After the various reactions to one of my previous articles, I cannot help but have quite a few reactions of my own. Anyway, now that we have our sentiments out in the open, I harken back to when I first started writing here to one of my very first articles. Again, with the recent events unfolding like a runaway train from the unsolved case of the Fallen 44, the BBL which the Aquino administration continues to endorse despite the outrage of the general public, the spared life of Mary Jane Veloso to the up and coming fight of Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather, I once again find myself asking an ever familiar question.
“Are we truly free?”
Well, according to our history books, we have been free for decades now. After being allegedly “freed” from the yoke of tyranny of the Marcos regime, I find myself wondering just what is it that makes so many Filipinos believe that they are free. I, for one, don’t see our country us as “free”.
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Instead, when I look at my countrymen, I am briefly reminded of the film District 9. Yes, the movie with the human-cockroach aliens that people kept calling prawns. Anyway, if you observe the aliens, majority of them simply wander about aimlessly with no real purpose and are taken advantage of by humans on a regular basis. While they could easily retaliate and get humans to give them more respect, they simply lack the sense of direction or independence needed to present their own terms to the world. That is how I essentially see my fellow Filipinos in this otherwise promising age of rapidly advancing technology.
What many don’t know or simply won’t admit is that we are essentially enslaved by the powers that be in this country. What’s worse is that many of us don’t even know it. Like the Matrix, we are all metaphorically trapped in a prison we can’t see, taste or smell but can nonetheless feel to a certain degree.
Want proof? Well, here are my observations…
We Are Slaves To The Government
“People should not be afraid of their government. The Government should be afraid of it’s people.”
~V for Vendetta
The quote makes perfect sense when you consider the fact that, being a democracy, it is up to us, the common people, on whom we elect as the next leaders of our country. Unfortunately, there is certainly a clear discrepancy when the same bunch of crooks end up in power every election. Now, it would be nice if some of these people were actually helpful, but one can probably guess that they are mostly just a band of brainless celebrities or immoral thieves.
Year after year, even with a constitution that insists that it is “free”, we are left with no choice but to vote for the same criminals who ran in the last election. It’s almost as if in the common Pinoy mind, we have nothing else to choose from asides from the people we know from experience. It never even occurs to some people that choosing a new and relatively unknown leader might prove to be more honest and competent than those whom they’ve always known.
So while we may claim to be a democracy, we don’t seem to exercising our rights as voters the way we should. Instead, we are almost always at the mercy of criminal masterminds who, with the use of bribery and threats, remain in a position of power.
We Are Slaves To The Media
Okay, I’ve summed it up in this article but I think I need to mention it again considering the reactions to this article and this one. Well, from what can be seen, people almost openly worship their favorite celebrities. To a lot of Filipinos, famous movie stars are gods or goddesses in their own right even when they are actually far from being good examples of human beings.
Like cheap drugs, many Filipinos fawn over their favorite celebrities and place them on a pedestal well above the rest of their household. Also, like junkies, when someone cries afoul of their favorite celebrities, they tend to act very negatively as if their lives or families are somehow being threatened.
While I believe that people should be free to watch what they want, I tend to think that the way most Pinoys treat their media is almost similar to drug addiction.
We Are A Slave Race
Now that I have time to think about it, I’ve come to think that most Pinoys aren’t really as free as they’d like to think themselves as. If we are indeed free, I have to ask, why are all the good business opportunities out there beyond the Philippines. Why do so many of our countrymen have to travel beyond the borders of our beloved homeland just to make ends meet?
If we are truly free, then why are the job opportunities available here in the Philippines so lackluster? If we are indeed free, shouldn’t there be promising career choices for the common employees of the Philippines? If we are free, why are so many Filipinos choosing to take unpleasant and potentially dangerous jobs as OFWs rather than stick with the jobs that are available in our country?
The bottom line is that year after year, millions of our countrymen have to leave behind their families and homes to work elsewhere often at great danger to themselves. At the end of the day, they are often seen by their employers and the society they work in as second-class citizens at best and actual slaves at worst. Whatever salary they earn may seem quite a lot to the people back in the Philippines but, more often than not, the common employee in where they work probably earns more.
I have always believed in the idea that freedom is more than just being able to do what you want. Freedom is about choices and knowing which choice sits well with you the most. Believing that freedom is just about doing what you want is both immature and irresponsible.
I HAVE RETURNED TO LAY WASTE TO OUR ENEMIES!
Yes total slaves, no hope, no future. My wife and children will be in the UK or USA as soon as visas permit.
Good on you mate.
We are slaves to the government
We are slaves to the media
We are slaves to the church/religion
We are a slave race
Thanks for being nearly complete
Freedom comes with a cost be it certain death, starvation, endangerement etc…it also gives you the chance to succeed on your own without or having little or mutual dependency on outside sources.
People like security(or the idea of it) that the government(and the businessmen and/or syndicate oligarchs) provide for them that they willingly give up most of their freedom to keep the handlers happy and in exchange they’re given security and purpose.
Media is there to keep the sheeple(sheep people)busy and retarded that most are even afraid to question authority(perhaps we’ve been this way since the colonial period but it certainly helped keep it that way).
We’ve always been a slave, a tool to keep civilization running, even citizens of more developed countries are slaves to their own society. People are bred, they are told what they must do through education, they grow up and do the work for society with which they are rewarded for with money to buy things they need and want but it keeps them happy anyway. Then they grow up some more and reproduce another batch of slaves. To keep the cycle going thinking and philosophizing among peasants must be discouraged. They do this with various methods.
We as a nation have not the advantage for dominating the global economy; what we have in excess are PEOPLE, and being that way all we can really do is send them away and do work on other places and steal their jobs 😀
I think that is why ofws are considered heroes here. We cannot all work here, demand for jobs is outweighed by unimaginale amount of supply of laborers, proof of this is nepotism being the norm on various job environment.
Of course being a domestic helper is not the most prestigious of jobs I can understand that…
..Let me try this on just for size. I don’t think any human is free. Finite beings need boundaries and limitations. Even a lion who seem to have all the wild to himself eventually has to stop at the boundary marked as the territory of another lion. The eagle who looks so free eventually comes back to his nest. Even the prehistoric humans did not seem to be able to live in open skies; they needed their caves. Of course, today our caves are marked by walls and roofs, and we will not be considered humans if we went to our offices, factories and schools without our pants and shirts, or blouses and skirts, even if that meant ultimate freedom. So, is freedom an illusion?
Already when we are borne, we are limited by circumstance, location and status. And as we grow up, further limitations are imposed by society, laws, environments, current memes, norms, education, and what not. And finally as we mature, we are caught in that endless debates of humans on what is good and bad, on what is ugly and beautiful, on what is true and a lie, on what is love and hate, etc. So, can freedom be pursued, or should we just accept that we are forever slaves, and it is just a matter of choosing that to which we want to be a slave of?
Let us not discuss what enslave us physically for that is the easy part, and most modern self help books already deal with this. Let us deal with those that imprison the mind. I think the ones the enslave us are simply those that preoccupy our minds. If 90% of the time 24/7, we think of work, then are workaholics; spouse/ partner and children, then a family man; possesions, then a person obsessed with having than in being; profit, then a person in love with money; ambition, then an ambitious person; food, then a glutton; opposite sex and sex congress, then a sex-maniac; etc, etc.
So, is it just matter of being conscious and careful of what we think about…or what preoccupies our mind??, ……and a matter of plotting what we want to be, or choosing those to which we want to enslave ourselves??!!. …….Maybe, that is the meaning of life, and in searching for that, that is where we will eventually find our freedom, if it does exist.
If you’re thinking about The Philippine Problem in a Global Perspective, and try to expand and see the bigger picture, there’s more than meets the eye! And seemingly that explains why it is so! John Perkins’ book “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” provides us with an Insider’s account of how “Corporate Power” manipulated things and events to get advantage of colonial economies such as the Philippines.
Think about it! Who knows, but, we may have missed the chance then in Mr. Ferdinand Marcos!
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/site_packages/econ_hitmen/3150philipp_coup.html
“I have always believed in the idea that freedom is more than just being able to do what you want. Freedom is about choices and knowing which choice sits well with you the most. Believing that freedom is just about doing what you want is both immature and irresponsible.”
Exact words! The last sentence I guess is what is prevalent among the majority of the Filipinos. I am a Filipino, I love my country but I hate my fellow countryman who assumes freedom as limitless.
I remember one case of a magazine publishing lewd pictures. The individuals in those pictures took offense and complained about it. What is the response of the media company: “this is freedom. People has the right to know and we’re giving them that right.”
My god! As soon as heard that rebuttal, it made me look around and told my self “ito ba ang kaisipan ng mga kababayan ko?” (is this the thinking of my fellow countrymen?). For a few seconds I thought seriously of migrating to another country.
Who taught us that definition of freedom anyway? Sometimes I’d like to think that because we Filipinos were colonized for centuries, once we were unleashed we were like mad dogs! But I’ve seen Filipinos who are also responsible enough to handle their rights. What’s painful is that most of those who are not responsible are more visible everyday.
Going back, do we have a culture of slavery? Apparently. How many big companies outside the Philippines that are owned and ran by a Filipino? How about how many international companies are there that have Filipinos among their rank and file? Will it ever change? Yes but a very long shot. I think we can start with reorienting the mindset of all Filipinos. We could start by shunning telenovelas, showbiz news and other useless TV shows–> which could mean shutting off the TV the whole day everyday.
YOU will find the cost of freedom when you are buried in the ground. That is a FACT.
and BTW, do you suffer from ‘Selective hearing’? Veloso has not been ‘spared’, she has been given a brief reprieve.That means that she is still under ‘penalty of death’, has a ‘Death Warrant’ on her ass and is awaiting a new execution date. This woman will no doubt be used as a pawn in a chess game and Indonesia will seek the highest piece on the board that it can possibly get for this ‘pawn’. Indonesia and Malaysia are becoming increasingly Pro-Radical-Islam & Anti-West (Note the recent ICC Trials of Blair,Bush,Cheney) and could it be possible that both countries want to see the Catholic ‘Philippines’ and its ‘bleeding-heart’ ‘Massa’ grovel as much as possible ? IDK, BUT it seems a likely bet. I have no horse in the race, yet , and care but little as to the outcome. It is only one human being that is at stake. BUT, Aquino will give half the country away so he can appear like he is somehow a ‘Spiritual Guru’ rather than a ‘Horse’s Arse’.
3rd World idiocy is a special kind of idiocy in that it has no underlying logic, or maybe even more accurately, the underlying logic in the 3rd world is ill-logical….and it is coming to a 1sr world country near you….. soon !
Freedom is something each of us can have IN us.
It starts with knowledge, and the route to knowledge is called learning. Not data or information the rote Filipino education teaches.
After knowledge comes its application – know-how. The comes actual application – doing. With doing comes true mastery.
With mastery of at least one thing comes the confidence that is the foundation of freedom within oneself against all outside vagaries.
It is a long road and a constant process. Asian martial arts and meditation masters know that, which a reason for the confidence and success of Northeast Asian cultures over Southeast Asian ones. Or the success of the German culture as opposed to Latin Europe. The ancient guild system emphasizes mastery in whatever one chooses to do. Mistakes there are lessons learned on the way to mastery.
I do not think, one has any right to command me, merely because they are older than I, or because they have seen more of the world than I have; their claim to superiority depends on the use one has made of their time and experience.
We are Free to think, but we do not use our common sense. We are Free to Choose. But, we do not use our Freedom of Choice, to better, ourselves, our government and our country.
We are Slaves of our own making. Unless, we know how to use our God given faculties in our brains; we will remain slaves, as we are…