Great read, especially since it comes from sparks, who isn’t only more adept at cultural analysis as I am (it’s her job), but also happens to work part time for a company that operates a dating website in Australia. Plus the fact that she’s a Filipina, and is directly affected by this issue.

And I loooove the way she expounded on the collective low self-esteem of Filipinos.

Thanks sparks.

One topic led to another until we hit a particularly meaty issue in their office.

“Do you know the easiest way to get promoted in the office, especially for girls?” she asked.

A resounding “what?” fired off of my head, eagerly waiting for the answer, sort of having a clue.

“Flirt with the white guys” — the white guys either being executives of their own company, or more commonly, client representatives. For those not familiar with call center operations, client representatives are representatives from the company that the call center serves; usually they hold supervisorial and training positions and are in charge of recommending the best performing agents for their promotion.

“Oh Peter, you look so good today!” our friend went, mimicking a loose-sounding slut, and laughter roared out at our table.

She then goes on to tell of a case wherein a client representative’s actions became suspicious after consistently filing recommendations of promotion for a particular female agent. Her suspicions were confirmed when, over a similar drinking session with her fellow supervisors (she has a managerial position in the company) the client representative admitted to her, in drunken stupor, that he has fallen in love with the agent.

His termination process was immediately started the following day.

“Foreigners love it here because they feel like kings” she continued. “Lots of Filipinas flirt with them, ripe for their picking.”

I couldn’t disagree myself — aside from the Daniel Smith vs. Nicole issue wherein Nicole did place herself in the presence of white guys regardless of whether what happened after was rape or consensual sex, I personally saw what she was talking about. Not with a white guy, but with an American born-and-bred cousin of mine.

The girls from the local church group (his aunt with which he stayed is active there) were all over him his whole stay. The way they swarmed around him (complete with, errr, flirty giggles) were tantamount to asking him to go ahead and fuck them in exchange for a “good life” in the US. My cousin eventually married a Filipina from here, but not someone who flirted with him, and that’s an entirely different story.

“One VP even told me that the Philippines was an open pussy country. I wanted to defend us Filipinas, but I couldn’t really do it because deep inside of me, I know it’s true”, and our friend brought across a message that hit hard. Real hard.

While it isn’t necessarily true for all Filipinas, and I personally know a lot of foreigner-Filipina relationships that were borne out of true love and friendship, it doesn’t help either that many Filipinas do in fact loosen up too much when around men from western countries. Problem is, this perception erodes the credibility of those with genuine relationships. In some countries, Filipina wives are sometimes looked upon as mail-order brides, while some local Filipinas, envious on another for “catching” a white guy, often asks the latter to hook her up with the guy’s friends.

I’ve once read of a Filipina got really irritated when, in trips to the province, people ask her from which chat room she met her boyfriend, a German national. She met him from work, but whenever she gives that answer, some would insist on knowing if he met him from Yahoo! or MSN.

The nasty perceptions of foreigners notwithstanding, this issue reminds me of a very real and deep problem that Filipinos still face: a very deep insecurity compounded by the lack of pride in being Filipino or love for the country and our countrymen, plus the propensity to worship foreigners (especially Caucasians) that is deeply rooted in the Filipino psyche. I certainly don’t think any country whose citizens possess exactly that kind of psyche can progress to any significant degree.

With our drinks slowly running out, the “meatiness” of our conversation shifted into higher gear, with our friend turning it to the numerous sex video/pics scandals that plague the night-shifted BPO industry. But that’s for another post.

UPDATE: Thanks to Micheal for pointing out Cathy’s blog entry on her experiences on the issue.

While some women would probably tout this as a sort of victory for them, I actually look at it to the contrary. In fact, I consider the whole concept of chivalry as contrary to the welfare of women.

Let me explain why.

In the previous generation chivalry was the norm. Women were given seats to, opened doors for, the kind of “good manners” your grandmother always reminds you of. If a male did not practice this “virtue,” he was considered rude, brash, and unmanly. Such were the rules of the day.

But for some reason or another, things changed. Chivalry became a forgotten value. What used to be a fervently taught subject at school was somehow forgotten.

A few years ago in the now defunct PNB intranet forum, a female employee raised the subject, lamenting the demise of chivalry, complaining that boys nowadays were bastos and disrespectful to women — especially when they didn’t give seats in the MRT.

I objected, saying that chivalry was in fact an affront to women and equality. I believe that the premise of chivalry is that women are, in fact, weak. They are so weak that they have to be given way to.

This irritated a lot of female forumers; my response to them was that if women have the gall to demand equality in society, they must understand that to be equal means not demanding to be treated like princesses.

Others still objected, citing the “values and morals of the previous generation,” where chivalry was a norm. I had to underscore to them that back then, wife battery, child abuse, married men hiring prostitutes and possessing mistresses and concubines were likewise unquestioned norms. Chivalry was perhaps used as a way to reduce the guilt of men over the offenses they commit towards their women.

I’m sure many women will still disagree. I’m sure many women will still refuse to give up the privilege given to them by their gender, perhaps if only to get back at the men whom some of them still see as “oppressive” and out to make “chansing” at them in the trains.

But they need only look at the signages to remember my point “This area for female passengers, disabled, elderly and children only.” The disabled, the elderly and children are grouped together because they have the diminished capacity to fend for themselves. Do women really want to be identified as such?

And of course, don’t get me wrong. I do give my seats on the train to women once in a while; I give them to the elderly and the pregnant. Or if it’s my wife who needs the seat.