A small way to be Singapore-like

Some three decades ago, then Senator Letecia Ramos-Shahani, sister of the late President Fidel V. Ramos, tasked her Senate Committee on Culture and Arts to understand deeper into some aspects of the Filipino way of life. Who are we? was the lead question to answer. Her comprehensive report listed our joviality as among our innate virtues. The other virtues mentioned in the document were our religiosity and, for a lack of a better term, musicality. Admittedly, being religious is the more important part of our culture and our music mindedness ranks at par with our happy nature but today, let me write a little something about our virtue of being a happy people.

It is not a wonder that our smiling faces are recognized by world travelers, both major leaguers and back packers, enough reason for them to say that when they come to our shores, they are met by infectiously happy persons. (Of course, the NAIA worker who allegedly stole US300 dollars from a tourist, is an exception. Three of them, she and her ilk, are a disgrace to the Filipinos).

The Shahani report was quite enlightening. After discussing its social impact, the report revealed an unflattering aspect of our countrymen. It said that we, Filipinos, tend to stretch our happy disposition to the opposite extreme. Even when we are sad, we try to project happiness. We invariably cover a fact of sadness with an illusionary mantle of joy. In the process, either we confuse our situation or worse deceive ourselves entirely. According to Sen Shalani, when that happens, virtue becomes vice, an extreme end to mean moral depravity.

We, Cebuanos, are not mentioned by the Shahani report as the focus of the Senate study. The research was conducted nationally. Just the same, Cebu City residents and our singing Mayor Michael Rama, may take center stage as if we, ourselves, were the subject of the investigation. In particular, let me express my mind about Mayor Rama’s dream of making our city Singapore-like.

We were thrilled beyond imagination that our city could be LIKENED to Singapore. That neighboring city-state is an exemplar of comfortable modern day life which Cebu City cannot, as yet, compare. But with our jovial nature, the task of making our city Singapore-like is actually lighter. Consider this. We experienced flooding these past weeks. Yes, we felt morose over our situation but we continued to exude our joyful disposition. When we hauled buckets of flood waters from our homes we just poked fun describing our city as SingaPOOL or Singapore-LAKE as if the POOL and the LAKE did not much matter.

This is where virtue becomes vice. We just throw our garbage everywhere as if this indiscriminate act is funny. In 1988, I authored an ordinance that prohibits the littering of even such a small refuse as candy wrapper. Yet, we feel happy not being caught violating it. When the plastic bottle that we dump to the canal clogs our drainage, we simply shrug our shoulder and smilingly mutter Singapore-LAKE.

If we uphold our virtue of joviality and discipline ourselves to do even the smallest thing that helps mitigate floods, Singapore-like can be a reality.