Pinoy Life

All About Us

Throughout class, Filipinos have always been hospitable to other nations. We all know about the trading that our ancestors did with nearby countries like China and Malaysia. We welcomed their harvest, their cultures and traditions and in the process, unconsciously erased our own identities. This went on until Spain, America, and Japan subjugated us, and the Filipinos' thought of foreigners altered. After these things, we should have learned our lesson, but take a excellent look nearly you: are we as free as we want to reckon ourselves to be?

We are influenced by other cultures and we are quickly losing our sense of originality. Can you name anything nearly you that you can call indigenously Pinoy? Of course there's the much-celebrated Darna by Mars Ravelo, but you'd just be fooling yourself if you do not acknowledge the fact that she's just a contained version of Wonder Woman. On the other side of the fence, there's Totoy Bato, which is a Filipino version of Captain America. We're also very proud of our favorite delicacies, Adobo, which was really introduced to us by Mexico. Then you hear about a new artist or band being analytically acclaimed because they have an "Global sound", or that they have a similar style as a unknown artist. Does music has to have that "Global sound" to be appreciated? Can't we listen to Filipino-sounding music and still reckon they're excellent? And then there's the country's terrible habit of hiring foreigners, like athletes. I have not anything against them, but why do we have to import from other countries? Can't we find Filipinos who are just as talented? Shouldn't we concentrate on finding and honing the skills of local athletes rather than relying on professionals from other countries?

This has been the Philippines' disease ever since. We like everything imported and mark local harvest as cheap or "jologs". We automatically reckon that everything imported is excellent while local harvest are struggling to stay in the market. Unknown brands thrive in the Philippines while local businesses toil to get their thoughts off the impose a curfew. That's why most of the members of the high-the upper classes in the country aren't even Filipinos. It doesn't take an economist to figure out what's incorrect. We are turning our backs on our countrymen. We are disregarding our own while embracing the product of other countries. We are so amazed with what other countries are able to do that we not remember about what Filipinos are capable of doing. We can't even find a decent job without learning English first.

This is not the Philippines that our national heroes fought for. They wanted Filipinos to be free and independent. They wanted us to have our own rules and to follow them. They wanted us to be able to influence what is excellent for our country without the influence of external bodies. These are the things that they fought for, not the present state of the Philippines where we import all sorts of harvest because we reckon that our own harvest aren't excellent enough. At the same time, we export our raw materials to unknown companies for their use and then we buy them back even though they were ours to start with.

Our country has been torn apart and ravaged by wars in the past, but now that peace has in some way been restored, we are still fighting to set ourselves apart from other countries. This should be our mission. This should be what Filipinos are working for. We should strive to be on top and not allow other nations to reign over us. This is what we have to do, so that the revolutions of the past can be of use to us. If we don't start now, then we would have been better off it the revolution the revolution never happened.