The Born Identity

From What the eyes cannot see

A lot of Filipinos are desperate for identify, a mark or a set of markings that will truly differentiate us from other nations in the world. We try to say that culturally we are very hospitable, warm, prayerful, hard working, family oriented and so on. This need of distinctiveness may have stemmed from the fact that we do not belong to any specific race, we are not pure in blood; we are mixtures of human breeds. The fact is, there are only three major races in the world, these are the Caucasoid “White”, Mongoloid “Yellow” and Negroid “Black” – and the Philippines (previously known as Filipinas) have been a melting pot for these races for thousands of years. And to make matters worse, we never had a chance to have our very own government, we were like little infants when we were conquered by the Spaniards. We didn’t know of any integrated culture before they came, we did not even have inter-island communication then. And so, for almost 400 years we were born, bred and branded by our conquerors. And today we are barely turning on our 66th year of true independence since the Americans – compare that to Egypt’s 5,000 years of independent civilization!

This is why that majority of Filipinos never had that sense of patriotism towards its own flag because we never had any unifying event in the history of our country. We did not forge our government thru the furnace of blood and sweat like the Americans did. We have not instituted our own kingdom dynasties like the Chinese. We do not know of ancient ancestors from which we came from like how people in Africa do. So where do we position ourselves and our true culture and identity (if we have one)? We are just a nation who happens to be living in the shadows of what is being dictated to us by the Spaniards, Japanese and the Americans during their colonial years. We never really worked for the sake of our country and fellowmen; we just did not think of it that way, we were subjugated to be ignorant, we were born and bred just to obey… we just moved our asses because these colonizers might kick our butt if we do not do what they ask of us.

When the day came that we were finally a free country, people were like little children clawing their way to the very top positions of government. Not truly understanding what its essence is - to unite the Filipinos and to serve its people. The sovereignty and its inherent powers seem to attract politicians after politicians whose gargantuan desire for power and corruption just continues, like a bad addiction triggered by years of oppression and colonial rule. Until now, the second generation still have that same mindset of always looking for immediate selfish unwarranted gratification. And sadly, even if it means backstabbing, mud slinging, outright lying or just pure hypocrisy, we seem to still think that we have these positive traits in us – that we are hospitable, warm, prayerful, hard working, family oriented. But seriously, do we truly reckon that these traits are characteristic of a Filipino? Or are we just fooling ourselves?