Over the past thirty-three days I’ve been at U.P. Diliman I have been exposed to many things. Because of my time in class as well as informal settings my perspectives have expanded leaving me dejected, but as luck would have it, has truly enlightened me. If you have no substantive knowledge or interest in politics, or government for that matter, (like me) it quickly changes with the presence of in-your-face systemic problems such as that of the Philippines. For example, according to a political activist group “AnakBayan” 75% of the population consist of farmers, 15% consist of the working class, 8% make up the working class elite, and only 1% of the population make up the top dogs who own most of the big business and therefore the wealth in the Philippines. One does not need the numbers to see that they are in fact true. Driving or walking through U.P. you cannot help but run into people occupying poor living conditions, driving through Quezon, visiting historical monuments, or even going to the mall. Where ever you go you will be exposed to people just like you who are stuck in a system that promotes the idea of equality, but practices something much different.
My intention is not to regurgitate the lessons I’ve been presented with. I am still struggling with my own inhibitions on ideas foreign to me such as communism, activism, and fighting for something that supersedes individuality. I am an individual. I have wants and needs, goals and aspirations, but there is no I in team. I’ve always known that. You see in the U.S. citizens are taught in school systems how to think, and to act with the purpose of molding them into responsible adults. This about sums it up for me, until I interestingly gained a new perspective. In the Philippines the goal of education is to teach Filipino’s how to think and act in the interest of America. This is a summary of the article by Renato Constantino “Miseducation of the Filipino” as well as Michael Viola’s “Hip Hop and Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy”. In short Viola sites Constantino’s arguments to reinforce his ideas of educational reform through the use of hip hop music.
In the U.S. there exists an organization called Teach For America. TFA’s goal is to connect qualified college graduates with underprivileged and under funded school districts to teach a subject to youth for approximately two years. It is happening in America as well. The exploitation of people with no money and no resources is the cause of ongoing poverty. This is the reason why the Department of Social and Health Services exists. Underneath government policies and fancy legislation lies a perpetual exploitation of the working class.
Michal Viola spoke in depth about the Philippine Education Act of 1982 that was spearheaded by the Marcos Administration, which ironically provided more funding for agricultural resources rather than higher education. The Education Act of 1982 was supplemented with the Presidential Commission to Survey Philippine Education, which after conducting its affairs concluded that the labor force required strengthening. So the solution to this need for training more people to work in agricultural labor was to fund technical schools to teach people to work in farms rather than obtain higher education. The Education Act of 1982 was not entirely created for the interest of educating the youth, states Viola, it was to “continue the legacy of schooling that naturalized foreign control of the Philippine polity and the systematic extraction of natural resources from the islands”.
The system that I was born in, raised in, and currently live in is one that causes turmoil to Filipino’s like me. It’s a hard pill to swallow knowing that I contribute to the problems of the country I was born in. I am grateful for the opportunities I have received in America. I have obtained a college degree and it is indeed an accomplishment worth being proud of. Now being my last quarter as an undergraduate student I come to learn that I’ve been naïve to my Filipino heritage and perspective. No longer though am I a one-sided coin.
In authors David & Okazaki’s experiment “The Colonial Mentality Scale for Filipino Americans”, it describes Colonial Mentality (CM) in a way I have never thought of before. Like many of my other Filipino friends back in Seattle I live my daily life not giving my heritage a thought. This is a problem I now believe because it is a product of CM and therefore a mechanism for self-hatred. I never explicitly thought about my mannerisms and as I do I realize that Filipino culture is so diluted with American that I cannot distinguish the two anymore. I use to say that I am Filipino-American but that is only my nationality. I now prefer to use the term Filipino because it is less confusing. I am full-blooded Filipino and it would be politically incorrect for me to say otherwise.
In the section describing “Conceptualizing CM in Filipino-Americans” they define the different constructs of CM. They are Denigration of the Filipino self, denigration of the Filipino culture or body, discriminating against less Americanized-Filipinos, and tolerating historical and contemporary oppression of Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, all of which are applicable to my own life both sub-consciously and externally. I gave in to assimilation into American society long ago. I’m not saying it is at all bad, but what is unfortunate is that along the way I lost connection with my Philippine culture.
Last Monday July 25th 2011 was the second State of the Nation Address by the current leader, President Aquino. We were lucky enough to observe an anti rally against President Aquino. I am currently neutral since I am not up-to-date with everything I should know in order to form a better opinion on President Aquino. Nonetheless the rally was truly a humbling experience. People came together unified as one because they collectively are suffering from the policies of the Aquino Administration. The rally for the State of the Nation Address or SONA was an experience that I have never been part of before. Students, teachers, blue-collar workers, and everyone else were fired up and filled with passion for a cause and that is something I really connected with. I didn’t have much grasp on President Aquino’s actual speech so my experience was a very lopsided one at best.
I don’t know if it was planned but our trips and activities the past few weeks have been a great contrast to lead up to SONA. Learning Arnis the Filipino martial arts from the Philippine National Police who from the point of view of groups like AnakBayan are part of the problem of Imperialism and then speaking and connecting with League of Filipino Students, and AnakBayan who are in a stage of revolution to fight anti-Imperialism was…confusing. The system is really flawed. From my experiences there are good people on both sides of the struggle and it is reason enough to label it a systemic problem.
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