A Lamentation

I love my country. I love it for what I have seen that is good about it. No matter how willing I am to leave it, I know deep in my heart that it would be just as willing to go back when I would have left it. It is my home, after all. When I do leave the Philippines, I want to show other peoples that I, who was born and raised in a country wrought with political and economic instability, could still be somebody who can bring something to the world.

I'm a little sad that I might sound hypocritical right now for saying that after all the stuff that I’ve said about my own country in previous blog entries. But to be honest, although I'm quite disillusioned to the point that I would be quite ashamed to be from a country run with sheer mediocrity, I am satisfied that beyond the ugliness of it all, I have been lucky enough to see parts of it that is still worth fighting for.

When I write my novel, I think about the Philippines that I have learned to love and treasure—the smiling faces of my people, the idealism of my peers and of those in the military (including members of my family) … the land that somehow still boasts of friendly, hospitable, prayerful and industrious people—that I feel is still there somewhere—or at least, I hope so.

I shudder to think that from the nation that our foreign neighbors once looked up to for holding a “peaceful, bloodless revolution,” we have become the subject of ridicule. I have immersed myself in the company of visitors of different nations, and I have heard them complain that they, too, have been disillusioned about what the Philippines could offer. Instead of respect and tolerance, they have been met with racial stereotyping and apathy brought on by ignorance. Sometimes, I tell myself that perhaps they had been expecting too much from a country they don’t even know; different nations have different values. But that would be unfair of me to think, because the Philippines is advertised to be … as I have said above. The Filipino word for “foreigner” is dayuhan, from the root word dayo, literally “visit”; dayuhan means “visitor” or “guest,” and they must be treated as such. It breaks my heart, knowing that the values that this nation hold dear are being twisted or ignored.

This brings me to Encyclopedia Dramatica, which is a website parodying Wikipedia. Although ED typically defames nearly everything under the sun with explicit language and sometimes untrue statements for the sake of humor, it is often believable and accurate to reality. I recently bumped into one article about the Philippines. Nearly everything in it is true, about as true as nearly everything is in the article about Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. I am not proud and arrogant enough to find it completely offensive (it’s not offensive if it’s true; at least, to me). It just scares me, to be an individual from a country falling behind her neighbors. It frightens me to imagine about what other peoples really think about us.

I try my best to be a good representative of my country. Already, I look forward to publishing my novel and showing other people the Philippines as I know it. I just fear that by now, it seems that people of other nations wouldn’t take me seriously anymore because I am Filipino, unless they really know who I am.

I know my identity. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But if that identity meant being associated with hypocritical behavior and mediocre standards, I guess I'm gonna have to work hard to be the best I can be, despite my dystopic origins.