The most complex creation of men is culture. Culture has made us the most destructive and the most dangerous animal on this planet.
Defining culture furthermore, is the traditional way of living. It serves as the reflection of a society. For generations, our culture has continued to govern us with several sets of beliefs. It encompasses everything---from the largest to the smallest part under our material and non-material cultures.
There is a weak foundation of our culture. Most of the time, only the beautiful things come to our minds when we talk about the Philippine culture. We also have a very diverse culture---linguistically, ethnically, socially and economically---rooting from the pre-hispanization to colonization periods. From time to time, culture is molded. Some parts may be lost, replaced and/or retained.
Every Filipino deserves to know deeply his/her country and identity as a part of this society.
In our everyday lives, we get irritated about the massive pollution, street children, slum areas, potholes, toilets that are not working, garbages that are improperly disposed, flooded canals and the Pinoy's chronic lack of discipline. Most of us prefer to remain silent rather than to give actions. Looking back to our history, and digging deep into everyone's heart, we could say that the Filipinos have suffered too much already. Do we really deserve this?
There is a kind of mechanism that is deeply embedded in the psyche of the Filipinos which has made a large impact on the way we live and the way we think---the amalgation of the characters and events that passively but fastly changed our views. Like the appalling movie and soap opera titles and the concept of having gangsters, gamblers and killers; the staged "religious miracles" that our naive masses believed; the family men with mistresses; the presence of crooked politicians with big tummies; the undependable police officers; the greedy customs collectors; the bribe-hungry court judges; and the Imeldific smiles (graciously crying and smiling at the same time).
The Media, being a very powerful tool in this age, is very influential. We are easily awed by our local celebrities. We assume that we have relationships with them. They would just flash their beaming capped-tooth smiles and our law enforcers let them get away with their violations; they would bat their eyes and wave their hands and customs officers impose no duty on their suspicious balikbayan boxes and luggagges.
Because of the media projections about our actors and show personalities, they gained so much confidence to enter the world of politics. They look at it as just the next best "racket". The question is, what would we expect on these comedians and action stars, who only know how to take directions from their directors and obey their managers, to direct our nation and follow the complicated rules in politics? The big deal here is they are just mere actors, for the longest time, with no original scripts to deliver, no original visions to share---and letting them to to invade politics would turn our government as a comedy show of errors for the Philippine society.
The control of power must not be based on fame or charisma only. The main reason why Philippines is a very weak nation and has a poor democracy is because of "individual greed".
"Ako muna" seems to be the mantra throughout the system. People's concern is just for their personal interests or personal gains and not for the common good. We are hypnotized by the culture of crab mentality. The way of thinking to get success is by pushing others down. We think barangay and not national.
It is important to pay attention on how we picture our country and ourselves as Filipinos because most of our imaginations might be wrong. In order to understand our country more, and to fulfill our primary missions in life, we must not consider only the good things but be open to the other sides of this seemingly rotting system and work harder for it. Most of us tend to neglect the issues that cause the poverty rate to rise.
For realization, let us consider this nation a ship. All of us are in this ship with the fear of sinking. Achieving unity is a very broad goal yet very important---all for one, one for all. What hurts other people hurts us, too.
Time is precious so we must not wait for the time to come that there would be no more dreams and hopes left for this nation to hang on to. It is not yet over for us to save this ship while we can.
NICOLE R. FERNANDEZ 2007-48649 POSC1 - X
