What do you get when you cross a Northerner with a Filipina?

Trouble, apparently, if the resulting furor over the Harry and Paul sketch is to be believed.

Again our people are up in arms over a slight.  It’s not the first time that we’ve gone crazy over some misrepresentation or unflattering portrayal.  Biscuits, dictionary definitions and throwaway punch lines from heavily Botoxed has-beens — any of these can send us into a national tizzy.

It’s not that we shouldn’t be indignant when faced with outright insults; we have all the right in the world to demand a motherfucking apology when some other country thinks they can just kick us down and laugh.  The thing, though, is that almost anything relatively not positive can get our collective panties in a tight bunch.  Anything.

I’ve seen the sketch.  It’s not funny (or maybe I don’t know enough about Brits to understand the joke), but I say in all honesty that I do not feel insulted.  That’s just my personal opinion.

A gyrating Pinay — tell me I haven’t seen that in some Pinoy comedy before.  An ugly Filipina girl doing her best to get violated by some hot guy?  Oh, is that not so Zorayda or Pokwang?

We’re only angry because it’s some other nationality on the other side of the sketch.

I’m all for women’s rights, and yes, any form of sexual abuse or harassment is not funny.  It’s just that we get this shit from our own television screens every single day and no one sounds a beep.

And we’re being a tad hypocritical, don’t you think?

We’re just as nasty when it comes to portraying foreigners.  I’m pretty sure a rather unflattering and tacky portrayal of the numerous Koreans crawling all over our 7000+ islands is in the offing.  I dare you to deny that our films and television shows have ever presented insulting and degrading portrayals of our nationalities.

If China or Japan sued us over every single insulting portrayal of their kind on Philippine celluloid, we’d drown in demand letters.

And we’re always so … dramatic.  I’ve always said that everything about this country is showbiz.  You want a negotiator?  Get Robin Padilla.  The Abu Sayyaf will talk to you if you get the one Muslim action star in the country to sit across them.  Everything is about melodrama — all that emotional hand-wringing and forehead-scrunching is pretty much second nature to the people of this country.

One congressman or woman decides that this particular issue is going to get his mug on the front pages and there you go.  I thought we had every right to kick NBC’s ass after that Desperate Housewives insult; our medical community in the United States had every right to be angry.  Unfortunately, it turned into a gruesome “they always bully us” refrain that made no sense and muddled the issue completely.

Dignified countries send their ambassadors to sort out the mess.  Bulging veins and tear-stained faces have no place in international negotiations.  We want those motherfuckers to say sorry?  We find a way to bring them to their knees.

I’m no expert, but I’m sure lame protests and burning stuff won’t cut it.

The Harry and Paul sketch is tasteless and not funny.  Let’s just say I’ve seen better and funnier from Fry and Laurie, as well as the eternally beloved Mr. Bean.  That said, I don’t see it as a racial issue.  It’s an unfortunate decision on the show’s part to choose a Filipina domestic helper.

They should’ve chosen someone from a less pikon country.

I recently woke up to some nameless congresswoman screaming and flailing her arms.  Certainly not the best sight to wake up to, especially when you have nothing but contempt and disgust for the people who populate the country’s legislative department.

But it’s not often that you find our congressmen and women all worked up over their legislative duties.  Most of the time, Batasan looks no different from kindergarten nap time.  Sucks doesn’t it?  It sucks even harder when you realize that they’ve got our country’s future by the balls.

Anyway.

Yes, that nameless congresswoman did seem overly excited for a … well … congresswoman.  She was screaming so loudly I thought her jugular would pop out and make a run for the hills.  If I were king of the congressmen I would’ve had her bodily carried out by security.  And bopped on the head every few seconds for good measure.

Can’t let these threats to national security have it too easy now, right?

Right?

catholic contraceptive plan: stop fucking

But that’s not the point.  I’ve been rambling for far too long I almost forgot what I was supposed to rant about.  Ah yes, the Reproductive Bill.  It’s precisely the bill that got the congresswoman all fired up and mowing through everything like some raging bull.  I like to think she’s a bull, given her bulk.

I still can’t figure out why something as obvious and common sense as approving the Reproductive Bill has to be such a drama moment for our legislators.  Again, darlings, let’s go over the basics of economics.  Resources are finite.  The population is growing by leaps and bounds.  Soon we will have too much people, fighting over a limited amount of resources.

Tell me that isn’t a sign of the apocalyptic future, Sarah Connor.

But then the Church is adamant that NO, we can’t have the Reproductive Bill approved.  The hell it shouldn’t.  When Jesus said go forth and multiply, He really should’ve qualified his statement.  Now we’re growing exponentially and there’s not enough resources to go around.  What now, Jesus?

I haven’t seen any member of the Catholic Church produce gazillions of bread and fish, so I guess that miracle’s out of the question.

The use of contraceptives isn’t abortion, unless you think preventing a sperm cell from impregnating an egg cell is tantamount to baby murder.  Do sperm cells look like babies to you?  Except for resembling a tadpole (which is a baby frog, to those who forgot their biology), I don’t think so.  And I don’t think the Church cares about the life and death of tadpoles, either.  Heartless sons of bitches.

So what now?  Almost all of our congress people are completely chicken when it comes to the Church.  Excommunication isn’t the big deal these days, it’s not getting enough votes.

But let’s see now.  With nothing but abstinence to fall back on (and we all know how successful that can be), our beloved people have gone on to produce baby after baby after baby.  It wouldn’t be such a big deal if they could independently feed their thirteen children.  The thing is they can’t.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where your taxes go.

You think the Catholic Church springs for these kids’ matriculation?  Nuh-uh.  Only dolts like us get to act like good Christians and pay for these children with our taxes.

It really won’t take a genius to figure out that we might as well flush the Reproductive Bill down the drain now.  It will never come to fruition, as long as devout zombies Christians willingly go along with the Church’s hare-brained schemes.

We might as well give up now and accept the reality that this country will soon be run by babies.  Yes, babies.  Sounds like a good formula for an Eddie Murphy movie, except it’s our GDP and pretty much everything we have at stake.

If you’ve been thinking of setting up a separate Philippines in Mars, you know, now might be a great time.

It’s about damn time.

My thesis back in college — not entirely of my own volition — was on the on-going conflict in Mindanao.  I was never exactly interested in the topic; we were forced to pick it out of a box.  Anyway, the thesis ended up making me a staunch supporter of the separatist movement Moro Islamic Liberation Front, if only because I understood where they were coming from.

Historically speaking, the Bangsamoro nation has never been actually part of the Philippines.  They didn’t want to be with us at all.  More importantly, most Filipinos didn’t like Muslims either.  The government exploited Mindanao’s resources without giving them any financial or developmental support in return.

What right do we have to keep stringing them along?

It’s not that I advocate the violent tactics of the MILF (the Abu Sayyaf is an entirely different story, by the way).  My point is that we might as well let them go.  We’ve tormented them for years, what with the discrimination and lack of government funding.  They’ve been mired in poverty for years while Metro Manila boomed.

If we can’t give them anything decent, we might as well just give them a shot at freedom.

Besides, if that’s the best way to end decades of conflict then so be it.

So now the Inquirer reported that the peace process has finally taken a productive turn.  The formation of a Bangsamoro state will be signed (hopefully) by August 5.  It’s not clear if they’ll be a completely separate country like East Timor, but they’ll be having their own set of government, armed forces, banking system etc etc.  I’m thinking of it as more of a China-Hong Kong format, but I’m not sure.

At the very least, they now have the right to govern themselves and engage in trade with other nations, as long as they don’t act aggressively towards the Philippines.  That sounds pretty much like independence to me.

Now then, if they screw up this state and drive people into a scenario worse than the status quo then, well, suck it up kids.  They won’t have the Philippines to blame anymore.  It’s the only thing they’ve been waiting for for years.  Now that their wish is finally almost true, it’s up to them to make it work.

If it sucks, well, sorry.

But all the best, dear ex-brothers.  Hope this finally becomes a dream come true.

If there’s one thing I abhor about sociologists (there are tons of things I hate about them, but I suppose this one takes the cake), it’s that they’ve assumed the role of apologist for the poor people of this world.

There is always an excuse for crime, for drug addiction, for unemployment, and it’s never poor people’s fault. They’re sort of just driven into things all the time, without any sort of control over their lives. They have no chance at education, are forced to partake of scraps, beg for a few coins or grow up into a life of crime. They need not take responsibility for their actions, because they’re poor.

The victim mentality, in particular, is prevalent. We are poor, ergo we cannot achieve anything. We are cursed to live this hand-to-mouth existence for life. We are victims of an unjust society that forces us into the pits of poverty.

Boohoo.

I suppose I need not tell you how a lot of the people who, at the very least, enjoy financially-stable lives started out with nothing. It is not education per se that makes a man successful. My father, for one, was born in a god-forsaken village and conscripted to work in the ill-conceived iron furnaces of the Great Leap Forward. No one had anything, especially not money. He never even finished high school. Instead he left his homeland, found a job, had three kids and pretty much sold his soul to a factory just to get us through college. [Note: just in case you were wondering, no we are still not rich. Otherwise I wouldn't have to work my butt cheeks off every single day.]

Unfortunately, televised interviews with people living in the slums remind us that they embrace this concept of victimization fully. They are, after all, doomed to exist in such a dire state for life. There is no need to excel, to exert any effort, because like Sisyphus they will be thwarted.

And what is this obsession with tackiness and uncouthness?

Perhaps we can blame it on all those Robin Padilla movies. They solidified the image of the brash and uncultured goon, tough but with a heart of gold. Poverty has rendered him quite the boor: uncivilized and barbaric but still an icon. Such romanticism has made the poor people of this country unwilling to go beyond the stereotype. I am poor, ergo I must have no manners. I speak like a fishwife (unless, of course, you really are a fishwife), I lack decency and discipline. However, I am a good person deep inside.

[Digression: this "deep inside" thing riles me. If you're not good "outside" then there's probably not so much difference "deep inside".]

I remember Wendy Valdez, that Big Brother contestant who chalked up her indecency and uncouth attitude to poverty. She was poor, she said, and so she had no manners and acted like a general bitch. She was, after all, just being “totoo”, or true to herself. An irate viewer sent in a message to one of the radio stations. Could Wendy please stop using poverty as an excuse, the viewer said. We are poor, but we are not cheap.

Which brings us back to the essence of this long-winded rant.

Everyday, we hear these people say, we are poor, we have nothing. We deserve the government’s support. Feed us. Clothe us. Give us jobs.

In the mean time, they push out gazillions of children they cannot afford to feed, or clothe, or educate. They sic these children on the world at large, leaving the rest of the Philippines to deal with them. The Catholic Church ignores the burgeoning population, encouraging people to go forth and multiply.

Resources are finite, in case you’ve forgotten your basic economics.

With this much people to feed, we can all drive ourselves to death with work and still our taxes will never be enough to support all those pro-poor programs. Taxes should, technically speaking, be used to fund the country’s development projects. Schools, science and technology projects, investments, etc. Our money should go into improving the country as a whole.

In reality, though, all this money from our income taxes and eVat go directly to projects for the poor. Livelihood programs, free clinics, housing — there’s nothing wrong with these projects per se. It’s the fact that they’re devoted solely to a sector of society that makes it completely nuts.

Now those working for minimum wage will be exempted from paying their income tax. The burden of feeding the majority of this country now falls to us — stupid middle class workers who are not poor enough to merit compassion, and yet not rich enough to just leave this country to the dogs. We get our paychecks and find a huge chunk gone, thanks to all the poor people we have to feed.

We have no excuse.

We are not poor enough to be uncouth. We must be humble, lest the poor find us insulting and murder us all. This murderous rampage will be excused, of course, as the inevitable result of the widening social gap. If the hatred boils over and the poor decide to kill us all, it’ll be our fault, because we are selfish elitists who never cared about their existence.

And yet how much of it is really their fault?

These families rely on one bread-winner, when there are obviously four other individuals capable of working, too. They refuse work. Please do not assume that there is no work available in this country. An eighty year old man (true story) scours the streets of Makati and Ortigas for bit jobs just to take care of his family, when his own twenty year old daughter is perfectly capable of finding a stable job. It’s just that these people find it too daunting to work for such meager pay that they’d rather stay home and wait for government assistance.

This country looks down on labor. Tell someone to find a job as a factory worker, and he’ll scoff at you. It’s demeaning. It’s insulting. They’d rather not work than do something so undignified.

But there is dignity in labor. You work, you earn, you feed your family.

Unfortunately, in this country, no one wants to be a “laborer”. If I can’t be in a cushy office working as a professional, then I’d rather not work at all.

You see how those reality shows cash in on poverty. I had champorado for Noche Buena, bawl. I should win this contest even if I have no brains because I’m the poorest contestant of all. I don’t have to lift a finger, I just have to dish out the most sordid details of my poor life.

Stop making excuses. Poverty does not give you the right to sit around on your ass all day. I admire the people who, though they come from the worst of circumstances, manage to find opportunities to improve their lot in life. These people, no matter how difficult their lives had been, manage to rise above it through sheer determination and hard work. Not all poor people remain poor all their lives. Some realize that they are not chained to poverty, and that determination (and a bit of family planning) can get them far from the slums they live in.

There are poor people who realize that they can rise above it, if they do something about it. It’s not just relying on the government. You have to get up and do something. Lying around shirtless all day will not help your family. You have to act. Stop this victim mentality and start thinking of yourself as someone with potential, not someone doomed. It’s not impossible.

The communists are wrong. Egalitarianism will not work. All it will do is reduce us all to rubble.

Now, the thing with the middle class is that we’re too sedate. We work like dogs, we live far from luxurious lives, and yet we’re made to feel as if we have the obligation to take care of all these poor people. As good Christians, we should be compassionate. It’s like you should be guilty because you can afford to eat at McDonald’s and they can’t.

But it takes two to tango. You can use a forklift to pull them out, but if they themselves won’t budge, it’s a futile exercise.

I have no pity for people who sit around all day pitying themselves. If that makes me a bad Christian, then, well, yay.

I’m not very productive these days.

I’m always late for work, I can’t wake up to my alarm clock and I just want to stay home the entire day. Or week. Or month, maybe.

It’s not that I don’t want to work. Okay, so it’s not exactly like I love going to work, but at the very least it’s not something I dread, like going to the dentist or getting my driver’s license renewed. I want to work. I want to be there on time and be a useful employee. So much for good intentions, though. I often get to the office by as much as an hour or more late.

Yes, I’m a horrible employee.

I can’t even force myself to write my freelance projects. It’s like there’s no strength left in me.

Maybe it’s because I was sick for almost a month past, what with the bout with ulcer and whatnot. Up to this day I can’t finish a MacDonald’s chicken burger on my own, and that sucks big time.

Or maybe I’m just not being me. Or tired of being me.

What I’ve realized lately is that I need more time to play Nogs, my beautiful guitar. I just cleaned him with Pledge (partly because the dust is making my allergies act up) and he’s now shining like brand new. I just think I need more time to be a bum.

I miss waking up at ten and lounging around the house in clothes I had slept in the night before.

I know it sounds stupid, but there are days when I just want to run off somewhere with Nogs and do something unexpected. I’m the most unimaginative person ever; people know I hate disruptions to my schedule and pattern.

Classic Type A + obsessive-compulsive personality + god syndrome = ME.

There’s no explanation for this, but today I just want to take the first flight to Easter Island and hide. I don’t know why. Maybe part of me is sick of this. Sick of being a responsible person.

It’s only when I play the guitar that I get a feeling of relaxation and freedom. I suck horribly, but when my fingers touch the strings, I just feel like there’s nothing left to worry about but getting to the next chord in time without losing the strum pattern. Everything else just vanishes into thin air.

I’m not making sense, but I don’t really care.

All I want to do is hole up in some foreign country, forget me and everything else, then play my guitar.

Since I make no sense, I’ll just leave you with this clip of Pepe Smith going nuts. Pardon the poor quality; all I had was my phone

If there’s one question I abhor more than any other, it’s the idiotic, “galit ka ba?” Why anyone in his right mind would ask such a question is beyond me. Am I so stoic that you would need verbal confirmation to know if I’m pissed off or not?

What riles me most is that, often times, people ask this question when you’re not even angry. Which leads me to wonder: what is it about my face that makes people think I’m angry?

And notice how people respond predictably with a “galit ka, eh” when you say you’re not.

It’s as if they don’t trust you enough to tell the truth about your own emotions. Seriously, what good will denying my anger do for me? I’m not going to win brownie points from Santa for faking niceness.

If I’m angry, I’ll make sure the object of my wrath knows it. Believe me, you’ll know it good.

I find joy in tormenting people I dislike, especially those unfortunate enough to spark my inner Hulk. I don’t turn green and massive, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m a little more subtle than that, but the destruction will be no less horrifying.

On a lighter note, the Nigerian scam has finally been busted, according to the Yahoo page showing on my sister’s computer screen. It’s a stupid scam, really, promising the recipient a huge amount of money in exchange for helping the poor Nigerian smuggle millions and billions out of his country.

Sucker.

You can’t get something for nothing; that’s the law of this dog-eat-dog world. Don’t expect anything better.

And oh, I’m not angry. I just don’t feel like being nice.

Yes, I am.

I love Blair, particularly, because of her pretty clothes and her headbands. I love how she’s bitchy and sort of clueless at the same time.

I love Serena, too, because her fashion style I can sort of relate to. I have those grungy tunic shirts and skinny jeans and boots. I love her.

I’ll go worship them now.

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Last week, I posted something about wanting to work abroad. I’m not looking for a job Nino, just in case you decide to come reading around again. I just feel like there’s nothing left here for me. I’m dejected, depressed and just sickened by all the corruption in this country. I need change.

That said, I won’t be leaving any time soon. I still have a year and a half to go to complete my masters, and I actually have a decent job here. I like this country. I just need a little time to recuperate.

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Anyone willing to buy me a Wii? I’ll love you forever, I swear.