The epic failure that was the 5th State of the Nation Address (SONA) of Philippine President Benigno Simeon ‘BS’ Aquino III this week highlights a pressing need for Filipinos to come up with a new — more modern — form of nationalistic drive.
What President BS Aquino essentially did this week was break the proverbial camel’s back with 3 straws:
(1) Defend his administration’s now-criminal Disbursement Acceleration Program.
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(2) Hark back to what he was originally all about: his parents.
(3) Cry.
Essentially delivering no more than the above in his one and a half hour speech, he then issued a flaccid battlecry to Filipinos:
Believe that the Philippines is worth dying, living, and fighting for.
If making that call after delivering a sob story of a speech is not tantamount to a bald insult to the intelligence of 100 million Filipinos, I don’t know what is. By the end of this week we will see that the aftermath of President BS Aquino’s fifth SONA marks the end of Filipino “nationalism” as defined by Yellowist rhetoric. The yellow brand of “nationalism” can be buried right beside that other discredited flavour of nationalism, the Red “makabayan” or “makamasa” style of appealing to nationalist fervour.
Once again, Philippine intellectual discourse is left with a philosophical void. What should define the Filipino “nationalist” in the 21st Century?
The answer has for so long been staring us in the face: Collective achievement.
The reason Filipinos have always struggled monumentally to step up to the call to be “proud” to be Filipino and, as such, harbour a natural willingness to fight for country is because we have for so long put the horse behind the cart. One cannot be proud when there is nothing to be proud of. It’s a simple notion that has been flying over the pointed heads of traditional Filipino “nationalists”.
The hard question Filipinos need to ask themselves is straightforward:
What have we achieved as a people?
The italicised words at the end of the above question are very important. We have long worn thin the hollow-headed tradition of propping Pinoy Pride upon the individual achievements of exceptional people like Manny Pacquiao and some legendary Filipino who supposedly invented the Moon Buggy.
The achievements that should serve as bases — as pillars — for holding Pinoy Pride up high should be collective achievements. Collective achievements are achievements that can be attributed to Filipinos as a whole. Collective achievements serve as evidence that the value of said collective is greater than the sum value of its parts.
What achievements can Filipinos attribute to the Philippines and not just to specific individual Filipinos?’
Coming up with a list of achievements that meet those stringent standards is the challenge we face today now that Yellow and Red activism are dead — killed by their own chief advocates, in fact. The demise of the two hollow ideologies that underpinned these astoundingly wasteful “movements” pave the way for the emergence of a truly modern and critical way of thinking in the Filipino — one that could deliver wonderous achievement at an individual level and, gathering critical mass from that bottom upwards, at a collective national level.
The kind of nationalism we need is long overdue. And it is so because it is the harder sort of nationalism — one that involves the use of measureable results to substantiate. That ingraining into the national psyche of true nationalism remains a distant goal at the moment. But if Filipinos are serious about seeing a Philippines worth fighting for, then they should learn to step up to attaining that goal with commensurate courage.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
We have some collective achievements going on… really silly/inane/absurd/pointless ones that end up on the Guinness World Records. Which is probably why the world views this country and its people as a joke. We need meaningful collective achievements, not just feel-good fundraisers and attention-grabbers.
Hodor! Hodor! Actually yes. A certain religion guilty of that last week. Though they would disagree.
The only positive things that tend to be repeated about Filipino culture and society are ones that are basically universal, and which aren’t as positive as they like to think.
The most common accolade is the idea that Filipinos are ‘dedicated to family,’ as if every other country on Earth kicks its old folks into the snow once they’re no longer useful. Of course, this is only used as a desperate attempt to finally score a point over ‘the West’ (since people live much the same way in every poor country), where more people can afford to pursue independent lives and to have relationships with their extended family on the basis that suits them, rather than being forced to live together for financial reasons or in the hope of having people to borrow from for the next operation.
Not to mention that loyalty to the bloodline is where a lot of this country’s problems stem from. Look for something else to be proud of.
What has the Philippines achieved as a country? That is the question which needs to be answered before nationalism can be declared by each filipino.
Nope, EDSA 1 was not a collective achievement, same goes for all other regional uprising in the Philippine history.
Nope, the jeepney is also not something to be proud of. On the contrary, it just shows how filipinos cannot move on, they are basically stuck with this decades old design, inconvenient, uncomfortable, unsafe and inefficient.
Nope, not the personalities mentioned here:
http://www.philstar.com/sunday-life/2013/11/24/1260056/what-makes-you-proud-be-filipino-now
… those are singular achievements by individuals and not of the country.
Not this, too:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_should_Filipino_be_proud_of_the_Philippines
..this only shows how skewed a typical pinoy’s idea of national pride is. Proud of the virgin forests and majestic beaches, come on!!!
If others have something in their minds that we can be truly proud of, please feel free to chime in.
It is hard to be proud of majestic beaches because most are covered with human excrement because most people in the country still do not have toilets.
its really gross. most of the people that go to the beaches just leave the trash they accumulate right where they were sitting as if their Mother is going to clean up after them.I have seen this done sooo many times and its sickening.
Bunch of Fuckin PIGS!
How long do you think those virgin forests are going to last when 80% of the country is still dependent on charcoal to cook? In fact, why is nationalism even relevant? It is like religion; a tribal mindset that is fueling wars and violence all over the world. Drop the “us against them” mentality. We live in a global village. The sooner we move to a one world government, the better!
I was about to say “Katipunan”, but ditch that. The singular fact about the Katipunan was that it fell to a surge of infighting, opportunism, and timidity before Americans eager for a slice of imperial glory. I suppose you could say that the Katipunan spreading the revolutionary ethos throughout the islands was achievement enough… but I’d rather not.
Defy the tyrant despot of Malacanang! Stand Proud! Stand United! Hold the Line Against the Dictatorship! Di Palulupig! Di Pasisiil!
Aquino may not be a saint, but he ain’t Marcos. Please, hold the hyperbole.
Aquino is worse than Marcos…
Are we under martial law? Are you being prevented from speaking out? Is the military taking you away from your loved ones and summarily executing you in some godforsaken place as a lesson for the loose-lipped?
No, no you’re not.
Aquino is many things, both good and bad, but he’s not a tyrant, he’s not a despot. The worst the well-informed and unbiased can accuse him of is incompetence in handling some of the issues that come across his desk. I’m no Aquino booster, but come on. Let’s put things into perspective, let’s GET REAL, and not paint ourselves into some freaking melodrama where you’re white knights off and away to slay Noynoy the dragon demon.
If you want to be taken seriously, stick to the facts, not make up blissful lies and wishful hyperbole. You’re all better than that.
/rant
Well, that is great BUT The Philippines could have been a great nation already if the thieves that run it had not stolen everything that was not nailed down for the last 50 years….AND IT IS STILL HAPPENING.
If this shit-hole of country is going to change, it MUST get rid of the people doing the thieving…and confiscate what is not rightfully theirs and use it for the betterment of the entire people’s.
THIS, of course, WILL NOT HAPPEN. YOU ARE GOING TO GET MORE OF THE PATHETIC SHIT LIKE THAT IDIOT CRYING IN FRONT OF THE PEOPLE THE OTHER NIGHT.Typicl idiotic flip asking for sympathy, and he will probably get it too. !!!
Get out now, while you can!!!!
The DAP is a massive Thievery of public funds.
Aquino’s parents have nothing to do with the present. They are dead. They are past. We must live in the present.
Aquino’s crying CROCODILE TEARS will never help him. Nor will it ever solve his problems. Nor will it ever solve our country’s problems. We don’t need CRYBABIES as our leaders. We want good leaders, who can lead as man or woman.
Nationalism is working together for the good of all.
Just look at the example of Japan and Germany. Both nations were defeated in World War II. Both nations were in utter ruins.
Their people worked together in rebuilding their nations. And now; both countries are prosperous.
It is the people, who choose good leaders; who work as a team to build a nation, and makes the government work; that will make a country progressive.
Not lip service nationalism…Not celebrities who have gained fames and fortunes. Not Filipinos who have accomplished great.
Nationalism is an outmoded mindset. We should think of internatiuonalism…as a member of the Human Race in this Planet Earth…