Nowadays, does it still matter to Filipinos, being a Filipino?
It’s a funny question to ask in English. I, a Filipino since birth, am able to articulate my thoughts better in English. Probably because the Filipino language is still not yet intellectualized. However, I personally think it’s the best way for me to share my thoughts more effectively on this identity diffusion of being a Filipino.
While I was listening to some independent music that were composed by Filipino bands, most of them had this western touch to it. Most of it were also sang in English. Somehow I was looking for the musical vibe in the 90s, when Eraserheads was highly popular. It had a natural Filipino touch that we all can re-late to. Our own music has evolved so much, and now it includes various influences from across the world. In the midst of it all, however, it somehow bothered me how we’re gradually losing sense of our being Filipino. It’s not that I disagree with globalization and acculturating ourselves with other coun-tries, but then amid all of these what makes a Filipino truly stand out?
Back when the Spaniards conquered our country up to the times of the Japanese occupation, we’ve underwent a systemic oppression which made us think that their countries and cultures are greater than ours. Until today, that understanding is prevalent, and the colonial mentality of Filipinos remains at large. Indeed, we are engaging ourselves in globalization, but at the same time we’re losing sight of what makes us distinct from the rest. We keep on imitating other countries, on the premise that what they do and have is greater than ours. In many ways, this premise is true, but only because we allow it.
One time I was sharing to this person a local Filipino brand that I find to be promising and reliable. The first response was, “Ah, local lang?” Local brands somehow have a bad reputation for many Filipinos, but many new local brands are fighting that stigma and proving us wrong. Some of them even have this goal of developing products that are truly Filipino, and that these products should be something we’d all be proud of. Arguably, that would be a better association for the proud to be Pinoy hashtag that many keyboard warriors in social media would use. Before even being proud of something, there has to be a physical evidence or basis that it is something to be proud of.
Perhaps, in the globalized state we are in today, nationalism won’t find a spot to fit in. It is mostly be-cause now that we are interconnected with other countries, we have to adapt to one another more and try to develop a compromise as to how we’d approach one another’s cultures.
In its core essence, however, nothing is wrong with nationalism as long as we know when and how to use it. It’s just that as of today, many Filipinos wrongly view nationalism through their typical #proudtobepinoy sentiments spread across social media whenever a certain event involving a Filipino or half-Filipino prompts them to do so. Deep behind those hashtags is a perpetual inferiority complex, that Filipinos get so much surprised when they discover another Filipino doing something that parallels the work of foreign countries. There needs to be a different view on being Filipino – something that’s evident in what we do, say, think and feel.
Many of us, including myself, have thought of migrating to other countries because of how hopeless we see this country to be. Nobody is taking that against us, because in several ways it’s true. But don’t you think that this kind of thinking (which was prevalent even in Spanish times), is the main reason why we’re messing up big time as a nation? It’s because many Filipinos look down on themselves and would immediately agree that being a Filipino, is a joke. Many Filipinos have developed a severe learned helplessness wherein they have become docile, stagnant and highly dependent people.
What’s surprising about all these is that Filipinos abroad are more successful in general compared to those who work in their own country. Imagine if those talents were being harnessed and propagated here. We could have Filipino brands dominating the market and Filipino ingenuity being reflected in our systems and behavior. But of course, that’s just wishful thinking.
For some people, these views of nationalism may be absurd, when taking the context of globalization. My comment to that won’t be just that it is true or false, because in some ways it is true, while in some ways it is false. However, I think’s it’s more about identifying the fine line between nationalism and being progressive in a globalized world. It’s about sharing to the world the culture we have, and contributing to the colorful spectrum of cultures that this world has to offer.
