Dear Philippines, LEARN FROM THIS MISTAKE! pt1
After what happened in the Philippines a couple days ago and reading a few blogs about it, I, too have this sense of urgency to write my thoughts about the whole situation. If you didn’t know what took place, this past Monday a hostage situation took place that ended grisly. The hostages were tourists from Hong Kong, while the person who initiated the situation was a laid-off former policeman who simply wanted his job back. The world watched along with the Filipinos on the situation, only to be disgusted by the turn of events as it near its ending. Of course every cause there is always a rippling effect. There is always someone or something that people will try to find a way to put blame on this situation. (Get ready, this is gonna be long! It’s a mini-rant…)
Both countries of Hong Kong and China feel that they cannot trust Filipinos because of this incident, forcing many Filipino workers to lose their jobs. There is a problem with this logic, in my opinion, because not all Filipinos will do the same thing as what Mr. Rolando Mendoza did last Monday. It’s like saying that in a group of 100 men, all of them can’t jump, when only 2 have problems doing so. The same countries even issued a warning to its citizens to not visit the country because it’s dangerous to travel there. It is definitely a big blow to the tourist industry in the country. Many people are now suffering the consequences.
Yes, I’m sad about what happened there. But I’m also not surprised on how things are handled there. The stories I hear from other Filipinos about the Philippines is pretty interesting, especially when they are talking about the government itself. The world already knows that Philippines is very corrupt, so much so, they’re actually on the top 5 corrupted countries in the world from a list I saw many years ago. The stories I hear where you can bribe your way out with the police, I thought it was a joke, but after reading the more recent blogs from Filipinos worldwide, this was true. I know that the heads of the state (not including the new President…I only know that he is the son of Corazon Aquino and the brother of Kris Aquino) are money hungry and corrupted. I am sad about the state of affairs in the country; the country does have a lot of potential of being more than just a third world country. If it wasn’t as corrupted, who knows where Philippines could have been.
Besides the government and police, there’s a real fundamental problem with their media in general, not just because of what happened recently. Like what blogger posted on Definitely Filipino’s blog (right here: http://definitelyfilipino.com/blog/index.php/archives/1336), the Philippines media is sensationalism at its finest. You’d see which celebrity farted on the front page news the following day (or if you’re an online-holic, in a few hours). Is it really necessary to find out that a celebrity farted at a club? Isn’t that being human is about? Do they really think that celebs are like gods that they don’t do such things? There is also another issue that I get irritated about…and it does deal with the former Wowowee host Willie Revillame. Two times this guy dealt with stupid issues that caused many Pinoys to go nuts. First one was when the former President Corazon Aquino passed away. His show was on while they were doing the coverage of her funeral. Keep in mind folks, this guy is on a payroll, he’s ONLY DOING WHAT HE IS BEING TOLD TO DO. Yet he gets punished for this. If ABS-CBN was smart, they would have cancelled all shows (since it was an important time), and people would understand it. So why in that company’s right mind decided to split screen with the funeral procession and people trying to win money in Wowowee? They should have taken a good look of what happened when Princess Diana passed away. Here in the states, there was no, and I mean none, regular pre-empted TV shows on, because here was this important person to the world, who lost her life all because MEDIA wanted more dirt on her. You are a class act ABS-CBN. The second incident is where he had this “fight” with another TV host. I don’t know much about it, but I know that Pinoys were “outraged” of this behavior. I don’t know about you, but from what I understand of the situation, the other party did make a mess of it. I’m not saying that you are not entitled to your opinion, but listen carefully to what happened. People already jumped to conclusions without hearing about the entire situation. This is one of the biggest reasons why I do not watch TFC/GMA - the whole thing is distorted. I only want to watch the channel so that I can understand the new slang or Tagalog words I don’t know about.
Now back to the present, with the hostage situation, everyone saw (including the hostage taker) what was going on around the situation. The media not only showed what the police was doing, they even gave a good reason why this former policeman to shoot and kill even more. Now being a Fil-Am, yes it’s important to tell people that a hostage situation has taken place, but to show what is happening on the sidelines is another story. WTF? It is NOT a TV show and it is NOT a movie. You are playing with people’s lives!
Now combine all these things together - corruption in the government and sensationalism in the media, you really opened a big can of worms. Why did it have to take a hostage situation to show the country what was lacking there? People were sacrificed for this. Yes it’s too late; you can’t bring back the dead. It is starting to make sense why some of my non-Filipino don’t want to visit the country, granted it has a great tourism spots. Like I said earlier, now the Filipinos are suffering its rippling effect on the situation. Fortunately there are other people (like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MojMYTNWc6M) from other parts of the world who don’t think ALL Filipinos are like Mr. Mendoza. I even read Jackie Chan’s tweet about the situation. (Go here to see what he tweeted, but he still has love for the Philippines - http://twitter.com/EyeOfJackieChan)
What the Philippines could do now is this: learn from the situation, change policies with the police (heck even the government needs to be cleaned up fast), and freakin’ love each other. I know that there are many (not all) Pinoys out there with this warped sense of “I’m better than you because my skin is lighter than yours.” Fuck that shit; you are all in the same boat regardless of how dark or light one is. Are you any better than the corrupted officials there with that attitude of yours? If you want Philippines to be really good, then change the attitudes. If you truly love God and go to church every Sunday like everyone says they do, do you really follow his words when he asks people to love one another?
All I can do is pray that people all over the world, including the Filipinos, Chinese, and people from Hong Kong will heal in time. How long will that be? I don’t know, it really depends on you guys. I’m sending you compassion, love, and healing when I pray to these countries and I hope the relations between the countries will better soon.
Both countries of Hong Kong and China feel that they cannot trust Filipinos because of this incident, forcing many Filipino workers to lose their jobs. There is a problem with this logic, in my opinion, because not all Filipinos will do the same thing as what Mr. Rolando Mendoza did last Monday. It’s like saying that in a group of 100 men, all of them can’t jump, when only 2 have problems doing so. The same countries even issued a warning to its citizens to not visit the country because it’s dangerous to travel there. It is definitely a big blow to the tourist industry in the country. Many people are now suffering the consequences.
Yes, I’m sad about what happened there. But I’m also not surprised on how things are handled there. The stories I hear from other Filipinos about the Philippines is pretty interesting, especially when they are talking about the government itself. The world already knows that Philippines is very corrupt, so much so, they’re actually on the top 5 corrupted countries in the world from a list I saw many years ago. The stories I hear where you can bribe your way out with the police, I thought it was a joke, but after reading the more recent blogs from Filipinos worldwide, this was true. I know that the heads of the state (not including the new President…I only know that he is the son of Corazon Aquino and the brother of Kris Aquino) are money hungry and corrupted. I am sad about the state of affairs in the country; the country does have a lot of potential of being more than just a third world country. If it wasn’t as corrupted, who knows where Philippines could have been.
Besides the government and police, there’s a real fundamental problem with their media in general, not just because of what happened recently. Like what blogger posted on Definitely Filipino’s blog (right here: http://definitelyfilipino.com/blog/index.php/archives/1336), the Philippines media is sensationalism at its finest. You’d see which celebrity farted on the front page news the following day (or if you’re an online-holic, in a few hours). Is it really necessary to find out that a celebrity farted at a club? Isn’t that being human is about? Do they really think that celebs are like gods that they don’t do such things? There is also another issue that I get irritated about…and it does deal with the former Wowowee host Willie Revillame. Two times this guy dealt with stupid issues that caused many Pinoys to go nuts. First one was when the former President Corazon Aquino passed away. His show was on while they were doing the coverage of her funeral. Keep in mind folks, this guy is on a payroll, he’s ONLY DOING WHAT HE IS BEING TOLD TO DO. Yet he gets punished for this. If ABS-CBN was smart, they would have cancelled all shows (since it was an important time), and people would understand it. So why in that company’s right mind decided to split screen with the funeral procession and people trying to win money in Wowowee? They should have taken a good look of what happened when Princess Diana passed away. Here in the states, there was no, and I mean none, regular pre-empted TV shows on, because here was this important person to the world, who lost her life all because MEDIA wanted more dirt on her. You are a class act ABS-CBN. The second incident is where he had this “fight” with another TV host. I don’t know much about it, but I know that Pinoys were “outraged” of this behavior. I don’t know about you, but from what I understand of the situation, the other party did make a mess of it. I’m not saying that you are not entitled to your opinion, but listen carefully to what happened. People already jumped to conclusions without hearing about the entire situation. This is one of the biggest reasons why I do not watch TFC/GMA - the whole thing is distorted. I only want to watch the channel so that I can understand the new slang or Tagalog words I don’t know about.
Now back to the present, with the hostage situation, everyone saw (including the hostage taker) what was going on around the situation. The media not only showed what the police was doing, they even gave a good reason why this former policeman to shoot and kill even more. Now being a Fil-Am, yes it’s important to tell people that a hostage situation has taken place, but to show what is happening on the sidelines is another story. WTF? It is NOT a TV show and it is NOT a movie. You are playing with people’s lives!
Now combine all these things together - corruption in the government and sensationalism in the media, you really opened a big can of worms. Why did it have to take a hostage situation to show the country what was lacking there? People were sacrificed for this. Yes it’s too late; you can’t bring back the dead. It is starting to make sense why some of my non-Filipino don’t want to visit the country, granted it has a great tourism spots. Like I said earlier, now the Filipinos are suffering its rippling effect on the situation. Fortunately there are other people (like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MojMYTNWc6M) from other parts of the world who don’t think ALL Filipinos are like Mr. Mendoza. I even read Jackie Chan’s tweet about the situation. (Go here to see what he tweeted, but he still has love for the Philippines - http://twitter.com/EyeOfJackieChan)
What the Philippines could do now is this: learn from the situation, change policies with the police (heck even the government needs to be cleaned up fast), and freakin’ love each other. I know that there are many (not all) Pinoys out there with this warped sense of “I’m better than you because my skin is lighter than yours.” Fuck that shit; you are all in the same boat regardless of how dark or light one is. Are you any better than the corrupted officials there with that attitude of yours? If you want Philippines to be really good, then change the attitudes. If you truly love God and go to church every Sunday like everyone says they do, do you really follow his words when he asks people to love one another?
All I can do is pray that people all over the world, including the Filipinos, Chinese, and people from Hong Kong will heal in time. How long will that be? I don’t know, it really depends on you guys. I’m sending you compassion, love, and healing when I pray to these countries and I hope the relations between the countries will better soon.