Ang Kape Ni LaTtEX

I have never understood the tradition of self-flagellation.

Sure it’s supposed to be some sort of sacrifice and penance for all the wrongs that one has done in their lives. But if a person finds himself joining the flagellants each and every season of Lent, then it becomes a senseless, futile exercise tantamount to insulting God himself.

However, self-flagellation, carrying of crosses, and getting oneself nailed to the cross literally during Lent is not the only quintessential Filipino practice that involves hurting oneself or otherwise putting oneself to shame. A similar practice is prevalent day in or day out, amongst Filipinos in cyberspace, and it’s done in two easy steps:

1. Find something wrong in Filipino society, government, culture, business… just about anything — whether it’s absolutely true or completely made up. But as easy as that is it isn’t the hardest part. The next step is much easier…
2. Forward it to everyone you know and declare that it’s something that happens “Only in the Philippines” or just declare whatever humiliation you’re illustrating as “The Philippines:”

Madali lang, diba?

To date I’ve received tons of email applying the same strategy to humiliate one’s self. The most recent flavor is some guy not being able to get a TIN number from the inept BIR, and the sports cars being used by police forces in the richer parts of the globe along with the photograph of a delapidated Philippine National Police patrol car.

I don’t know if its just me who realizes that tax collection is such a drag anywhere in the world, and that using sports cars as police patrols are a luxury enjoyed only by car-producing countries. Of course, I admit that the BIR and PNP are corrupt by anybody’s standards. Denying that would be delusion, for lack of a better word.

But what irks me is when Filipinos put on the label on things that are humiliating but did not even happen in the Philippines.

For example, a few years ago when I first received the now infamous Itenas Sex Video featuring a young couple having sex in a hotel room, some people immediately labelled it as having happened in the Philipines — with DLSU students specifically. However in the video one of the guys (who were not part of the sex part but was there in the earlier non-porn parts of the video) was wearing an “Itenas University” t-shirt. Of course, it turned out that the couple in the video were Indonesian.

That’s the reason why I was initially sceptical of the Lasalle Scandal video, though that turned out to be authentic. But I digress.

Recently, somebody has been forwarding an email that the following photograph happened in the Phililppines:

The composer of the message, whoever the person was, proudly declared (in big, bold letters at that) that the above photograph was taken in the Philippines.

One only has to look closer to see that it was far from the truth. The first is the position of the driver. The vehicle is obviously a right-hand-drive truck; Isuzu trucks of this make are never right-hand-drive because it’s cheap enough to sell directly here, with the proper left-hand-drive configuration.

And then you only have to look at the license plate. It’s not even the size of ours. I have no idea which country this vehicle would come from, but I am quite sure that even if these guys falling off the truck look Filipino, they are definitely not so.

I sent a reply to the person who sent this too me cursing and swearing at him for not seeing the obvious. Though I subsequently apologized, I have no apologies for what I said I thought about people who send this kind of email: they are insecure about their being Filipino, and it’s so easy for them to shame themselves even if there is no factual basis to their claims.

I would understand why Filipinos would only have ill-feelings about their country; one only has to open their eyes everyday to see that something is seriously wrong in this nation. But what I do not understand is why while many other people proudly declare their ethnicity despite the misgivings of their governments, we go off and humiliate ourselves with such emails, practically flagellating our egoes in front of everyone else.

How do you expect our people to help fix our country if we’re too preoccupied flagellating ourselves intellectually every single day?

So to everyone who really want a progressive Philippines: drop the “Only in the Philippines” BS. It’s better preoccupying ourselves thinking of ways of how to solve the problem than wasting your time with derogatory emails. Not unless that’s how far your narrow-minded brain can handle.