Small efforts to improve personal decency at grassroots can build a better Philippines

By -

As a Filipino, I had to fight and resist the urge to gape, gawk.. even pry into events that do not involve me in any way. For the most part, I seem, now, to be winning this game. I also strived to overhaul my sense of propriety.. in conduct, conversation and sense of humor.. and tried to be more reserved and respectful of others' privacy.

In this, the effort is still a struggle. I tend to think that this effort is not so much to be just like a refined European, Asian or American, (Central and South Americans included), but rather, to be somewhat more thoughtful and civilized myself. I also tend to think that this is not a bad thing to aspire to.

Would it be presumptious to think that we all should learn how to be more reserved and just keep off of others' space? Would a crowd, so disposed, have laughed at Mr. Duterte's sick jokes.. or, would Mr. Duterte himself have attempted such a cheap trick if he were similarly disposed? Filipinos of a bygone era, for the most part, were such people as I wish we all could become.

---------------
This is a GRP Featured Comment. Join the discussion!
http://www.getrealphilippines.com/blog/2016/04/pinoy-style-morality/#comment-1654784

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular this week

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

Filipinos are taught by their parents to flush at public toilets with their feet. Is this RIGHT??

By -
Image
Public toilets in the Philippines are seen to be dirty. As such many Filipinos are taught by their parents to use their feet to operate the flush lever after using a public toilet. The prevalence of this practice was confirmed after a tweet from a Filipino Netizens describing the practice attracted wide approval... Is this the right way to solve the problem of unsanitary public toilets in the Philippines? By teaching kids to use their feet to operate such facilities? It's more like teaching them to be inconsiderate and rather than be good members of the community. No wonder public facilities in the Philippines suck. It's because their users suck.
Read more

Duterte BPI bank scandal a trap set for Trillanes?

By -
Image
There are now papers floating around that the BPI account in Julia Vargas has a running balance of around Php22,000xx from March 2015 to March 2016. It's peanuts, and Trillanes makes a big fuzz about it? Sonamagan, even call center agents would have this kind of bank accounts; definitely does not show a corrupt DU30. And then, Trillanes talks of 42 real estate properties, but mostly owned by the children of DU30. Yet, the first one that media checks is a unit in P Guevarra, which is only valued at 2.3 million. Even ordinary employees could buy such unit. That could hardly buy just the main door, an imported antique, in the house of Binay, which has been valued at 15 million, yes just the freaking door by itself. What is this, they are again using trial by publicity, which they effectively used on CJ Corona whom they accused him of having 80 properties. In the end, it comes out Corona had only four properties, three of which was purchased for investment purposes only. I don'
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