Out of the Blue (or I Think I'm Going Into Depression)
Something that I've always tried to search for and figure out is how the Filipino mind ticked. Our culture is stuck somewhere between tourism marketing strategies and grass roots activism. Who are we anyway?
Two recent events gave me a small glimpse into the Filipino psyche, something that we might be consisted about. Filipinos value life.
I just watched this on the news in passing. There was a man who went berserk and climbed the roof of one of the new steele overpasses in commonwealth (the MMDA are calling them footbridges now, an obvious influence a landscape architect) and he brought his young child along with him. After the usual attempts at reasoning with him and pleading with him to let the child go, he still jumps and carried his child with him. They said the child died instantly but the man was miraculously still alive. Well, I think, only until right about the time a mob of angry onlookers were finished with him.
The other event was when a Filipino trcuk driver in Iraq was hostaged by Iraqi militants. There were a lot of arguments about how it should have been handled. There were concerns about how we would look in the international community and how we would lose 'support' from the US. The bottomline is Filipinos don't really care about those things in the face of losing the life of a countryman. Governments such as the US could afford to stand their ground and not give in to terrorist demands, casualties would be called heroes and hailed for their sacrifice for the country. If Gloria did that she would have been out of Malacanang so fast she wouldn't know what hit her. I guess the hoopla over the issue about the news blackout then was to to find ways to salvage the situation.
That's why there will always be concern Flor Contemplacions and Sarah Babalabagans and film producers would continue making crappy movies about their lives/demise. So I guess we are not a 'big picture' nation afterall.
Two recent events gave me a small glimpse into the Filipino psyche, something that we might be consisted about. Filipinos value life.
I just watched this on the news in passing. There was a man who went berserk and climbed the roof of one of the new steele overpasses in commonwealth (the MMDA are calling them footbridges now, an obvious influence a landscape architect) and he brought his young child along with him. After the usual attempts at reasoning with him and pleading with him to let the child go, he still jumps and carried his child with him. They said the child died instantly but the man was miraculously still alive. Well, I think, only until right about the time a mob of angry onlookers were finished with him.
The other event was when a Filipino trcuk driver in Iraq was hostaged by Iraqi militants. There were a lot of arguments about how it should have been handled. There were concerns about how we would look in the international community and how we would lose 'support' from the US. The bottomline is Filipinos don't really care about those things in the face of losing the life of a countryman. Governments such as the US could afford to stand their ground and not give in to terrorist demands, casualties would be called heroes and hailed for their sacrifice for the country. If Gloria did that she would have been out of Malacanang so fast she wouldn't know what hit her. I guess the hoopla over the issue about the news blackout then was to to find ways to salvage the situation.
That's why there will always be concern Flor Contemplacions and Sarah Babalabagans and film producers would continue making crappy movies about their lives/demise. So I guess we are not a 'big picture' nation afterall.
posted by bengkiosis @ 1:58:00 AM
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