I will be brutally honest here… I wish I weren’t born and raised here. When I was a kid, I even wondered why we didn’t do what many of my second degree relatives did which was to migrate in the US or Australia during the martial law.
Although overall my experiences are mostly neutral but there are negatives that are hard to ignore. While I certainly don’t refer to all Filipinos but these are what I observed from most Filipinos. I’m pointing all of these out in an honest, objective, detached manner so no offense for all the more tender-hearted Filipinos out there.
First I will start with the positives:
The sceneries: I once read that the Philippines would be like Mediterranean in Asia. Plenty of beautiful beaches, awesome Mayon Volcano, Banaue Rice Terraces, underwater world that truly deserve to be part of UNESCO. Every year my family goes to these beaches in different parts of the country. Coupled it up with fresh seafood dishes plus beer and watching a lively fire dance.
Being laid-back: As much as there are downsides in it but at the same time, there are benefits for having this attitude. Filipinos absolutely know their problems and despite of these they still able to smile and laugh out their problems. It's not that they don’t take life seriously, of course they do. Its just that for Filipinos, humor is the best coping mechanism. After all, laughter is the best medicine. Philippines is one of the countries with lowest suicidal rates.
Family oriented society: Elderly parents are well taken care of which is a wonderful thing. Unlike in most of the Anglo world, retirement homes is almost non existent here in the Philippines because children, grandchildren usually live either just a few blocks away or with their elderly parents/grandparents who they take care up until their death. Single adults normally stay with their parents no matter how old they are. The entire kin would gather together on Christmas, New Year, Easter, birthdays, weddings, funerals etc.
Egalitarian society: unlike in other parts of Asia, Middle East and even the West, women are well represented everywhere including the traditionally male-dominated fields like military, engineering and technology. Glass ceiling doesn’t exist here. Men and women are being paid equally, no gender wage gap. Philippines already had two female presidents, equal number of female senators, managers, CEOs/entrepreneurs something that even the self-proclaimed democratic US has yet to achieve.
Now onto the negatives:
Horrible traffic: Anyone who has been to Manila can attest to this nightmare. What would be a 10 minute drive in other countries will take about 1–2 hours here in Manila. It gets even worse during the peak months of December.
Anti-intellectualism: Being smart and educated are being seen as elitist while being ignorant is seen in a more positive light. This is one reason why Filipinos are stereotyped for having a low IQ. Filipinos may be hard working but are not smart. They prefer the tried and tested rather than creating something that would ease up their workload. How many Filipinos have knowledge about the world? Many don’t even know about their own history. In fact, its rare to find Filipinos who can hold intellectual conversations. Many are only good for small talk or gossip.
Not innovative: Filipinos would rather copy from other countries than creating something from scratch. Compared that with India which has a lower GDP per capita than the Philippines but their inventiveness is amazing and are able to produce their own cars, technologies and even started large companies. Not the Philippines.
Self righteous: Filipinos think they are always right and no matter how well meaningful your advice or criticisms are, they would take it in a negative way and go out of their way to defend that ugly attitude.
Passive-aggressive: Filipinos as with other Asians believe on the concept of saving face or locally known as hiya or shame. Because of it, many tend to be non-confrontational and unassertive which leads to having passive aggressive attitude.
Dictatorial Roman Catholic church: according to the constitution, the Philippines is officially a secular nation but in reality it is secular only on paper. In practice, it is still much a theocratic nation with the Catholic church controlling much of the government’s policy and most of the people’s lives. There is no divorce, no LGBT rights and family planning is still being viewed in a negative light.
Immature/irresponsible: accountability is an alien concept for most Filipinos. Similar to the self-righteousness attitude, many Filipinos are unable to own up their own mistakes and instead blaming others for their own misery. Our government is corrupt but so are the people. Blame the government all you want but remember you were the ones who voted for them. They wouldn’t be in that position if you just wisened up a bit and think of the country’s future instead of being blinded by their false promises and some few hundred pesos in exchange for your vote.
Short sightedness: most Filipinos live on a survival mindset. Partly this is due to poverty that an average Filipino don’t have the luxury of planning ahead when they can hardly eat for today. But poverty isn’t an excuse for foolishness. Being able to delay gratification is something that must be learned by every Juan.
Narcissistic: many Filipinos are overprotective of their image and pride. They want to be seen as special. Even if they are wrong, they would do turn the tables in their favor.
Overly emotional: personally this is one of the Filipino traits that I hate the most since I’m more of a thinker type and I find it very embarrassing that sometimes I just face palm whenever Filipinos would shout out in social media, internet and all over the media press expressing anger or hurt over a Desperate Housewives line briefly mentioning the medical schools in the Philippines. I couldn’t imagine an adult in their right mind would do such a very childish act. Filipinos are very tender hearted by nature, they get hurt even at the slightest of jokes directed either at them or to the country. But the ironic thing is Filipinos do the same thing to other nationalities. Its basically like Filipinos are allowed to throw shit at foreigners but foreigners are not allowed to throw shit at them. Well to be fair, the Philippines is among the younger countries in the world in terms of median age with more than half of its population are below 25 years old but still even at that age, we already know how to behave like an adult. So stop being pussies, suck it up, have some balls and GROW UP!
Colorism/racism: Filipinos are known to be warm, friendly, hospitable but don’t expect that treatment if you’re a dark-skinned local or a non-white foreigner. Filipinos are among the most racist people in the world, pretty much like other Asians. Admit it or not but check how many matinee idols and sought after models and actors have typical brown Malay features? You might say Kathryn Bernardo, Nadine Lustre, Sarah Geronimo, Bianca Umali, Regine Velasquez. Yes they are but look how they have to alter their skin color, eyes, nose just to get there. I doubt they would be that famous if they opted to keep their Malayan features. Meanwhile there are many Eurasian actors and singers who are famous despite their lack of talent in singing or acting. I’m saying this as a Eurasian myself and all of these exotification and glorification are sickening. And lets not forget how they look down on Indians, Arabs and Blacks.
Oversized ego: Filipinos would do anything to be at the top but not in a good way. They tend to be overly proud whenever they learned that a certain foreign actor, reality contest winner or athlete has Filipino blood. They would instantly put on their “Pinoy pride” mode and chant how proud they are as a Filipino or look how we Filipinos are able to beat you guys. This is due to lack of prominent Filipino role models and Filipino influence on a global scale. Apart from Manny Pacquiao and Monique Lhullier, there is really nothing else. Many Filipinos have low self-esteem that can also be the cause of this toxic behavior.
Worker bee mentality: Gloss thru Forbes list of richest Filipinos and you notice that about 97% of Filipino business tycoons are of foreign ancestry, usually Chinese and Spanish. The reason is because most Filipinos are trained from an early age that finding a good job is the end goal. Its why there is a saying that Filipino parents tell their kids to study hard so they could graduate and find a good stable job whereas Chinese parents tell their kids to study hard so that they can graduate and could start their own business.
Reactive mindset: Another trait that I personally hate. For some unexplainable reason, most Filipinos lack initiative. And because most Filipinos live on a survival mindset so being pro-active is something that is incompatible with this mindset. They only act when something have already happened. Just look at what happened back in 2013 when the country was hit by typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan. The lack of preparation by the government caused many casualties in the affected areas. Foreign aid came first before the local government aid. In a country that is plagued with typhoons, earthquakes, Filipinos must have know how to prepare itself for these calamities. So you got no excuse for the lack of preparation.
Lack leadership skills: Filipinos are not entrepreneurial by nature, mainly because of the hiya factor. Because it requires assertiveness and risk taking which to many Filipinos means risk losing face so many opted to take the safer but more mediocre path of following someone’s lead rather than being the leader. This is also the reason for the worker bee mentality.
Food: for some reason I don’t like much of the Filipino foods. I’m into high spiced foods and also spicy foods so I’m more of a fan of Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, Korean and Japanese cuisines. I like chicken sisig, lechon manok, tapsilog, grilled stuffed bangus, tortang talong (eggplant covered in egg with spices), ensaladang talong (eggplant salad with tomatoes, onions in vinigar), kilawin (similar to Latin American dish called ceviche), sinigang na salmon sa miso, goto, lengua, escabeche but all the rest no. Especially pork dishes and dinuguan (pork blood). My personal preference only and has nothing to do with the cuisines itself. Whenever I eat Filipino foods, I always need to have my garlic, onions, black pepper, chili peppers and some herbs on hand. I simply can’t eat without these.
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