Replies to comments on “I hate Filipino culture”

So apparently one of my articles went viral (I Hate Filipino Culture). I wrote the article back in 2007 back when I wrote without caring so much who I offended. Yes, I was also a lot angrier and a lot less politically correct then. It got a bit of attention when I first posted it but nothing like what it’s getting now. I was surprised when I checked my counter and  I saw that it had almost 50,000 hits in less than 24 hours. It’s now at almost 100,000 hits and still rising. It got a lot of comments as well, some agreed with me some didn’t. I don’t think that I’d be able to reply to all of the comments individually so I’ll be addressing some of them in condensed form in this entry.

On the title of the article: Yes it’s a bit extreme and yes it’s also intentional. It’s the kind of title that would rouse emotions in the reader before they even read the article. It got its intended effect.  I wrote about the average filipino’s sensitivity when it comes to criticism about their own race and the title is a sort of stab at that; A test if they can go beyond the title and actually read the entire entry. If you’d read the whole entry, you’d know that I wasn’t hating on Filipino culture in general, whatever that may be. I was expressing my “annoyance” at certain aspects of our society. And in no way did I imply that masa culture is Filipino culture. I actually said the opposite.

On me having colonial mentality:  Filipino culture can be a pretty iffy term. Almost all remnants of pre-colonial culture have been wiped out. Our own alphabet, baybayin, is practically dead now (a lot of Filipinos don’t even know that it ever existed), our language is littered with Spanish words, Most of our customs, traditions and religions are of post colonial origin. I’m not saying that that’s good or bad, Im just saying that if you’re gonna be xenophobic and hate on all things foreign, recognize that a lot of the things that we consider Filipino arrived at our shores pretty recently. I’m not touting the culture of any particular country and I’m not saying that any of those cultures is superior to our own but there’s a wealth of information out there if we’d not close ourselves to the boundaries of our shores, especially considering that what we have within our shores are a lot of material that cater to the masses. Yes I’m aware that the negative qualities that I enumerated about our people also exist in other countries but just because those qualities exist in other cultures, that doesn’t mean that I hate them any less.

-On depression: nope hindi ako depress …or depressed and I have no plans of killing myself anytime soon, thank you

-On my douchey profile pic. I apologize for my face. Well not really but I probably would’ve chosen a different profile pic if I had known that one of my entries would’ve achieved a bit of notoriety. But it’s there, people have seen it anyway so what the hell. I’ll replace it with something more artsy fartsy soon.

-On elitism. I said that I wasn’t elitist but I guess this is a matter of perspective now. One person’s elitist is another person’s fearless writer. One thing that the entry was NOT about though was about class divisions. Like I said, I’m not even rich in the first place. I’d rather rub elbows with a penniless, starving artist than Willie Revillame or Joey deleon. I don’t look down on the poor because I know that shallowness doesn’t always come with poverty. And to be clear, when I say “masa”, I don’t mean the poor in general.

-On my rant on local TV shows:  I know a lot of respectable people who watch eat bulaga and wowowee. I have nothing against them at all. The rant really was NOT about the people who watch the shows, it was mostly about the people who appear on them, particularly the TV hosts and the way they almost seem to make a mockery of their “masa” live audience. It was one of these TV shows that actually inspired the rant in the first place. If you feel like I insulted you when I insulted your favorite TV show, I apologize. And this is the only part of the article that I will apologize for because I didn’t qualify it clearly.

On not saying anything good about our country: Yes I only highlighted negative aspects of our society. That was the point of the article, really. It’s a rant. In case you’re interested, I also have a travelblog where I write about some of the nicest places that I’ve visited in the Philippines - I don’t only write about negative stuff but why would anyone expect to read positive things about our people on a rant.  One more thing that I’ve noticed about us Filipinos is that not only do we only want to hear the positive, we sometimes ask for it too much.  Whenever foreigners are interviewed about the Philippines, it’s almost like we expect them already to say very rosy things about our country and if they don’t say anything good, they should be deported. We even took up arms when some foreigners said that they didn’t like the food at jolibee, as if our nation’s identity rests squarely on the shoulders of the fastfood giant. And I remember that Ricky Lo interview where he practically was goading Anne Hathaway to say that Lea Salonga was a better singer than her. That was very difficult to watch and it just shows how insecure we are as a people. I sometimes wish that we’d wait for the compliments to come, not expect them and not ask for them directly.

To everyone who agreed with me and to everyone who vouched for me, reading your comments was pretty heart warming and flattering. Thank you.  To everyone who disagreed/ disagreed violently, thank you for visiting my humble little blog and I hope you’d see that I meant no disrespect to our people in general but like others, I see certain flaws. If you do not agree with me that they’re flaws then let’s agree to disagree. I hope you read the entire entry though before you posted a comment.

On Nude Photography

It’s 2013 but there are those who still see nude photography as a hobby for the perverted; that it’s a sort of peep show for us photographers. First off, let me say that I and those who shoot with me are very respectful of our models. I’m sure that there are exceptions among photographers but we are more or less the norm. When I or any of my friends organize shoots, we make sure that nothing other than photography happens during the shoot. Also, about 20-30% of the photographers I shoot with are straight women who also exclusively shoot women. 

While those of us who started off as straight men are still very straight men, we’ve seen enough nudity that, like a doctor who does breast implants on a regular basis (or perhaps a gynecologist?), we can be around a nude model and act normally, professionally and very respectfully. We’re not eunuchs but we know that there’s a good place and time to be proper perverts and that’s usually with our partners where we won’t risk tarnishing the image of nude photography. In contrast, some of those who aren’t as exposed to the naked human body salivate or go into rape mode at the mere sight of an exposed cleavage, some at the sight of an exposed ankle. Perhaps, unlike what the ultraconservative are suggesting, more regular exposure to nudity would have an inverse effect on the number of rape cases? Just a hypothesis =) 

While I’m not exactly advocating nudism, we’ve gone a long way from the olden days when a fully exposed human body was considered dirty. The human form in its full glory can be appreciated in more ways than what we’re normally used to. I’m a fan of the female form. I know it almost sounds like a pick up line but I mean that in the most innocent and the least perverted way possible. Capturing the beauty of the female form can be like capturing the undulations of a vast mountain range or the intricate curves of a winding river in a photograph. The beauty of the human form doesn’t always have to be sexual. 

Art is subjective. One may see it on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel or one may see it in a heap of scrap metal. I don’t see anything wrong with seeing it in the human form, whatever gender that human form may be.

On Dancing

The geek in me never could understand modern dancing. The appeal of bobbing up and down to repetitive music escaped me. I wanted to try it though at least once in my life It seemed like something that was easy to do. That was until I actually tried doing it in public and found myself frozen. My feet suddenly felt like they were made of concrete. And then my inner geek kept telling me”don’t do this. You’d look awkward.” Or “this is herd mentality. Don’t be part of the herd”. I made a vow to be more adventurous at this point in my life though so I tried doing what the others were doing. It’s amazing what alcohol can make you do as a few beer bottles later, I was actually enjoying myself already. Most of the satisfaction came from being able to tell the inner geek to shut the **** up and let me move to the beat

 

At Urbn. In this supposedly posh and exclusive ecosystem, they'd throw you out if you don't look the part.

Reggae music at B-Side:

On the internet and superegoes

Now that we're about to have another addition to our family, I look back to this tribute http://internetjaywalking.blogspot.com/2008/09/her-name-was-katherine.html that I wrote about a member of the family we lost a decade and a half ago. It's possibly the only detailed record of her life anywhere on the internet

They say that the internet has given birth to superegos, a generation of regular people who think too highly of their own importance. In a way that's true. I think we have statistics to prove this. The internet has given more power to the individual in a way that no other medium ever has. It is the ultimate "democratizer" where the loudness of your voice isn't always proportional to the amount of money in your wallet, the number of celebrities that you know or which cabinet positions your parents or uncles hold. If you have something to say and people wanna hear it, they will find you.

The internet also has become a record keeper of sorts, a place where you leave your, more or less, permanent imprint wittingly or unwittingly. In the words of someone who now lives his life as an internet demotivator : “don’t be an internet meme cos you’ll live on forever in a way that you probably don’t want to.”

The footprint in life that one leaves behind is so much bigger now. Anyone who passes away now, leaves a facebook profile, possibly a blog, an online photography album, a resume of accomplishments, a compilation of poems, photos, personal musings of various depth which anyone from the present or from the future would be able to find by googling his or her name

In contrast, anyone who passed away before internet became mainstream, unless they became popular for some reason or they made a significant contribution to a certain group, left very little to no trace outside the photoalbums and memories of their immediate friends and family. Google their names and it’s almost as if they never existed. 

The internet is a place where one's popularity is not commensurate to the availability of public information on him/her. A public filing system that makes sure that each individual can be picked from from a sea of nameless faces, put under the magnifying glass and be appreciated (or scorned?) as individuals. Under the magnifying glass of the internet, each individual has a voice which can be heard and that voice doesn’t have to die with him. If that does make him feel more important than his pre-internet counterparts, I can’t say that I blame him.

Kathy... you’ll find her on the internet, if you search hard enough.

Anatomy of a Car Accident (fiction?)

 

Diffused by the pouring rain, the beam from our headlights bathed the scene with an eerie white glow.  There was an overwhelming atmosphere of dread.  The air smelled of pain, fear, panic and confusion.  The scent seeped from the capillaries in my nostrils to my brain where it built up pressure until it felt like my skull was going to explode. Near our vehicle was an overturned tricycle.  Scattered around it were 7 badly injured people, most of them moaning in pain.  I say most because one of them wasn't.  The driver of the tricycle lay underneath his vehicle, silent.  His head was bloody, his limbs were contorted into unnatural angles.  It was a scene straight out of a twilight zone episode.  All that was needed was a grayscale filter, which would've been particularly useful to hide the blood and the gore.  I didn't have that grayscale filter though.  The colors around me bombarded my eyes in the most unwelcome fashion.  For a few minutes, I was paralyzed. Thoughts blazed through my head at lightspeed.  The scene was right before my eyes but the mind would not believe that it was real.  As I tried to make sense of what I was seeing, the immediate past, the present and the future all tried to squeeze themselves in my head at the same time.  Through all the confusion, I tried retracing what had happened a few minutes earlier.

It was almost midnight and there was a slight drizzle. I was making a left turn from Congressional Avenue towards a perpendicular road.  It would've been a sharp, right-angle turn across a 3-lane highway which curved a little bit.  In between my side of the road and the other side was a center island strewn with trees which slightly limited the visibility of the cars coming from the other side.  I approached the turn. I looked for oncoming vehicles.  I only saw one vehicle which was still quite far away so I decided to take the turn.  I had already occupied one lane of the road when I saw a tricycle with its lights off speeding towards us.  It was moving along the lane closest to the island. It was travelling at a really fast speed so I had very limited time to react.  In another split second, it hit the passenger side door of our vehicle.

Being on the driver's side, I didn't feel the impact as much as my passenger did. Immediately after the impact, I stepped out of the vehicle and I cursed at the driver, telling him that he didn't have his lights on. That was before I saw his body lying face-down on the road and the carnage that surrounded him. Whatever I was thinking or whatever I was saying came to an abrupt halt and everything froze.

Before that night, I had never been in an accident that resulted in anything more than a minor dent and I wasn't at fault in any of them, save for one.  I had never seen a wound that exposed anything underneath the skin.  I had never seen a broken limb, I had never seen an exposed eyeball.  I had never seen a dead body.  I lost my innocence that night and I lost it in one of the most brutal ways possible.

After a few minutes, I was able to partially collect myself.  I tried to comfort my companion who looked like she was in shock and asked her to go back inside the vehicle.  I tried to get the tricycle upright again so it wouldn't rest on top of the driver.  At this point, the moans were getting louder. There was a certain grogginess in their moans that made them sound almost ghostly. It was just another unwelcome addition to the barrage of sensory inputs that I was getting.  I was panning around the scene trying to absorb everything when I saw that the driver was still moving.  It was more instinct than anything else when I thought that something had to be done. I thought in the back of my head that he shouldn't be moved but at that point I didn't know which number to call and no one among the gathering crowd of onlookers seemed to be doing anything.  Rather than wait for nothing and let him die on the street, I decided to lift him up myself onto another tricycle which carried him to a nearby hospital.  I had blood all over my arms and hands.  At that time, I thought that it was true both figuratively as well as literally.

My passenger was driven to a nearby hospital to have her head checked as she hit it pretty badly during the impact.   Police officers escorted me towards the nearest precinct.  I was broken and humbled.  All my pride had to be surrendered.  It felt like my brain had shut down and my body was being moved by outside forces, almost like a puppet.  It was at the police station where they told me that the driver had expired at the hospital. I expected it but the news still hit me on the chest with a dull thud.

I must've been in a daze because it took me a while to realize that a security situation was starting to develop.  The relatives of the injured started arriving at the precinct.  Some of them were probably still emotional and were looking for the driver of the vehicle their trike bumped into.  I was texting people with my blood-stained hands in front of them. Good thing none of them noticed.  The officers escorted me to an isolated room to hide my identity and so I wouldn't do anything stupid in front of the relatives again.   There was fear but I was mostly surrendered. If any of them came at me, I don't know if I would've defended myself.

They say that your life flashes before you right before you die.  I don't know what the tricycle driver saw but I saw flashes that night.  In my mind, I saw scenes in my future that scared me.  But what scared me more was what I couldn't see.  I saw my life end before my eyes that night. In my mind, my life would never be the same again. In my mind the, tricycle driver and I were in the same boat.  I stayed the night at the police station.

A lot of those who go through a traumatic experience such as this end up talking to themselves a lot.  There's that inner voice that constantly berates you, questioning everything that you've done.  Most people call it conscience.  I call it my pessimistic little half brother.  I relieved myself of some of the guilt by saying that the tricycle was driving recklessly.  That it was speeding without its headlights on.  That it was way overloaded and it had no chance of stopping on time if ever it needed to.  The support of friends and family helped as well.   Gradually the voice got muffled enough that I no longer heard it.  I wasn't at fault.  I came to terms with what had happened - that this was real and this is something that I would have to live with - something that I can live with. After 18 hours of detention, I was released.  No charges were filed.

It's now been 6 days since the accident.  I'm back home.  The atmosphere here in my room is starkly different from the chaotic mess of that fateful night. The airconditioner hums silently.  I'm sitting on a reclining chair, having coffee while typing on my keyboard. I am uneasily relaxed.  I am coping. To be able to live with yourself after being directly in the collision path of another human life, one must develop a certain coldness.  The coldness helps me get by but it also colors everything I see with a slightly darker tint, including the image that I see in the mirror.  You don't quite see yourself the same way after something like this.  At least not for a while. It's midnight as I'm writing this. There's a slight drizzle outside.  That section of Congressional Avenue should look uncomfortably familiar right now to a few eyes.  Memories will be replayed there over and over in the minds of those who saw.

Things are no longer as they seemed.  When I was at the police station, I thought that my life had ended. But it didn't really.

I'm writing this now wishing that it was a work of fiction but it's not really.

On the Definition of a Certain Word

Love ---a woman asked me once what the word meant. I didn’t know what to tell her of course. I wasn't well versed on subjects concerning the softer emotions. All I knew was that it’s a word that manly men should only use when referring to food, cars or gadgets. Using the word when referring to another person is highly inappropriate and should be frowned on. Writing about the definition of love in a public blog is an offense that should be punishable by stoning.

I told her that I may need time to figure out how to define it and I told her that I may need her help. Over the course of getting to know her, I slowly got to know what love does to a person. (This is on a case by case basis of course.)

• Love will make you eat exotic food
• Love COULD make you eat kuhol, given enough time
• Love will change your sleeping habits
• Love will make you go out of your comfort zone
• Love could make you more sociable
• Love will make you throw the man code out the window occasionally
• Love will make you more outdoorsy
• Love will make you a sentimentalist
• Love has an entirely different set of special logical rules which may be contradictory to normal logical rules. Love’s special logical rules will almost always win out.
• Love will make you join a race in which you may possibly have to endure a great deal of “bossing around”
• Love will make you emo occasionally
• Love will make you feel happier in general
• When the object of your love wraps her arm around your arm in a movie theatre, love will make you feel comfort, the likes of which you’re unlikely to feel anywhere else
• Love will introduce you to his cousin, jealousy
• When love leaves, it will leave a void in your chest that would be very difficult to fill

After a few months, she asked me again to define the word. I already knew what the word meant but I still couldn’t define it. So I said it’s like the color blue. How do you define blue without referring to things that are colored blue? You can try your best to define blue to someone who’s blind but you will never come close to giving that person any idea of what blue looks like. The person will need to have perceived the color to understand what it looks like. In the same sense, I don’t think that love, as a feeling, can be effectively defined to someone. You could describe things that are affected by it but He or she will have to have experienced love to fully understand what it is.

It took a while but I can finally say that I now know what love is. You wouldn’t know what you’ve been missing out on until you finally feel it and realize that your life wouldn’t have been half complete without it.

This is the color blue:

And this is love:

Rumminations on Blogging

I’ve neglected blogging for almost a year now. I feel like I’ve become a shallower person as a result.  A friend asked me once for my opinion regarding a suitor of hers. The first question I asked her was: “does he have a blog?” As soon as she said no, I said that he was not worth her time.

I judged a lot of people that way.  The people whom I found interesting were usually those who wanted to keep concrete records of their opinions, convictions or feelings, whether that be through writing, art or even video/audio recordings.

I had a certain respect for people who felt that their thoughts or opinions were significant enough for them to be ascribed some sort of permanence.  The human mind is always in a state of flux. Thoughts are generated, morphed and oftentimes lost. Thoughts are so fundamental to a person’s existence that losing them forever almost seems like a sin. And there’s a finalizing quality to writing in that when you write down a thought or an opinion, it becomes, in a way, final. It acquires a definite and tangible form and structure and ceases to be just a jumble of spontaneous thought bubbles that pop in and out of existence.  It becomes like a photograph, only not of one’s face but of one’s mind

I’ve been re-reading a lot of my past entries. When you revisit memories they’re usually not the same as when you first experienced them. Even the strongest of feelings subside eventually and with them, go the thoughts that they produced.  It’s nice to read your thoughts at the time that they were conceived, thoughts that may otherwise have been forgotten. It’s nice to know what your convictions were or if you had any. And it’s nice to know if you still feel as strongly about them

I feel like I have changed a lot the past few months. Whether for the better of for the worse is a matter of perspective. I’ve modified some goals. I'm not as profit oriented anymore
I got into photography, I went dating, socializing, clubbing(WTH?!), expanded my group of friends, acquired a new appreciation for fireworks. I also experienced betrayal, jealousy, I almost got into a fight, felt the highs of passion and the lows of inadequacy -Normal things for most normal people but keep in mind that I used to spend months not interacting with a single person.

Such a drastic change in lifestyle would probably lead to an equally drastic change in personality. But I take comfort in the fact that even if I change or even if I lose half of my brain mass due to intellectual inactivity, I’ll have a record of who I was.

I write for a variety of reasons. But most significant of all, I write for the same reason that people erect monuments to fallen heroes, or for the same reason that people seemingly waste large areas of land to preserve historical structures - to create a permanent imprint of that which is fleeting, time