the odd one out.

There must be something about waking up early to still be late; about passing a funeral procession and a car accident on the same trip; about having to suffer a fire drill with the elevators out and climbing up 36 flights of stairs — that is conspiratory. Because at the end of the day, despite looking god-awfully haggard and sporting a swollen lip (chapped lip accident), the taxi driver was hitting on me.

There is something wrong with the universe.

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I’ve been looking at some online web magazines about Philippine Pop Culture. Question, though: Is it really pop culture? Is it really relevant? How come I, who has lived in this beautiful beautiful country all my life and has never even been on a plane, cannot relate? How come I am not part of this supposed collective consciousness?

Maybe I am the odd one out, but to me, there is just something not right with personality-based pseudo-political rantings of select individuals. Pop culture in the Philippines should be something everyone can relate to — from the privileged to the middle-class yuppies to the manong barker at your daily jeep terminal. Pop culture should not be exclusive. It is not only for those who can understand. It is supposedly for everyone who can feel. The hell with bakya. There should be no concept of that in the first place.

Filipinos have been in subsets of subsets of concepts just to feel united. We have formed geographical exclusivity, scholastic snobbery, and even broadcasting network restrictedness. It’s the classic “us” versus “them” behavior that is in the wrong context, in my opinion. It should be “us” in this small group of islands in the westernmost of the Pacific — and “them” (imagine a huge sweeping arm motion here.), the whole world. I’m not saying we should isolate ourselves. I’m saying, “Hey, maybe we should all start acting like Filipinos and not like we’re just visiting this quaint little island.” YOU LIVE HERE. Where’s your sense of home?

It is annoying, but one thing you would notice about us is how the concept of patriotism is the last thing that we would cry about. We’d make a huge ruckus about corruption and fraud and injustice and immorality, but somehow it’s not  noticed how we forget that it’s unpatriotic. It should be the biggest crime anybody could do. Ok, not the biggest, but it should definitely be a big one.

Someone will no doubt argue that  patriotism can be interpreted in so many different ways. Like, the fact that I don’t really watch Manny Pacquiao’s matches would be extremely unpatriotic. Yes, that person will probably be right. I may be unpatriotic in my own way. The idea that I write in a foreign language is unpatriotic too. And I can’t defend myself on that note. But the point is we all don’t have a sense of patriotism. I’ve posed the problem. Let’s all find the solution together.

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There must be something truly wrong with the universe. Hence, the first ever Denice political entry.

I must be reading too much Kafka.

Self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the infinite radiations of my spiritual existence.
-Franz Kafka

 

~ by angmgatuhod on 3 April, 2008.