ipino people:

And while other peo­ple see it as illog­i­cal that we vote for Noynoy just because he is the son of Cory and Ninoy, I see it with a dif­fer­ent kind of logic. I see it with the gut­feel that a per­son who is the son of Cory and Ninoy will never FUCK UP their legacy. He does not have that lux­ury. Not after EDSA. Espe­cially not after Cory’s funeral. At the same time, as a Jesuit I respect would put it, “The Pres­i­dency is earned, not inher­ited.” And Noynoy has to earn it, like any­one who is going to be Pres­i­dent of the Philip­pines. A chang­ing of the guards is going to hap­pen, if a reform can­di­date is elected to the Pres­i­dency. It hap­pened in the States with Obama, maybe it could hap­pen here.

But we also know it is sup­posed to be more than that. We know that pol­i­tics is not just about elec­tions. Or about EDSA. Or about ral­lies. Politics–nay, CHANGE–is about the day to day. It is about the infra­struc­ture projects and health care and farm-to-market roads, and the green agenda, and erad­i­cat­ing cor­rup­tion, and sham­ing peo­ple who do not do their jobs because they could not get extra money from it. It is about a media who helps bring out erro­neous and ques­tion­able gov­ern­ment deals. It is about whistle­blow­ers being pro­tected and not pros­e­cuted. It is about the BIG FISHES prosecuted–not just because you want to make exam­ples out of them (that jus­tice is not selec­tive, blah blah blah), but because it is the RIGHT thing to do. It is about good ‘ol edu­ca­tion and nation­al­ism and mak­ing kids real­ize the impor­tance of pol­i­tics and nationhood.

That is what we should care about after all these noise about the elec­tions. That is what mat­ters after all the singing and danc­ing. That is what we need to do now.

8) From Fam­ily to Coun­try

Beau­ti­ful! By Rick Valiente

Related to the polit­i­cal awak­en­ing of our peo­ple is the fact that a very recent trend among our politi­cians is their giv­ing up per­sonal ambi­tions for the greater good (it is not just Mar, but oth­ers as well).

But we shouldn’t be too sur­prised about this– we’re sur­prised that the peo­ple doing this now are our politi­cians. In fact, the com­mon tao has been doing this for so long in the level of fam­ily. Moth­ers have given up their dreams of a more com­fort­able life by work­ing as OFWs in Sin­ga­pore, Hongkong, the Mid­dle East. The movie Anak of Vilma San­tos is a micro­cosm of this–but the sac­ri­fice has always been for FAMILY.

If any­thing, the death of Cory reminded us once again that there is a big­ger unit out there than our fam­ily. It was Fr. Catal­ino Arevalo dur­ing the funeral homily of Tita Cory who said, “Thank you, from a peo­ple for­ever in your debt.” This is because the sac­ri­fice of Cory–and Ninoy before her– proved that there is more to life than fam­ily. That it is possible–and preferable?–to sac­ri­fice for coun­try. And I’m sorry to say this, but the peo­ple who think only of fam­ily die and are for­got­ten; but the peo­ple who sac­ri­fice for the coun­try are remembered.

It is a dif­fer­ent order of pri­or­i­ties. But the Fil­ipino has cham­pi­ons to remind us just that. We have Rizal, and Boni­fa­cio, and the older and younger del Pilars, Magsaysay, Jop­son, and that whole gen­er­a­tion of nation­al­ists in World War II and the Mar­cos years. And now we have our politi­cians (debat­ably) giv­ing up their own ambi­tions for the good of all. We shall see how this plays out, but it is inter­est­ing nonetheless.

When we hailed the OFW as the Bagong Bayani (or New Heroes), we are really hail­ing peo­ple who love their fam­i­lies and love their coun­tries but are forced to cir­cum­stances beyond their con­trol. We have more than enough peo­ple who love their fam­i­lies more than they love their coun­try (crooks love their fam­i­lies more than they love their coun­try!). I say we need more peo­ple who love their coun­try as much as–and when the times call for it–more than they love their families.

When Pres­i­dent Mar­cos declared Mar­tial Law, a whole gen­er­a­tion of nation­al­ists were erad­i­cated from our country–they were either killed, maimed to sub­mis­sion, or they even­tu­ally left the coun­try in dis­gust, or worse, they became part of the cor­rupt sys­tem of gov­ern­ment they were fight­ing against. After that gen­er­a­tion of nation­al­ists, a whole gen­er­a­tion of apa­thetic cyn­ics grew up and took over. Prob­a­bly because they (I should say WE) were just angry and tired of pol­i­tics, our gen­er­a­tion became gen­er­ally apo­lit­i­cal. EDSA I and II were shin­ing moments, but most of us could not sus­tain the grad­ual, day-to-day polit­i­cal move­ment that is needed for long term change. After high­light moments we tend to go back to our old apa­thetic cyn­i­cal ways and refuse to go against inertia.

It will prob­a­bly take one or two more gen­er­a­tions before we get back what was lost and destroyed by the dic­ta­tor. This is beyond all of us who are alive today. But we could plant the seeds of edu­ca­tion in our schools, and infor­mal edu­ca­tion out­side the four walls of the class­room. There is a need to bring our young to the streets once again, to the halls of our muse­ums, to plays and movies about our cul­ture, for them to know and under­stand that believe it or not, many peo­ple before us have died for our coun­try, and that the Fil­ipino is (still) worth dying for.

I am afraid that because our gen­er­a­tion is a gen­er­a­tion of apa­thetic cyn­ics, we are rais­ing our kids to be like us–to dream our shal­low dreams and grow in cyn­i­cal hope­less­ness. I am afraid that in our effort to give our chil­dren bet­ter lives than we had, we will kill their love for our coun­try. I am afraid that in our sin­cere efforts to spoil our kids, we are rais­ing them to be more wimps than we will ever be. I am afraid that because the future belongs to the few of us still will­ing to get our hands dirty, we have lost the birthright for a good future. I am afraid that we will have a great move­ment for our elec­tions in 2010, and we’ll be so inspired like the EDSA move­ments in the past, but just like in the past, we’ll even­tu­ally lose our momen­tum and energy and go back to our old ways. I am afraid that our politi­cians’ chil­dren will grow up, be elected, and will be just like their fathers and grand­fa­thers before them.

I am afraid that it will take more than two gen­er­a­tions for the Fil­ipino to rise again. I am afraid that 100 years from now, when peo­ple read this arti­cle, they will say that I was proven right.

Please prove me wrong.