Why 'examples' of family #honor do not prove Filipinos are an honorable people @jabjimenez

By -


Noted social media personality and COMELEC spokesman James Jimenez cited the following examples of "Filipino honor"...

(1) Rido? That's when generations of muslim filipinos actually sacrifice much - even lives - to protect family honor. Also honor driven.

(2) Fiesta syndrome? That's when filipinos go into debt to fulfill a social obligation to protect family honor. Perverse? Yes. But honor driven.

(3) True story: artist raises 500K in cash for a charity. refuses to touch it for personal gain and scrambles to make 3k for his family. Honor.

The question, however is whether these "examples" are representative of the overall character of Philippine society. Even more important, we will find that the last two are family- and ethnic/faith-centric. Honour to one's family is easy -- because the motivation to be so is practically ingrained in our DNA as vessels for propagating our genetic code.

The bigger challenge is finding evidence of honour that transcends family and religious ties -- as what we can see in TRULY modern societies where all ethnic and religious groups and minorities are treated fairly and respected unconditionally.

"In Japan there are very few lawyers and the codes are mostly unwritten, but they are binding, nonetheless." - Greg Sheridan, *Asian Values Western Dreams*

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular this week

The sound of a #Tagalog convo: 'like chickens and hens cackling in unison'

By -
Image
While I'm not sure the language should totally go the way Latin did, one can't deny the limited use of Tagalog. As it is now, a sentence can't be done without two or three borrowed words in English which makes it redundant in academia. Somehow you gotta address the technical jargon but there really is no equivalent to it in Tagalog so the English term just ends up jammed in between the local vernacular. Nevermind the fact that reading Tagalog online is cringey no matter who wrote it. Add the fact that it just doesn't sound pleasing to the ear. Normal conversation with Tagalog is like chickens and hens cackling in unison to the uninitiated. It's the peasants' language through and through. ------------ This is a GRP Featured Comment. Join the discussion! http://getrealphilippines.com/blog/2014/06/kudos-to-the-commission-on-higher-education-ched-for-finally-junking-tagalog/comment-page-1/#comment-544143
Read more

Poor people in the Philippines seem to prefer poverty over aspiring to be not poor

By -
Image
Sadly, a MAJORITY of the poor people here are bad people. That is WHY they are poor. They disrespect others, they disrespect themselves, and they disrespect God’s creation. Exactly how do they think they’ll be rewarded for that? If you genuinely had empathy, you would be able to get inside their heads and understand why they do these things, and perhaps know how to fix it. However, you are confusing “empathy” with “sympathy”. I have yet to meet a poor person who actually WANTS to do the things necessary to escape poverty. The funny thing is, everyone can see that I’m more successful than they are. They think this is because I’m “rich”. I’m sure a lot of them are full of jealousy (as benign0 describes) and sit around thinking “ha, it’s not fair, that foreigner is so rich and I’m so poor. I guess it’s OK if I steal his stuff”. Which they do. Regularly. I grew up poor. I know how it feels to be hungry, all the time, every day. I decided I didn’t like feeling like that. I’m successf
Read more

Rappler CEO @MariaRessa suggests that Duterte was ORDERED to sing by Trump! 😮

By -
Image
In a tweet fielded by Rappler CEO Maria Ressa today, the causality reader could be led to believe that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was ordered to sing by US President Donald Trump. But was he really? It seems Ressa is just being too quick to selectively interpret a common Filipino colloquialism that is no different to the way we use terms like "bossing" and "chief" to address peers or even subordinates in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Ressa is most definitely grasping for straws here.
Read more