Hu u?

I was one of several speakers whose topics ranged from how to register corporations with the SEC, the workings of the Philippine Stock Exchange, the current status of the BPO industry, etc. The audience was composed of potential foreign investors and I was assigned to talk about Philippine history, some kind of a Welcome-to-the-Philippines sort of talk. The intention was for them to have a better understanding of Philippine culture, our people.

Preparing the slides for my talk, it got me thinking, do we really know who we are?

I decided to start off with current events and I wondered what foreigners thought if they read about the countless acts of selflessness during and in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda, the Filipinos being the most resilient people in the world who always found reason to smile even in the face of such unimaginable tragedy, the images of village folks clutching religious icons against a desolate and gloomy background, of boys playing basketball surrounded by flattened homes, of Yolanda’s victims finding time to set aside their grief for a while to cheer on a fellow Filipino in the boxing ring in his quest to redeem himself. 

What then would they think if after turning the page they see stories about how our congressmen and senators shamelessly pocketed hundreds of millions in people’s money, how that same boxer tried to get away with tax evasion, how our government officials focused much energy on pointing fingers when thousands of our countrymen remained without relief goods for weeks after the typhoon?

Which one one these paint a portrait of the Filipino? 

I thought, they would not be entirely wrong if they believe that we are Manny Pacquiao, the poor boy from Gen. Santos down south who made it to the top of the international boxing scene, who believed that his talent for knocking people out made him qualified to craft laws that would uplift the lives of his countrymen. They would be right too to think we are Lea Salonga, international theater and music star. We could be Apl D Ap, the boy from Olongapo who migrated to the U.S. of A. and is now living the American dream. And we are also Flor Contemplacion, found guilty of murder, executed in a Singaporean prison, who was only truly guilty of being poor, helpless and desperate.

Hundreds of years as slaves to different colonial powers may have had something to do with the contradicting portraits of what a Filipino is all about, I thought. For three centuries, the Spaniards made sure that we believed that we are a people inferior to their kind – the fair skinned, high-nosed kind. That we don’t have the power in our own country and they do, and that power meant they can do anything they want with the land and its people. Friars can father children, evict farmers from the land they tilled and nurtured all their lives, and execute Gomburzas and Jose Rizals who dared expose their presence here as an unwelcome cancer.

The 1898 Treaty of Paris taught us that we didn't matter in charting the course of our own country, and that all of these 7,107 islands and everything on, in and below it, its history, its people, cost only 20 million dollars. Then the Americans made sure we understood that our freedom did not depend on the Aguinaldos or the Sakays of this country, but whether they, the Americans, waving the flag of Manifest Destiny, believed we already deserve to be free. They made us believe that in order to teach us how to govern ourselves, we must not be allowed to govern ourselves.

Then there’s Martial Law under Marcos, where we learned that a government that is not by, for and of the people can be just as bad or even worse an enemy as foreign aggressors.

And now that democracy is supposed to have been restored, we are made to believe that we, the people, have the power. Do we? Maybe. And what have we done with that power? We voted rapists, plunderers and incompetent movie stars into office. 

And how about those who are in power? Don’t expect much, for hundreds of years they were made to believe that being in power meant getting away with almost anything, like the friar who raped a mother, they too now believe they can rape a minor; like the guardia civil who beat up Rizal when he didn’t take of his hat in his presence, they too now believe they can arbitrarily abduct, imprison and even kill anyone and get away with it. We have got to learn that it’s not about power, that being up there is really about responsibility.

And now we are free, so we believe. But are we, truly, free? How can we claim that when we continue to use the same prejudices that our former colonial masters used against us against our very own people today? How can we say we’re free when we continue to try to comprehend who we are and what we’re all about by looking at ourselves through American or Spanish eyes? And as Rizal said, what need do we have for freedom when the slaves of today will be the tyrants of tomorrow?

After I speaking for close to half an hour, I don’t think I was able to paint a clear portrait of the Filipino for my audience, for I myself continue to search for the answer to the question, Hu u?