To be or not to be desperately stung
There's a Cebuano folk "pasumbingay" that says it all: "Way sukod sa bawos". He who is capable of dishing out, also expects the receiving end as a backlash.
Barely a week ago, hotshot Senator Miriam Santiago stung
Though just happenstance, Filipino pride got pricked in turn by American actress Teri Hatcher of the "Desperate Housewives" ABC Studios drama series. Per script, or plain adlib, reacting to a menopausal hint, Hatcher said: "Can I just check these diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines".
Such comment is uncalled-for racial slur. As in "bungkag lapinig" reaction, 30,000 Fil-Ams have petitioned online for apology from ABC. Consul General Cecille Rabong led the Filipino outrage, arguing that Fil-Am medical pros are among the world's best. TV viewers in the Philippines also voiced their outrage for such racial indignity. Spontaneously, the "ugly American" and other ugly epithets echoed in many households nationwide.
The ABC Studios racial sting is censurable for its blatant canard. For one, Filipino doctors in USA have proved their expertise as professors and/or consultants in some US hospitals and medical schools in Georgetown, Harvard, and other Ivy League schools. For another, among demographic groups in USA, Filipinos graduating from Philippine schools in various professional fields are at or near the top echelon; so do with Filipino nurses.
Thus, to be desperately stung and stunned by Teri Hatcher's indiscreet barb is a matter of national pride. After all, the brown race isn't dried or dead turnip, to borrow Senator Madrigal's dig at the now resigned Comelec chairman.
But wait… From a wider perspective, can't it be said that we had it coming? No, not necessarily in national self-blame, but more to blunt the sting, plus the factor that by some historical vicissitudes and circumstantial twists, Filipinos who have had sought greener pastures, somehow abetted such racial prejudices.
A century or so ago, many Filipinos had ventured for the "sacada" employment in then Hawaiian sugar plantations and in similar agri-work. Later some managed to sneak into mainland USA, and also worked in seasonal apple picking and that sort of manual labor. It thus came to pass that for Filipino traits of hard work, patience, passable EQ for their love to learn, and other good traits, it became a vogue for affluent American families to hire Filipinos as valets, or butlers, or gardeners, and others as dishwashers or other menial jobs.
In fact, Filipino writers, say, NVM Gonzales and Bienvenido Santos as self-expatriates with Uncle Sam prior to and after WW II have a lot of stories about Filipinos being discriminated in the land of milk and honey. But it was Carlos Bulosan whose literary opus "America is in the Heart" that depicts his pathetic experiences, like other itinerant harvest laborers in America's rural West, who collated the degrading color biases and the scourge of racial intolerance.
Over the years until now, the word "Filipino" finds ugly coinage with the nuances of a lowly "domestic". Our "exports" of OFWs now that include college graduates working as domestic helpers have further denigrated the national psyche. Moreover, the nursing board exams scandal in 2006, the horde of Filipino TNTs in USA, the contemporary scams and corruption in the home front placing the Philippines in dishonor roll, and still on-going, are burdensome crosses to carry.
Our altruistic feelings being sullied and held in ridicule is a bitter pill to swallow. And so, while Filipinos righteously react in anger over such insults, nonetheless, the misbehavior and naughty actuations of some, may compromise the national dignity.
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