Isabelle Duterte should not be faulted for simply being herself.
Evidently, Inquirer columnist Rina Jimenez-David set out to write another unimaginative piece on presidential granddaughter Isabelle Duterte, the latest outrage fad her Yellowtard community is feasting on. This is not the point of my article here. The more interesting insights to be gleaned from Jimenez-David’s piece lies in what can be read between the lines.
The biggest nugget of insight is in how Jimenez-David describes what Christmas means to her…
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Even as we try to squeeze out every second from our days, every last bit of our energy, every effing centavo still left in our wallets — just to stage the holiday feasting we’ve gotten used to — why are we obsessing about a young woman’s gowns and chutzpah?
Jimenez-David, it seems, takes the whole victim mentality cancer afflicting Philippine society to a whole new level, painting herself as a victim of no less than the Christmas season itself! Imagine our shock making mantak the notion that we consumers are such hapless victims of what is otherwise supposed to be such a “blessed” season. It is, after all, quite a “sacrifice” to prepare for all that “feasting”.
What Jimenez-David is really a victim of is her own self-imprisonment in a web of consumerist tradition of her own making. We can thank American imperialism for that (to suck up a bit to commie sensibilities). But that would be the easy thinking pathway to take. The more intelligent path is to reflect on why we, as a people, choose to remain “victims” — of anything or anyone for that matter. The journey down that smarter pathway begins with embracing simple truths around what Jimenez-David’s victim mentality is doing to us. Here are some. Isabelle Duterte’s gown does not victimise people, the police do not victimise people, the rich do not victimise people. The truth about poverty is a lot more simple:
Poor people victimise themselves.
And, no, the government is not responsible for “uplifting” the poor because, get this, the POOR are responsible for uplifting the poor. The job of the government is to create the right environment for that to happen. Perhaps there is some work that still needs to be done to achieve that. But it is important that the right expectations are set so that the sense of entitlement poor people are encouraged to nurture in their minds is stamped out once and for all.
Bleeding heart liberals should just let rich people be rich people. The reason the rich prefer to distance themselves from the “plight” of the poor is because life is too short. You either move forward or get dragged backward by emotional baggage such as what Jimenez-David and her ilk exhibit here. The difference between prosperous people and the chronically poor is that the earlier look forward while the latter wallow in the present or, worse, the past.
The more important point Jimenez-David inadvertently makes lies in her closing statement…
Thank you, Isabelle, for giving us something to chew on even as we watch our Christmas bonus dwindling into nothingness. Now at least we have someone to blame.
Indeed, whilst the financially poor rely on cash dole outs from the rich, the intellectually-impoverished too rely on the rich to throw them memetic morsels that their stunted minds can “chew on”. That’s not the fault of the rich any more than it is not our fault that the surplus food we throw out becomes food for flies, cockroaches, and other bottom-feeders.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
>> It is, after all, quite a “sacrifice” to prepare for all that “feasting”.
That’s totally hilarious. Filipinos with a hangdog expression on their faces, busy “making sacrifices”, in the middle of what is supposedly a celebration of humankind’s salvation.
>> Poor people victimise themselves. And, no, the government is not responsible for “uplifting” the poor because, get this, the POOR are responsible for uplifting the poor. The job of the government is to create the right environment for that to happen.
Indeed. Now, how to get poor people to get that?
Data on the personal life of Paolo Duterte in Wiki reveals that her daughter Isabelle Lovelie Duterte was born January 26, 2000 which, of course, means that Isabelle is still “below eighteen (18) years of age.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paolo_Duterte
Sec. 3 (Definition of Terms) of R.A. 7610 (otherwise known as the “Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act”) approved 1992 defines, among others, the following terms:
http://www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1992/06/17/republic-act-no-7610/
(a) “Children” refers to person below eighteen (18) years of age xxx”
(b) “Child abuse” refers to the maltreatment, whether habitual or not, of the child which includes any of the following:”
xxx
“(2) Any act by deeds or words which debases, degrades or demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of a child as a human being.”
In short, “words which debases, degrades or demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of a child as a human being” constitute “child abuse” which applies to Isabelle who is stll seventeen (17) years of age.
NOTE: RA 9231, approved 19 Dec 2001, amended only the provisions of RA 7610 concerning “child labor.”
http://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2003/ra_9231_2003.html
Sadly, in today’s (19th December) Inquirer. Net “At Large” column, Rina Jimenez David haughtily avers:
“What likely gravely offends, I might add, is the attitude of contempt, arrogance, abuse and shameless self-promotion displayed, not just by the debutante-to-be, but by all the personages surrounding her, including and especially her grandfather.”
http://opinion.inquirer.net/109587/thank-you-isabelle
To repeat the hatred in the words David employed above which doubtless “debases, degrades or demeans the intrinsic worth and dignity of” the debutante-to-be granddaughter of the President of the Republic:
“the attitude of contempt, arrogance, abuse and shameless self-promotion displayed by … the debutante-to-be.”
Most parents or “grandparents”(like me) would understandably interpret David’s harsh words to mean as defined by law to be “child abuse.”
The rich and poor are designed to co-exist socially. The poor needs the rich because they provide them jobs. The rich needs the poor because they provide them help in running their businesses. No modern society will operate smoothly with inputs only coming from the rich alone or the poor alone. In fact such society will collapse on its knees without the cooperation of both. All government needs both the capital and the manpower/skills to enable it to function and run its affairs.
Though I understand and agree how the message goes (perhaps, there’s something with words), if we are to consider poor parents of poor families as kinda oppressors, in a sense, victimizing innocent children by having them born in this of life of dire poverty and zero opportunity, how shall we consider then the responsibility of those people in power (government, businessmen, oligarchs) whose job is “to create the right environment for that to happen” but managed only to bring it to the upper half of the social strata but miserably failed to bring about that change for those who needed it most?
If we are to follow such thinking, then a whole cycle repeats, unfortunate poor babies who will grow up poor like their parents are responsible for having poor parents, unmindful rich babies can wallow in their inherited luxury and will go on with their privileged lives and passer-by governments will not claim being responsible for its leaders’ promises during the campaign, as usual, can come and go in a merry-go-round of dog-eats-dog society where survival’s instinct is the key to equality.
With automation, robotization and artificial intelligence (AI) the need for input (by humans) becomes less and less. The effected portion of the populatiopn has to do something about that. This together with other phenomenon (climate change) will result in mass migration to other parts of the world. It will also lead to civil war within countries.
Last but not least: the poor are not able to alleviate the poverty of their next door neighbour. They miss the (re)sources, knowledge, mindset (how to do that) and creativity. And even if they are able to alleviate the next door neighbours poverty, they will first use it on themselves so that they benefit most themselves (a matter of human nature and instinct)
Isabelle Duterte is the latest “cause” of blame game done by the YellowTards. She is now the cause why people are poor.
The poor are poor, because they do not think of improving themselves. Just go around the people. living around the garbage dumps, picking up recycled things, to sell, as their means of livelihood. Yet, you can see , they have many children, they cannot afford to feed.
The churches teach people, not to use birth control. So, the poor Filipinos reproduce like rabbits.
The poor will always be with us, because there are individuals, who have intelligence, guts and drive to become rich. There are individuals, who are content to live in poor condition. They are used to living in poverty !
goverment should just let the poor starve to death
The Poor are Poor in the Philippines because everything in the country has been stolen and locked up by an Oligarchy that pays off the Political class that throws peanuts to the peasants. If there is a consciousness in the Filipino people it should be smacked in the puss and given a good frikkin beating and then told to go take their country back from the scumbags that have stolen it………BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY !
OH, and MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!
No other being is lesser human than the one who thinks of others as such.
You were never known for charity and generosity to the less fortunate.
Rich people are the victims. How dare anyone think they are responsible for anything they don’t claim. The rich do not in any way depend on a pyramid of exploitation to prop up their existence. They are gods with no responsibility to the system that gives them meaning….in fact, we should be ashamed to differ from the opinions of the rich. Vote trump!
Spoken like a true whiny leftist troll.
Take your shitposting to somewhere else.