Well, I told my children, "You see? You always get down on me for not giving birth to you in the United States when I had the chance." I was in the States while I was seven and eight months pregnant to both my kids, and I unwaveringly decided they were to be Filipino citizens and came home to give birth in my native land. "And now, you can be president of the Philippines without an unnecessary uprising."
Surprisingly, my daughter who is taking up political science, says many of her classmates have decided they will never enter politics. They’ll probably end up as actors.
Talking about actors, film and television artiste Ronnie Lazaro and his wife Lola found me sitting at Penguin Café in Malate with theater artist Dodo Lim a few weeks ago. After the customary how-are-you-how-are-the-kids, we went to the subject of the times: Elections. We talked about the candidates, the condition of the Philippines and, as usual, what we might be doing to help as artists.
Political conversations either prickle or hearten one’s disposition depending largely on the alcoholic drink in one’s hand. Hard drinks are wont to raise hostility, but over beer and cocktails, conversations ultimately go blue.
Ronnie instigated the cleaning up of the giant Philippine map at the Luneta Park several years ago. We did that. It was such a significant operation for all of the artists who participated. All we kept thinking, as we swept off the sludge and mire, was, yes indeed, we were essentially sweeping off graft, corruption and the political stench in the whole archipelago. It was a wonderful feeling.
Yet many years later, we find ourselves as grimy as ever, literally and figuratively. We don’t even know if the map is still there. All we know is that we are back to the basics. Nobody read our action and, apparently, nobody gave a hoot.
We talked about how many Asian countries trailed us when it came to the economy back in the ’70s. How proud I was to be an artist performing before Malaysian, Singaporean and Hong Kong audiences, who looked up to Filipinos as their idols. Now, we look up to them in awe. We talked about Spain, where Lola comes from, and the emergence of massive global authority and financial power in Europe and the United States.
How could we ever have failed as a nation? Might it be our datu system, where the law is decreed by one man alone? Is the mighty FPJ a datu in the minds of the common tao?
So much for nationalism, I opined. I’m off to New Zealand. Would they use a Filipino choreographer there, I wondered? The argument persisted. If all professionals copped out and left the country to the dogs, it won’t do the Philippines any good. Why did Koreans who studied abroad go back to build a stronger nation? They had hope in their leaders, who pursued a nationalistic dream. We don’t even teach our children to love our nation. I mean, my own children cannot believe I did not give them US citizenship.
Well, Spain used to be a world power. "How old is Spain, Lola?" I asked. England, Portugal, France, Russia, Italy… think of what these countries went through in order to be what they are today: Monarchs, dynasties, emperors, czars, rulers, conflict, hostilities, confrontation, misery, hopelessness. The United States went through depression and a civil war.
The good news is, the Philippines is only 100 years old… as an independent republic, that is. We’re adolescents in world history. We have to go through the smarting of youth in order to learn. We have to pass the road of mistakes, selfishness, inanity, folly, have our Eraps and possibly, the FPJs leading. We have to gain knowledge of acceptable management, responsibility and good governance the hard way, the long way. We have to learn this without Spain, the United States and Japan. We do it alone and, sorry to say, it is our generation that has to suffer it for our children.
Our country, a hundred years old, has to endure puberty. Ergo, we have the justification of being so young and so corrupt. What a dubious conclusion we managed to procure in the blue hues of intoxication. Be that as it may, we do have a side road to take. We can be young and upright like Singapore and Malaysia. All we have to do is breed better datus, I suppose, and make our children want to be Pinoys instead of Americans.
I was talking to my 27-year-old nephew the other day. He’s a graduate of Ateneo, working as a financial consultant in a bank, with a bright future ahead of him if we look at statistics per se. But we realized that at that age he still has to live in his parents’ house in order to survive. He can’t even save enough money to eventually buy a house of his own with the possibility of marriage grating at his neck. Another dubious conclusion came up, sober as it was. In our society you cannot own a house unless you’re a film star, a basketball star, a politician… and crooked.
Case in point: Another brilliant young man had a scholarship in one of the more reputable schools in Manila. He lost his scholarship as soon as the school discovered his father won as mayor in the province. His poor father, after a whole term, still rents an apartment and commutes. In the Philippines that’s what one gets for being honest.