WHAT WE NATIVE (Malay/Indio) FILIPINOS SHOULD KNOW

"Upang maitindig natin ang bantayog ng ating lipunan, kailangang radikal nating baguhin hindi lamang ang ating mga institusyon kundi maging ang ating pag-iisip at pamumuhay. Kailangan ang rebolusyon, hindi lamang sa panlabas, kundi lalo na sa panloob!" -- Apolinario Mabini, La Revolucion Filipina (1898)

"What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler

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"To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful." - Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

Hi All,

It has been discouraging to witness and realize the divisions among the opposition to the regimes that have ruled our homeland. Our native lack of unity and the instead main concern with personalities seem to demonstrate, aside from the many individual/single issues pursued, and the absence of solid understanding can and have lead to inadequately pursuing and addressing the roots of our present socio-economic and political malaise. 

Much of the current public demonstrations or rallies appear short-lived and ineffective because they are geared mainly to the ever-changing issues. There is a need to go beyond these well-intentioned but fractured street protests and such a need demands exposing our fellow countrymen-at-large to critical analysis of themselves (ourselves) and our environment.

There is a need to look inward and realize some unpleasant truths about ourselves as native Malay Filipino individuals and as a society. It involves a "shaking of the foundations" or a "rocking of the boat" since it requires us to question our culture: i.e. traditional beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, habits of mind, assumptions or notions, etc. We need to seek an understanding of "why we are what we are, where we can or should be headed," and to therefore be able to formulate ways to attain where we can or should be.

Before everything, let us remind ourselves that we native Filipinos have many and known good qualities, just like people of any other country. We all know this fact. However, let us not dwell on them since the objective here is not towards self-congratulations or to hear/read-only what we want to.  
(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/10/seeing-philippines-through-eyes-of.html)

The task is to highlight our weaknesses so that these may in turn be corrected. I believe and think that only through a critical self-analysis or self-examination (ala preparatory to confession some of us learned in Catholic schools) can we change for the better. I am convinced that such an exercise will allow us to pursue truths however shocking and unpleasant they may be. 

It is only when we have "come of age," when we have come to think for ourselves as an independent people with human dignity, with our own cultural heritage, national pride, and sovereignty can we act and work in unity for our own truth, permanent liberation from the dehumanizing conditions imposed by our so-called leaders in government, business and their foreign partners.

If we are honestly concerned with our homeland beyond simply wishing for the better or fatalism, if we want fundamental changes to improve in the long-term the human conditions for the majority of our present and future native countrymen in the homeland, it behooves us to do such a self-examination towards self-knowledge and self-understanding, as native Filipino individuals and as a native Filipino "community,"  thus a people, a nation.

To gain self-knowledge and self-understanding, we must look critically at what we are and why, examine the history and nature of our society which must be changed, then determine the direction of those changes. 

Only after having done so can we finally act and enlist the needed energies of that majority to effect such changes for the "common good."
(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/rethinking-our-homelands-history.html)

What Are We Today? Why Are We What We Are?
Jose Rizal's analysis in his pamphlet "The Indolence of the Filipino" remains valid today: "A man in the Philippines is only an individual, he is not a member of a nation."  This condition is partly due to accumulated habits of mind and learned response from Spanish, then American colonization and Japanese occupation plus other native factors, i.e. geographical, regional and local, cultural factors. 

But equally, if not more significantly, our failure to appreciate the downside impacts of our existing/inherited economic (capitalist) system and political systems, which have/are dominated and controlled by the family-based oligarchy that profits and leads to a weak national government/state -- in turn has inadequately provided opportunities for the common good and thus only led to perpetual and widening mass deprivation. 

Consequently, we native Malay Filipinos have historically continued to withdraw from and become indifferent to our society and isolated ourselves from our fellow countrymen. We have become unable to act together as a people; and really unselfish cooperation is seldom possible since individualistic, selfish concerns are our preoccupation. 
(see: http://joserizal.info/Writings/Other/indolence.html)

We native Filipinos are interested in what is going on in public only to the extent that these events/happenings impinge on our private lives. We Filipinos are alienated from ourselves as persons (a true human transcends purely material and physical pursuits, his purpose and interest is reconciled with those of his society, just as society's goals must ensure his welfare). 
Our native Filipino traits: attitudes, behaviors, and values, knowingly or unknowingly, have been primarily those of the "economic man,"  which is greatly bolstered or enhanced in a capitalistic society (as in the U.S.A.). We have therefore measured our relations and our worth in terms of cold cash.  Our goals, our happiness, our possibilities as human beings have been reduced to crude economic terms. We strive to enrich ourselves or our lives "not by being much but by having much." It is self and family alone that is important. The welfare of others plays, at best, a far second in our activities. That is why society suffers. This is true as a private citizen and/or public "servant." 

We native Filipinos live in a climate of intellectual simple-mindedness. We have developed many escapes which entertain us and at the same time prevent us from thinking of really serious matters. Many of us are too lazy to think. Many of us are afraid to think. The rest of us never learned how. We do not waste our precious leisure worrying about the problems of others or the state of society. 

Leisure time is not seen as an opportunity for meaningful social interaction. Instead, we have the pseudo-camaraderie of numerous social clubs and civic organizations which we join not because we like other people, nor because we believe in their avowed purposes, but because membership will expose us to the limelight, will enhance our public image, will put us in contact with others who can help or be useful in our private pursuits. 
(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/10/call-to-historians-history-and-liberal.html)

We Filipinos are not original enough. Thanks to our colonial conditioning and western-type/Americanized education, we have developed an obsession for anything foreign or imported that consequently led to the lack of desire for anything Filipino (the Spanish neglect and the "free trade" imposed by the American occupation doomed any indigenous industrial development). We love to imitate ape-mostly everything. We, therefore, betray/demonstrate our intense colonial mentality. 

Caught in a vicious circle, our imitativeness is partly responsible for our failure to become truly autonomous and nationally sovereign. Just as the academic with a foreign degree is accepted without question as superior vis-a-vis a local product, so that anyone who has gone abroad is ipso facto better, more accomplished than the home-grown variety, in the eyes of western-oriented audiences. Our so-called "cultured" Filipinos are a breed apart from the majority of Filipinos. Their thought processes are comprehensible only to themselves and their foreign friends.

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/our-colonial-mentality-then-and-now.html)

We as Filipino Christians are not Christian enough. We brag about our being the only Christian country in Asia. We brag about our crowded churches on Sundays. We brag about the length of our religious processions. We brag about the colorfulness of our barrio fiestas. We brag about the numerical strength of our Catholic majority. 

But until when are we going to remain Christians in name and number only? We Filipino Christians have not attained religious maturity. We are superstitious  we participate in such nonsense as the "spirit of the glass," chain letters, Good Friday penitence  amulets, magic incantations/prayers, etc..ad nauseam.  Bottomline, we do not know and understand authentic Christianity.
(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/use-of-religion-for-desperate-times-we.html)

We as Filipino Christians practice "split-level" Christianity. We have not integrated or internalized Christian or humanist values in our whole being. We have not gone beyond "externalities," as happens in the Black Nazarene fame at Quiapo or the wiping of San Roque's dog. We go to church on Sundays due to compulsion, not out of conviction. We drift lazily to church, dangle and loiter at the back, walk in and walk out for a chat or smoke. We come to church because it is Sunday and we love the Sunday crowd; or if we do not like the Sunday crowd, we still go lest we be looked at differently.

Our norm of moral behavior is based on the external such as shame or "hiya," "don't get caught attitude," "everyone does it," "Ako ay tao lamang," and other convenient rationalizations. Because of our failure (AND the failure of the church hierarchy/priests to correctly nurture - maybe they themselves do not know any better) to internalize Christian ideals to become, at least partly, the basis of our actual behavior we as so-called Christian politicians, bureaucrats or plain Juan de la Cruz feel little, if any at all, guilt upon loss of integrity. We supposed Christians feel neither inconsistencies nor hypocrisy.

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/07/filipino-norm-of-morality-vitaliano-r.html and
http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/when-our-religion-becomes-evil-our.html )

We as Filipino Christians are intellectually unexciting Christians. We never went beyond our small catechism book. We never heard or read about developments in the church such as the Papal Encyclicals, Vatican II, Liberation Theology; we are unaware of the history of Christianity of the writings of Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Teilhard de Chardin, Niebuhr, Hans Kung, and other brilliant minds who wrestled with the rational aspects of our Christian faith. We know nothing about the studies made about "Filipino-style" Christianity by Filipino priests.

We are so ignorant, thus still childish and immature in our religious beliefs and sentiments, and out of touch with what constitutes a truly Christian message. We, therefore, continue to practice an escapist religion --an opiate of the people, and an economic boon to vendors and other opportunists; and conceive of the Church as limited to what happens inside the church building (these are 16th-century concepts).

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/prayerful-filipino-i-think-most.html)

We Filipinos as immigrants in foreign lands are no better as persons or members of our adopted countries  We simply carried or brought over our individualistic, selfish aspirations. Further reinforced by a more materialistic value-system society, we more vigorously pursue purely material objectives, now more easily attained because of better opportunities. We easily forget where we came from because we never appreciated nor understood what we were or what we are as Filipinos, as a nation of people, as human beings. We do not appreciate such concepts/terms such as "human potential," "whole person," or "hierarchy of needs" because of our concentration and equation of "having, as a reason for living."

We are happy every time the Philippine peso de-valuates because our dollar converts for more pesos. The fact that the Filipino worker in the homeland will work the same number of hours for much less buying power or work more hours to purchase the same amount of food or clothing does not shock nor cross our minds. We look down at fellow Filipinos who have not been where we had and brag about where we had been, i.e. a cruise, etc. We suddenly consider ourselves as westernized, modern, or Americanized although in fact we may have uncritically only copied the externalities of their culture or society.

We even have become prejudiced against Blacks thanks to our ignorance of Black History, demonstrating our intellectual shallowness. We do not appreciate the fact that Black activism for civil rights spanned-off our newly found opportunities. We do not register to vote because we do not see its relevance to us. Our adopted home-country offers us possibilities to grow, to appreciate what a true and complete person is, to approach the realization of our full human potential. 

Unfortunately, just as we were back in the homeland, we are stunted, we do not know, we do not understand what it is to be a total human being, that is, to be a member of society. Thus, we as immigrants are no improvement to what we were before. Thus, like our fellow countrymen back home, we are still alienated from ourselves and from society.

What is the nature of Filipino society?

As a people, we have been deprived for centuries of responsibility for our destiny. Under the Spaniards, this deprivation was open. They ruled, we obeyed. Under the Americans, while we were ostensibly being prepared for self-government and self-reliance, we were actually being maneuvered by means of economic and political pressures to defer to American decisions at the same time that we were being conditioned by our Americanized education to prefer American ways and thinking. 

The result is a people habituated to abdicating control over basic areas of our national life, unaccustomed to coming to grips with reality, prone to escape to fantasies and a parade of leadership that voluntarily chooses Americanized solutions for Philippine problems. Partly because of our intellectual conditioning and partly for personal expediency since our politicians tacitly recognize the danger of displeasing foreign "friends," especially Americans, Japanese, etc.

Thus we have existed as a semi-ward country, with semi-independent status, our leaders busy with stop-gap measures; our people turning more towards individual pursuits for survival if not blinded by faith that promises that everything will be fine; faith divorced from reality. The objective reality in our society stares us in the face now and we are confused, lost, and desperate. We managed to get by before and believed that there is nothing wrong with our society; that the difficulties are symptomatic of progress and economic growth. 

But all this optimistic thinking has been taught us for the last 60+ years.; and yet, the actual conditions for people especially in the countryside have not changed any better but instead gravely worsened, it is still a picture of a society burdened with harsh poverty unchanged since Rizal's time, a century ago (and now longer).

It is true that more of us are enjoying the benefits of American, Japanese, etc. gadgetry; we have more TV and stereo sets, concrete roads, and buildings. But what of the increasing tribe of the unemployed and underemployed, of the millions of educated countrymen and women forced to leave the homeland for menial jobs abroad, due to successive governments' neglect, corruption, and incompetence to govern for the good of the people?

What of the peasants too for whom the future also holds nothing but the desperate search for food and security that occupies them today? What of the young whose talents are wasted for lack of opportunity, deficient education, malnutrition, and ill-health?

And all the while a few rich, native Filipinos and foreigners: local foreigners - Americans, Chinese, Koreans, Australians, etc.- have essentially taken over our economy to further enrich themselves, to avail themselves of our women, national resources, and patrimony. These foreigners do not identify nor work for the common good, except for their common good as a ruling elite/class. 

Their continued and ever-growing affluence assure the further degradation of the common tao. This fact has slowly lead our homeland to society to become like a Latin American "banana republic" of the recent past. 

The only good part seems to be that as life becomes deeply unbearable, our cynicism will turn into more dissent and our indifference which hopefully will give way to an active search for real alternative approaches to our problems.

Where do we go from here?

Political freedom is meaningless unless it is based on economic freedom, form the basis of political democracy is economic democracy. Thus, our fundamental task is economic development that will provide as many Filipinos as possible with their essential human needs. Mere quantitative accomplishment in roads, buildings, production, GNP statistics, etc. does not constitute development nor progress if the overall result is to make the few already rich, foreign and Filipino, richer and the Filipino majority, poorer. 

The true measure of economic development is found not in how rich the rich are nor even how rich the country is, but in the well-being and degree of economic security of the majority of the native population.

(see:http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/can-we-have-real-democracy-in-homeland.html )

If our aspiration is for the prosperity of the majority, then our goals must be categorized precisely as a nationalist, i.e. nationalist industrialization and modernized agriculture for the benefit of the many. These goals would seek to do away with the 60+ years of neo-colonial nature of our economy, which is the main obstacle to our national economic and political development.

However, Filipino nationalism is not a simple love of country. It is beyond simple emotionalism, beyond the wearing of the "barong," the singing of the national anthem, of saying "I am a Filipino."  It is beyond such superficialities. Anyone can say he loves his country and not even try to do something for it and its people, in whatever small way.

Instead, nationalism is a point of view. Filipino nationalism is characterized by an attitude AND behavior which insists that the power of the sovereign state must be based and exercised by native Filipinos, that economic power is lodged in the native Filipino people.

(see:http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-is-filipino-nationalism-mrs.html )

Since economic power is political power, it is imperative that economic decisions and control of power be wielded by native Filipinos. Since a program for true economic development through industrialization and modernized agriculture must be geared for the native Filipino, the latter should be deeply involved in such a program. A program that is planned, designed, controlled, and implemented by non-Filipinos will not surely be bearing fruits for the Filipino majority.

Our Filipino nationalism will be protective within our borders, and will not deny the national interests of foreign countries in their own borders (firstly, we do not have nor will have that capability). Our Filipino nationalism will have us live in harmony with other nationalists because all nationalists can work out a plan of co-existence. Those who have carried out their nationalism beyond their borders, i.e. Japan and Nazi Germany in recent history, or the USA in the post-WW2 era, were/are ultra-nationalists; more aptly, imperialists.

Filipino nationalism sees that the interests of the G7 nations, their TNCs are antagonistic to the long-term interests of underdeveloped nations such as ours. Therefore, any government politician, native Filipino businessman and/or technocrat in our homeland who support and help implement policies that only welcome and further strengthen foreign control of our economy and exploitation of our national resources/patrimony and people is not working with Filipino nationalism in their hearts and minds. In short, such a native Filipino is a Filipino traitor. 

In contrast, a nationalist government will encourage the spread of nationalist consciousness --via mass nationalist education-- among the majority of the citizenry so that it can have effective mass support to bravely pursue nationalistic economic and political goals.

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/globalization-and-underdeveloped.html, and
http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/08/neoliberalism-and-global-order-noam.html )

Do we need foreign TNCs? Do we lack capital? TNCs supposedly bring the managerial talent. In reality, we have enough native managerial and professional talents to effectively and efficiently run business and manufacturing enterprises. As to capital, we should note that for decades, foreign companies have been practically hoarding out immense profits. 

With TNCs, our people have only experienced massive layoffs, witnessed the ruthless closing of native manufacturing facilities or buying off of such facilities, and the creation of a small, native middle class whose self-interests understandably are tied up to the foreign entities rather than indigenous growth. 

With mainland China becoming the "factory of the world," we saw the demise of whatever nascent industrialization and essential agricultural production we have. What we have left are TNCs with their native partners amassing the best lands and planting for exports, for conversion to golf courses and other entertainment/sports for the wealthy and foreigners, all the while pushing more people towards impoverishment.

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/globalisation-is-recolonisation-asia.html )

How do we enlist the energies of our people?

As alluded to, we need to gain mass nationalism. We need to have strong, brave, and nationalistic leadership in government and business. For us, native Filipinos who are seriously desiring a radical change of direction need to start with ourselves. We need to restudy and overhaul our passive, fatalistic, tradition-oriented attitudes. We need to be politicized (not limited to participation in elections, which are shams and charades for foreign consumption), but in terms of consciousness of our right to a better life, an awareness of our power to achieve such a goal by united action, a sense of duty to participate in nation-building ultimately for the common good.

It is only through mass education for nationalism, political and social consciousness can we critically understand "what's going on" and therefrom effectively dissent and work for fundamental, radical changes in our government, business, and society. It is only through the nationalist alternative that we Filipinos can regain our honor as a people and be a true nation AND achieve the well-being of the majority in our homeland.

(see: http://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-nationalism-good-article-by.html alsohttp://thefilipinomind.blogspot.com/2005/05/impediments-to-filipino-nationalism-to.html )

"The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain" - Thomas Jefferson, 1809


"The chief business of America is business" - President Calvin Coolidge, 1925

"Those who profess to favor freedom
and yet deprecate agitation
are men who want crops without
plowing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and
lightning.
They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one
or it may be a physical one
or it may be both moral and physical
but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a
demand
It never did, and never will."

– Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Lecturer, Author and Slave, 1817-1895)

"I helped the poor and they called me a saint, I asked why they were poor and they called me a Communist." – Brazilian Bishop Helder Camara

- END OF POST -

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Hi All,

The below link will show a short list of my past posts (out of 540 posts so far) which I consider as basic topics about us native (indio)/ Malay Filipinos. This link/listing, which may later expand, will always be presented at the bottom of each future post.  Just point-and-click at each listed item to open and read. 

Thank you for reading and sharing with others, especially those in our homeland.

- Bert

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PLEASE DONATE CORE SUBJECT BOOKS TO OUR HOMELAND (i.e. your hometown public schools, Alma Mater, etc.). Those books that you and/or your children do not need or want; or buy books from your local library during its cheap Book Sales. Also, cargo/door-to-door shipment is best.  It is a small sacrifice.  [clean up your closets or garage - donate books. THANKS!]

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" Fear history, for it respects no secrets" - Gregoria de Jesus  (widow of Andres Bonifacio)

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THE FILIPINO MIND blog contains 537 published postings you can view, as of April 18, 2012. Go to the sidebar to search Past & Related Postings, click LABEL [number in parenthesis = total of related postings]; or use the GOOGLE SEARCH at the sidebar using key words [labels, or tags] for topics of interest to you. OR click a bottom label or tag to open related topics.

The postings are oftentimes long and a few readers have claimed being "burnt out."  My apologies. As the selected topics are not for entertainment but to stimulate deep thought (see MISSION Statement) and hopefully to rock the boat of complacency (re MISSION).

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(6).  From suggestions by readers, I have added some contemporary music to provide a break. Check out bottom of posting to play Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bocelli, Sting, Chris Botti, Josh Groban, etc. 

(7) Songs on Filipino nationalism: please reflect on the lyrics (messages) as well as the beautiful renditions. Other Filipino Music links at blog sidebar.  Click each to play.:

• BAYAN KO by Freddie Aguilar 
• ”Bayan Ko” by KUH LEDESMA 
• ”Bayan Ko” by a Korean choir 
• ”Sa Kuko ng Agila” by Freddie Aguilar 
• ”Huwad na Kalayaan” by Freddie Aguilar




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"Those who profess to favor freedom
and yet deprecate agitation
are men who want crops without 
plowing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and
lightning.
They want the ocean without the
awful roar of its waters.
This struggle may be a moral one
or it may be a physical one
or it may be both moral and physical
but it must be a struggle.
Power concedes nothing without a
demand
It never did, and never will." – Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Lecturer, Author and Slave, 1817-1895