“I HOPE the kind of Filipinos I knew as a child are not all dead yet!”

Thus, replied Yuko Takei, a Filipina-Japanese who was born and grew up in the Philippines to my Facebook blogpost. Yuko said he had many painful memories of her experiences in the country.

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In the Philippines, criminals don’t even get to be investigated after some “areglo.” From personal experience, she says this is true. “A murderer I interpreted for admitted that he had killed more than three persons” but he has never been brought to court. His father’s money set him free.

Everything is arranged through some crooks calling themselves lawyers and men of the law. “Is that good?” she asks.

Yuko yearns of the golden age of María Claras when Filipinos she knew as a kid are far better than the Filipinos of today. Take the case of Filipino women of yesteryears—far more virtuous than say Kris Aquino who flaunts her decadence on TV and feels no shame. Her mother was forced to marry my father, after her Dad “pisil-pisil” (pressed) her Mom’s hands!

She advised Filipinos to do their house cleaning, quoting an old adage that says, “To be cruel (is) to be kind.” It works in many cases of delinquents turning a new leaf. For her cruelty is what Filipinos, who have gotten used to rotten things with leaders of their country even committing crimes to get to where they are now (cheating in election for example is a serious crime) actually needs—not just an iron hand but fist to knock them on the head and wake up!!!

I would rather that Filipinos look at themselves more honestly, sincerely and conscientiously, and admit where they are wrong, than continue to justify themselves by putting even the blame on other people or compare or parallel themselves with foreign crooks!

In fact, they can only blame themselves for the kind of government they have. On the other hand, how will they know where they have gone wrong if they are not told so?

The criticisms of Filipinos especially on their own people and race in fact are lamentations on what they lack and have failed to accomplish compared to what people who have passed better laws for instance have successfully achieved.

Yuko doesn’t have to worry about many good Filipinos of all ages still alive. That’s one thing that Typhoon Ondoy and Pepeng have shown the world. In classic bayanihan, Filipinos helped Filipinos, with some even giving up their lives to save others. Greater love has no one than that of Filipinos laying down their lives for their fellow Filipinos.

While I agree that kids shouldn’t emulate Kris Aquino as a role model, I disagree that the demure, submissive, silent María Claras are the paragons of virtue, either. Where is the virtue of forcing a woman to marry a man just because he held her hands? I see not virtue but stupidity at all when my paternal parents were forced to wed because my great maternal grandparents caught them talking at the balcony. Talking, for Pete’s sake!

I agree that Philippine judicial system need not just a room but a whole house for improvements. Yet despite its flaws and limitations, our courts of law convicted for rape and murder scions of wealthy families and politicians. President Erap Estrada, Representative Romeo Jalosjos, Mayor Antonio Sanchez (no relation), Claudio Teehankee Jr. and US marine Cpl. Daniel Smith come to mind.

Thank God too for all versions of the Philippine constitutions that forbade cruel and inhumane punishment. Filipinos for decades have more sense than the Kempetai and Japanese imperial soldiers who raped, pillage, and inflicted the cruelest of punishment to force Filipinos to submit to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

We have no one to blame but ourselves for electing as_holes into office. There is certainly more than a grain of truth to what Yuko said. On the other hand, Filipino voters cannot be faulted for the “Hello Garci” results. But there are still many local and national candidates who passed muster as good leaders.

And yes, I blame the US, European and lately the Chinese governments for the mess and mayhem that Ondoy and Pepeng wreaked in the country.

Were it not for their overconsumption and greed of their civilized societies, the Philippines need not suffer as they suffered from the killer storms.

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