There has been an overwhelming and varied response to the late Alex Tizon’s moving piece on how his family enslaved Eudocia Tomas “Lola” Pulido for decades — even after moving to and settling in the United States.
Most interesting of these responses is how some Filipino social media “influencers” are incensed with the way Americans are now judging this widespread Filipino reliance on indentured domestic servants. For Tizon who, in his youth, tried to fit into American society amidst the confusion surrounding his identity, this normalcy within his household came into conflict with values he learned as he assimilated into Western culture. Nowhere else in his story of Lola does Tizon neatly sum up this slow coming to terms with the reality about his Filipino heritage than in this poignant passage…
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Having a slave gave me grave doubts about what kind of people we were, what kind of place we came from.
For Filipinos, of course, keeping indentured servants and paying them a pittance (if at all) to do hard back-breaking work 24/7 is normal. And this fact is the pillar used to hold up arguments now coming from some circles that Westerners’ harsh opinions on Lola’s story lack enough cultural context to be regarded as valid enough arguments. Blogger Marck Ronald Rimorin calls this framing of local issues within Western philosophical points of view “westjacking”. He defines the term in his piece, Some Notes on Westjacking, as “Western voices talking over non-Western cultural nuances”.
All the nuances and factors that build into the very idea of a katulong would frustrate even the most dedicated lover of personal freedom, because you also somehow have to figure the unique Filipino work ethic in.
And to frame that on a Western point of view on the basis of historical parallels simply doesn’t work. Rather, it trains the conversation back to the Western view, back to Western conventions, back to Western ethics, back to Western ideas of freedom and progress. It ceases to become our story. It becomes Westjacked.
The cultural nuance most Filipinos refer to when waxing indignation over foreigners’ views, in this case, is in the way most Filipinos from the middle classes and up take their servant-enabled lifestyles for granted. Behind the leisure classes’ squeaky clean homes, well-pressed handwashed clothes, daily-washed and shined cars, manicured gardens, and their abundance of free time to spend with beshies in shopping malls is at least one indentured servant. It’s an entire way of life made possible by indentured cheap labour.
To be fair, most Filipinos who are fortunate enough to be able to spend days tapping tweets on iPads while sipping 200-peso lattes in Starbucks were raised with the help of such labourers. Even now, young Filipino parents continue to employ and rely on them. It is therefore not surprising that many are reluctant to defer to the “wisdom” of Western thinking on the matter.
Perhaps the important lesson to be learned here is just how inconsistent we are in our regard for the West and how utterly confused our relationship is with our former colonial masters. When it comes to cherished traditions like the maintenance of indentured servants, we prefer that the West butt out from what we consider to be an internal “cultural nuance”. Yet, on the other hand, many of these same loud voices are quick to throw Philippine society under the harsh judgment of Western opinion-shapers — even Western criminal courts — when it comes to, say, the unconventional approach applied by their government to fighting its War on Drugs.
Ano ba talaga?
Indeed, it is upon this foundation that I built the key message of my hit piece Duterte is turning the Philippines back into a REAL southeast Asian country. I wrote back then…
He is, in effect, attempting to address the root cause of a national identity crisis suffered by Filipinos over the last three decades. Southeast Asia is home to autocratic “democracies” — states that have, one way or another, found a balance between outwardly being what the West think the world’s nations ought to be and, from the inside, being what they really are.
And…
…to be truly southeast Asian is to grow and develop according to one’s sovereign terms. This is how Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia did it. And this is how Vietnam and the other new Indochinese members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are doing it. Duterte is showing Filipinos an option that, in all ironies, never occurred to them — that it can be done the southeast Asian way. The American Way was a fun ride in Disneyland. But to prosper in the manner that only southeast Asia does, the Philippines needs to go back to the basics and start planting rice.
Judge the rightness of wrongness of a “cultural nuance” that predisposes us to enslave the poor, or to apply “unconventional” levels of violence to eradicate illegal drugs. But decide first which perspective to apply consistently when engaging in ethical debates of national consequence. Do we routinely allow the narratives behind our internal social issues to be westjacked? Or do we consistently regard these through the lens of who we really are as a people?
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
To be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing.
This is the way of life of most Upper Middle Class Filipinos…They have “katulong” or “kasambahay”. Or, It is a necessity…to some ; it is one way to show off, to others… To most, they grew up with the: “katulong”, “kasambahay” or the “yaya”…they cannot do away with them…it is part of their lives…
It is the culture of most Upper Class Filipinos…they don’t like to do houseworks. Somebody must do laundry for them. Somebody must cook for them. Somebody must set the table for them. Somebody must wash the dishes for them…all manual works must be done by somebody…
To do these manual works themselves, is lowering their self esteem; especially, if they are well off…
I don’t have any disagreement with these things…my only disagreement are : “katulong” or “kasambahay” must work eight (8) hours a day. if they work more than eight (8) hours; they must be paid overtime…
There must be a Sunday and Saturday off…Health benefits must come with the employment. A minimum pay wage scale must be enacted by the government…Physical and verbal abuse, as well as sexual abuse must be prosecuted by the government.
We must do away with this less than slave treatment of our people, who are less fortunate than us…dignity on any person must be enforced.
Remove slavery in the Philippine !
If only they’d invent appliances that can wash our clothes and dishes for us.
Are these not very similar circumstances to those that Filipinos love to rail against when they take place in Singapore or Hong Kong ?
Does ‘Westjacking’ become ‘Asiajacking’ when conduct considered normal in Asia is transposed into a society where it becomes borderline illegal ?
@DAVE:
Appliances are already being used in the U.S. and first world countries, that wash clothes (washing machine); and dryer ( clothes drying machine). There are dishwashing machines, also. All are run electronically…
Robots having Artificial Intelligence, are tested on experimental/prototype basis; to do: servant’s work; nursing work; and nurses/medical aides work. Artificial Intelligence is a new field. It is a very interesting field.
Robots, learning to think like humans…talking and acting like humans …
Welcome to the 21st century…the Philippines is wallowing in 18th century technologies , and idiotic politics! Ah…Pobre Filipinas !
Niall: it’s just the standard intellectual laziness of Filipinos, couched in high-falutin’ language. If they can’t justify something objectively, they’ll scream “wacism!” and it’ll all just go away. The “you foreigners think you know better, coming here telling us how to run our country … ” overlooks a rather fundamental fact: we do know better, because our cultures have been there before, and we know from hard experience what works and what doesn’t. Cultures evolve by absorbing good ideas from others. This sort of voluntary assimilation is a major reason why The West looks like it does today. The Philippines is unable to evolve in this manner: their “pride” prevents it.
The irony is that the gist of this argument – that it’s a “cultural thing” and you foreigners just wouldn’t understand – is the same one that was deployed by some pro-slavery types in the US south. However, since Filipinos are mostly ignorant of the entire sweep of human history, including a lot of their own, this probably goes right over their heads.
YUP! Philippines will always be lagging behind!
This flies in the face of Filipinos who claim that their society is modern and “first-world” (I heard someone actually claimed that) or that we’re an “especially good” people. It’s all doused by this fact, slavery was still around in the Philippines at a time where it was already illegal in the rest of the world. It’s time for such Filipinos to take in the hard lesson that they’re not special and look inward to see what parts of their culture they should clean out. I’m pretty sure cases of slavery similar to this are still happening in some part of the country today.
If I may add to that nice wording d_forsaken said, I’d say dominion over other people at all is wrong, and efforts should be made to prevent people from having dominion over others. That’s sure to piss off a lot of people, but it’s probably the thing to do with the most right in it.
This issue was also been posted on 8list.ph.
And @846Hyden007Toro8799766.999 was right, we must remove slavery in our country but the problem is slavery is becoming a cultural & historical legacy in our country for a long long time since before Ferdinand Magellan had came in to our country in 1521. And how we could remove this “slavery” in our country? Simple, by 2 ways: 1) Great education and 2) There should be a tough Anti-Slavery Law in our country that could criminalize the practice of slavery and either the perpetrator should either face a hefty fine, imprisonment or through death penalty. I don’t know if that kind of law is now exist in our country or if this one is still pending both on the Tongress or Senate, but if there is will the Filipino people gonna follow that law? Only time will tell.