Malls and Manila

We've culminated our second week here in Manila and it has been an eye opening experience to say the least. What is really getting to me as well as others in our group is the presence of malls, Starbucks and McDonald's. However it is what is happening within these businesses and how they got here that is so troubling to me. I can't remember exactly what the numbers were, but a member of our group told me that a Filipino working at McDonald's earns just around enough money in a day to buy a cheese burger. Learning this definitely made me feel, not literally but in a sense, guilty when I ordered a heaping meal of food at Jollibee's. Even more shocking was learning that in some circumstances workers at fast food restaurants are required to have a college degree. This put some things into perspective for me because I get a little bitter sometimes when thinking about what my college degree will get me. Even if I did end up working at a fast food restaurant after college my relative wages would be much more than the equivalent of a cheese burger a day. That's what bothers me. It has to be a result of corporatism and as we have learned in class as well as vested interests in the development and exchange between the United States and Filipino politicians. We learned today that every Filipino President has been a puppet of the United States and I imagine that the master of puppets allowed for and gave way for corporations to come in and hire people for such low wages. If people were paid just enough to eat each day in the United States there would be outrage!

I have also noticed, again and again, the perversion of the American Dream. For me the American Dream is the chance to have a good house and be able to live a comfortable life. The dream has become an image, an ideal, an icon of a correlation between wealth and appearance. This is seen in all the advertisements here in Manila as well as the malls and to me it seems that the Filipinos going to the malls and not buying anything ties into appearing American/wealthy. I feel that this isn't simply a Filipino phenomenon but a world wide cultural phenomenon but fortunately we are able to analyze and interpret how this has come to be by staying here in Manila and studying the history of American colonialism here. How is it that there are so many malls here? Some of the largest malls in the world that are surrounded with children begging for change. It makes me wonder about how the Filipino government is trying to portray the Philippines. Is it in some way correlated with the way that the American Dream is portrayed in an iconic manner as image of ideal living that the Filipino government allows for the building of such mega malls? I feel that United States imperialism throughout history has caused this "paradox". I've read before that often times developing countries attempt to portray progress to the outside world by building structures and this makes me wonder about why there are so many malls here. The United States has directly contributed to this and now due to marketing driven consumerism the Philippines and its people seems to be trying to emulate the U.S.

In his article, "From Colonizer to Liberator: How U.S. Colonialism Succeeded in Reinventing Itself After the Pacific War", Bienvinido Lumbrera writes that for the forty years of initial American colonialism the Philippines were swamped with American culture in the form of imported movies, candy bars and other items. When the Japanese took over the Philippines during World War II, the harsh treatment that the Filipinos had to endure was meshed with a cease in the flow of American goods. When the Americans returned, the Japanese were in a sense moved out as American goods moved in. Not surprisingly, General MacArthur who was the face of the American return to the Philippines arranged for Roxas to be President. All at once you can see how the combination of a President who would talk up the United States, being rescued from foreign incarceration and the return of consumer goods set up not only the allowance for these goods to enter the country but also for these goods to bring with them a feeling of improvement. I think that this translates into the way that Filipinos seem to attempt to show their economic status by buying American goods and this whole perception, if expanded explains the plethora of malls here that supply American/American like goods. This then also factors into what I was saying earlier about the true purpose of the malls here - malls symoblize improvement. Even tons of the ads have white people, likely American, on them!

We went to Baguio City the other weekend and its interesting to think that what originally was designed by Americans, for Americans to get out of the sweltering Philippine heat, now is vacation destination for Filipinos. In the midst of it all I noticed that many of the buildings and houses there that had American design were of higher quality than those that were not. This again would add to the perception of American products as being superior, especially when it is seen in a house which Filipinos living in dilapidated houses have to look at daily. Better housing and a better life essentially becomes synonymous with America, going past point the point of it just being on T.V., in the malls and in magazines - it is present on street corners and in neighborhoods. The streets named after American War heroes are decorated with objects commemorating them. With this external American superiority the education system which is influenced and in part designed by Americans creates an internal recognition of American superiority which creates a two way reciprocation that makes the idea of America teem with golden prosperity. The internal struggles with identity that Santiago Bose writes about in "Baguio Graffiti" by trying to appear American but being rejected because of being a Filipino become all the more understandable when seeing how Filipinos aspire to be American but are prevented by obstacles in education and wealth from doing so.

I don't really know how to feel about it, other than that it is a messed up system. In general it all revolves around exploitation and we are subject to it. However, the subjectivity seems to be variable depending on where you are. If you're in a country like the Philippines it is obviously worse. Since I can't really take this in from a Filipino-American perspective I'm trying to understand the big picture and assess who contributes to this. Do we all contribute to it indirectly? Or is the situation simply in the hands of the few? I guess anyone who eats at restaurants such as the ones mentioned above contributes, but even in the United States tons of people eat there because its all that they can afford. People are hired in other countries for dirt cheap and then People are hired by companies in other countries for dirt cheap and then people in the United States have to take relatively low paying jobs and buy from the very same companies that are barely paying people enough to live over seas! What this means to me is that people are trapped and forced to contribute to and be part of this system, regardless of where they are, if they don't have wealth to get out of it.

We went to a benefit concert for Ericson Acosta, a political prisoner here in the Philippines, and it was a moving experience because it revealed how real the challenge of trying to change the state of things in the Philippines is and it definitely raises the notion that there must be help from the outside to supplement what is happening on the inside. Its obvious that many citizens here feel this way and I see it not only from the conversations but also from hearing about The New People's Army as well as other efforts that are happening to start a revolution. I wish everyone here trying to make a change because they have so many things to address from political corruption to poverty to education. All these things tie together and I feel that education and awareness is the best issue to tackle first because after that people can understand how to solve these issues legally and then uphold that legality; which as we all know is the ultimate challenge. I will definitely pay attention to, show support for and depending on where things take me in life, attempt to contribute to change in the Philippines after this trip is over.