Look For Them At Game Shows.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the Great Pinoy Circus! Here we showcase a plethora of circus freaks to appease your voyeuristic tendencies! The best thing about our circus is that we broadcast them LIVE OB TELEVISION! No other circus can do that for you! Wait, I hear a question in the crowd. What makes these freaks stand out from other circus freaks, you say? Well, our circus freaks are actually NORMAL people. These normal people will do anything and everything just to grab fistfuls of money from our wonder, magnificent and truly humble ring master! They’ll sing, dance, act and they’ll definitely cry. They’ll strip off their dignity just to get money! Money! Money! Money which we have in abundance, of course, ladies and gentlemen! 


Now, a warning before we begin when you look at them, please look at them the way our studio looks at them, as nothing but freaks! Do not let even attempt to think they are human beings because they are mere circus performers to entertain you! These freaks are from the poorest sector of our country! That’s why we find it easy to exploit their kind. They are so piss poor they will do anything for just a bit of money! 


What about our ringmaster?! Well he just recently flaunted his wealth in magazine spreads. Did you see his yacht or his mansions?! He’s richer than the devil ladies and gentlemen! He gives out money to these poor freaks like he’s handing out candies! No big deal for him! But of course, in return he wants entertainment. The kind we Filipinos love so much! We want to watch our fellow countrymen embarrass themselves on television; this is reality TV to the truest sense of the word! Is it some form of bullying?! What a question! It’s not bullying if we’re paying them for it ladies and gentlemen! Look at their eager little faces, they want to entertain you! It’s not bullying if they participate in it! Can’t you see how much our ringmaster loves these freaks? He hugs them, cries with them and gives them money! He shows a wonderful sense of generosity and kindness and by doing this our ratings are sky high!!! We are number one!  

Well looks like our show is about to start, so take your seats and enjoy the show!

Here I Go Again

There are two opposing sides to the RH Bill. The Anti-RH mostly made up of devout Catholics and the Pro-Rh supporters, Catholics or none Catholics alike. I never expected to be exposed to ardent supporters of both sides during our board reviews but lo and behold, here comes a lecturer from an esteemed Catholic university from the northern region who supports the RH Bill strongly because he is pro-life.

Pro-Life; a term I absolutely hate because it implies that the other side is anti-life. And what's worse is that the people coining that term comes from the religious sector. Now this lecturer, Mr. Anti, talked about how we, of the medical community, must appeal not to our emotions but rather to our conscience and knowledge. That we of all people should know that this bill's end result is abortion. He also said that if poverty is the problem, then give them jobs. At that moment, the expression on my face could be described in three letters=WTF.

Today, on the other hand, we got a lecturer who seems to have a better grasp on the current reality of the Philippine nation. This lecturer, Mr. Pro, explicitly said that laws like the RH Bill should be passed because this bill will help educate the poor. The poor and uneducated sector which comprises of almost more than half of the nation is the ones with the large and increasing number of children. They are the ones contributing to the greater percentage of maternal and child mortality in our country. Giving them jobs will not solve our problems. Mr. Anti has also forgotten the fact that we are a poor country. Our economy cannot sustain giving jobs to everyone.

I remembered an economics professor once told our class that the wealth of the Philippines is distributed in three parts. She illustrated it using an inverted pyramid. The greatest portion of the wealth, the bottom part of the pyramid which must belong to the poor is owned by the few rich Filipinos, the middle portion by the middle class and the topmost, the smallest portion belongs to the poor sector. This is our reality.

Just recently I watched a video by Juana Change, at the beginning it shows housewives fighting against a bill which they know so little of. The only knowledge they obtained about the bill is from what the priest has been lecturing them. Again, the word Pro-life is being abused.  Love that video because it was deceptively simple yet it’s what we call “sagad sa buto”.