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”. 

Rome Is Burning

Japan with the earthquakes. Apparently, its normal occurrence in their country and I'm not too aware of that fact. But what worried me about the recent earthquakes is the hindrance to their rebuilding process. Japan is rebuilding. It has taken its stand against earthquakes and tsunamis with grace and dignity which I envy them for. On the other parts of the world, Libya, currently being run by Gaddaffi is now being bombed by other nations. Yet Gaddafi stood proud on a pulpit and announced to his supporters, he will not yield, they will win this war. He may be a dictator but I envy his confidence, his self assurance.

Look at the rest of the world, fighting for what they believe in. Look at them now, we were once just like them. We fought the most beautiful war against our own dictator years past. It was a beautiful war because it was a war of peace, the people stood up and declared they want to fight for freedom. It was a war of peace because arms were taken down, people held hands and prayed. I am a Filipino. I am proud to be one. But I am not proud of the way we behave. Envision a flood filled city, heavy downpours, people struggling to find shelters, amidst the chaos are the opportunistic people grabbing and stealing what could be sold. During a fire, there are so many helping hands...most of those help themselves to salvageable unburnt stuff to steal. Threats of a calamity may scare people in other countries to run towards safety. We remain in our homes because we don't want to leave our appliances and livelihood despite imminent death. A volcano is spewing hot ashes all over the town yet people still stay because they don't want to leave their houses and livelihood behind. A car crash happens, Filipinos flock closer to the site. The news feeds us with sensationalism bullshit. we receive chain texts/mails/tweets about ridiculous stuff and believe them without checking their validity. When we are against something, our best action is to make a rally/strike. We hate heavy traffic yet we are the ones contributing to it by not following street rules. We have grown stupid and senseless. We act like headless chickens.
We were not satisfied with EDSA1, we made an EDSA2...a shadow of the first. Then came EDSA3, an insult to the real EDSA 1 revolution. Thousands of country folk flock to the city to find jobs. They are uneducated, what has the city to offer them but the only available job of begging and stealing?! We have government officials who do not care about the people. We have teachers in schools who do not teach us to think but rather to comply.   I hate how much we're stuck in a rut. I hate how we tolerate all these. I hate how no one stands up, and people stand up with that somebody and wake up the sleeping spirit of nationalism. We were once called the future generation of Filipinos, heroes and martyrs put their hopes on us. Look at us now. Look at where we are. Look how different we are from countries like Japan, and not in a good way. Look at ourselves, decaying from the inside. We have gone rotten. 

That We Live In A Third World Country

To all the dreamers, who were once allowed to dream. 

To all the well wishers, fairy godmother believers, falling star hopefuls.

And to the unhappy.  

This is for you.  

I have decided to write about the injustice of it all. We were born in this country, a nation mostly of the poor. We grow up hearing about the wonders of dreams. They take you anywhere, we were told. Just BELIEVE. And we did just that. We believed, and wished and prayed that one day, we will achieve our dreams. We learned in High School that we must have a career path. Plans were made, choices done and ideal future jobs dreamed about. In the midst of all the wonderful chaos, we are subtly reminded of something. It's that niggling sensation at the back of your mind, reminding you of something you might have forgotten. Reality strikes and you come face to face not with what you want or need but what your parents and the rest of your family silently demands. This is not of a career that you love, that penniless job which makes you happy because of the self fulfillment it offers, but of the money.

One day, nursing boomed here. Not long after, schools started bursting forth like mushrooms, the demand was high for nursing education and we can supply nursing institutions. Money pouring out of your parents pockets into the ones of the somewhat opportunistic schools. Your parents have dreams for you, this is to pay the debts they acquired for you education, the money needed by your siblings for their education. Look at her daughter, she works abroad, what big house they have! You feel the pressure growing and you succumb, It is after all, your responsibility.

There are so many situations like this all over the Philippines. It is not only Nursing, but in other courses too. But in my experience, nursing is where you can find the least, the most and the uninterested. The most brilliant people go for nursing, the doctors you knew of then are now studying nursing. The least interested in a medical course is here too. They are the artists of every kind. Their art restricted because it does not pay. And then there are the uninterested. They have ceased to care. 

Dreams crushed. Dreams trampled. Dreams killed.

Reality.

We live in a third world country. And this country needs money. Everyone needs money. money, money, money, money. Forget your dreams, money comes first. 

Money. 

Now, if only I had it, I'd be living in somewhere like France. I'd be a pauper there. I wouldn't mind. As long as nobody demands me to give them money, money, money. 

dear Country

I can't say I cared too much when news spread about the hostage taking at Quirino Grandstand. Nor will I be a hypocrite and lie that i cared about Miss Venus somebody in a beauty pageant. I am a filipino citizen, yes. But I'm also a hurt, confused individual who may or may not graduate in a c(o)urse that she mistakenly thought as "easy".

The Philippines has been under a lot of strain, as I have been, as millions of other youth in the world right now. That news about the hostage crisis, the media circus, the cringe-worthy aftermath that made us popular (or should i say,notorious) to the world, was just news at that moment, that which will then become history. What made me care about it was the way we, Filipinos, rode in the circus. We are the ones who are making fools of ourselves. What could have been conducted with dignity became a comedy show instead, with dire repercussions to our dignity as a filipino nation. This is how the world will see us now. This is how far we've gone under. This is how far we must take back of what we have lost. Rebuild and unite as a country to protect our own, to survive together, not to trample on those who have already fallen.