My View of 'Buy Filipino'

Among the purportedly patriotic movements is to Buy Filipino, which says that Filipino should only local products. It was the subject of Alex Lacson's recent letter after the Bus Hostage Crisis as one of his tips on what Filipinos should do. Much as it seems to be a noble initiative, I see a problem with it.

In the comments section of the Open Skies article at Antipinoy.com, commenter Killem was vehemently defending protectionism of Philippine companies, like PAL. The implication was that even if they deliver bad service, you must defend them. I replied:

"The important thing is the passengers, not air carriers. If the air carriers can’t deliver good service, then let them fold. Let the pilots and employees be hired by companies who have better practices and can pay their employees right. Don’t protect bad service. Don’t protect something that doesn’t deserve to be protected."

You can apply this to other Filipino services. If the only reason for protecting them is to protect their bad service, then it should stop.

If you are offended by my opinion on PAL, then consider the case of E-motion, a local animation company (in the Land of Weasels article by Ben Kritz, quoting Emil Jurado of the Manila Standard). An American company, American Vertigo, Inc. (AVI) led by a full-blooded Filipina, contracted E-Motion simply because of her sincere desire to help fellow Filipinos. After a while, E-Motion became sloppy and delivered bad service. It was time for AVI to drop a lousy supplier.

Now, instead of admitting its faults, E-Motion tried to destroy AVI by lying about them, discouraging others from taking their services and playing the victim! Thus, E-motion was ordered to fold by the Philippine Intellectual Property Office. I've heard the E-Motion survives under another name, but it sure is a bad example for Filipino companies.

In addition, more locally made stuff that I'd diss is our local television, media and movies. Our ridiculous Wowowee, Pilipinas for the Win (how ironic) and telenovela stuff only serve to propagate the culture of the poor and insinuate wrong values in people (such as dichotomizing the rich as always evil and poor as always good). That's why I boycott ABS-CBN especially and most of our local TV, and I'd rather watch programs from abroad, such as Japanese sci-fi shows, anime and Discovery Channel. Thank God for Youtube.

Also, not everything we need is made in the Philippines. We need computers to work, but no one makes computers here. Ideas on modern technology, techniques, values and principles come from abroad. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and universal ethics principles were not made in the Philippines; but we need them. Why Buy Filipino only when what you need is not made in the Philippines?

However, I don't say that everything made in the Philippines is crap. I once owned a Fujitsu hard drive that was made in the Philippines. It was reliable and went on for years. When I sold it to a friend eight years later, it was still working fine - attesting that Philippine-made technology could be good. Now if only economic protectionism could be removed so foreign companies could invest and revitalize our industries, and thus make more good quality products like this Fujitsu hard disk. Of course, buy it locally when it's available and when it's of really good quality.

My message is just this: Do not defend the Filipino when the Filipino is in the wrong.

But at times when the Filipino is doing the right thing and doing it right, support and uplift.

The Bus Hostage Crisis: A Failure of Filipino Culture

The Manila Bus Hostage Incident/Massacre was no isolated incident. It was an effect of everything our culture stands for. Our Filipino values, our system, our beliefs and of course, our corruption, all played into the event and caused the massive failure that led to the deaths of eight Hong Kong nationals. Every step of the story, from the culture that led to the action of Mendoza to the reaction of our flippant president and our people to the incident, shows how destructive our cultural failures are and how these same factors are keeping our country from moving forward.

Misplaced Pride

First is Mendoza. He was certainly wrong. Filipinos want to say that he was not a Filipino that day he took hostages. But that is wrong; he is every bit as Filipino as every other Filipino is, and he represented us that day. He was born Filipino, raised Filipino and died a Filipino. He is a product of Filipino culture.

(Please go here for more of the article)

The Filipino reaction to Int'l reactions to the Bus Hostage Crisis - Very Wrong

The Manila Bus Hostage Crisis revealed everything that was wrong in Filipino culture, from the policeman with misplaced pride and who through corrupted logic thinks he can gain "justice" by holding people hostage, to the Filipino reaction of defensiveness against international criticism.

The Australian's Emma-Kate Symons came out with an article condemning the moronic defensiveness of Filipinos to international opinion. She mentioned many underlying aspects of Filipino culture in her article, the very same things that I and my colleagues have observed long before in Antipinoy.com.

As mentioned in Symon's article, people like Aurora Pijuan and Billy Esposo retorted that Filipino tourists were murdered in Tiananmen in 2005. If China has the gall to demand justice from Filipinos on the Hostage-taking, then the Chinese should give justice as well for the 2005 incident, they say.

Very wrong. China already gave justice for this. And the Madrigals reportedly even released a statement that they were unfairly being brought up in Pijuan's article. Pijuan, Esposo and company were creating a red herring issue to help the parties involved in the Manila bus incident escape accountability.

Very wrong indeed. The work of morons. They are proving that the Chinese are not the ones who are OA (overreacting)... the Filipinos are (well, Filipinos have naturally been OA).

Lately, a letter by Liberal Party senatorial candidate Alex Lacson circulated around the Internet. It mentioned that we should be proud of the few Filipinos who have great achievements around the world and avoid depression by defending what's good about them. They believe that actively defending Filipino “pride,” along with being noisy about it, is the way to uplift our nation.

Sorry, guys, Lacson's got it wrong; it draws more attention to your faults. It’s like an erring employee who was punished, and instead of humbly going back to work to rectify the faults, he instead mouths out all his “achievements” and “good points,” blah blah, until the boss cuts him off with, “prove that you’re really good.” Again, It’s like the village idiot walking around town shouting "I'm cool, I'm great," when it only confirms that he’s the village idiot.

It also confirms that the goal of Filipinos is just to feel good, and not necessarily be good. Alex Lacson may be well-meaning, but he also subscribes to Filipino emotionalistic and escapist culture. It shows that Filipinos have truly lost sight of what is the right thing to do.

Defending the Philippines' pride and promoting our "positive" side is the wrong way to clean up after the hostage fiasco. Because it is nothing but escaping into "feel-good" distractions that take us away from focusing on the problems of Filipino society and culture and directly addressing them. We should not be afraid of facing the ugly truth: problems exist in our core culture and society and we should fix them even if the solutions seem to go against the popular notions of Filipinism.

And another idea about our people's moronic reactions is that we have to be defensive because we are being put down by the world. No, my friends, that is a myth. Who said that the world is putting down the Philippines? Is that the imagination of leftists? Likely. Also, China's demanding justice from our government is not putting us down. It is asking for what is right.

By the way, if you believe that Chinese are lashing back by oppressing Filipino OFWs in Hong Kong, think again.

Probably Esposo was right when he said that "we are the ones to put ourselves down first." By voting the wrong people in office, by practicing the wrong cultural traditions and having the wrong beliefs, we put ourselves down. We also tend to refuse all the solutions that could fix our problems (charter change, economic liberalization, voting Gordon for president instead of an incompetent).

Also, in reaction to Lacson's letter, commenter Miriam Quiamco at Antipinoy.com said:

"I am not ashamed of being Filipino, as being Filipino for me is just a technical accident of birth. I care about my country, this is a given, but I will never buy the ideology... that I should be proud of this race just because of the accomplishments of a handful of individuals."

Another observation of the Filipino's double standard in fandom is mentioned by commenter Mel:

The Filipinos can’t have it both ways. They rejoice and identify over the ineternational triumphs of one person: Manny Pacquaio, Charice etc but they don’t want to be identified with the international sins of one person (Mendoza).

Another thing to think about... so some Filipinos say that Hong Kong was overreacting. What if Filipinos were the ones killed in HK in the same manner? Wouldn't we act the same way?

"Filipino pride" is a "head-in-the-sand" escape in order to feel good. But the problem with this approach, as mentioned by Get Real Philippines colleague Benign0, is:

The more we bury our heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich, the more our asses stick out high in the air.

What is it with "Pride?" Why is the Filipino always trying to find something to be publicly proud of? Is it because there really is something wrong with us, but we don't want to change it, and so instead we resort to empty saving face in order to still look good?

I will quote my friend who said it very nicely:

It's always easy to say you are proud about something without ever really caring about it. The majority who says that they are proud to be pinoys are mostly the ones contributing to the current deterioration of the Philippines. ...For me, pride... in being a Filipino is best shown in action, not in words. If you're doing that, you don't need to say it 'cause it shows.

Filipino pride is always misplaced. Let's put in in the right place... in our actions. Not words.

Instead of boldly shouting to the world, "I'm proud to be Filipino," just do what is right, quietly, and thus be known for your actions, and not your words.