Filipinos demand respect. Trouble is, they don’t know how to earn it. This dynamic is clearly evident in the relationship between China and the Philippines. The Philippines has all the paperwork to substantiate its entitlement to respect. It has, for one thing, a ruling from an international tribunal to wave at China when engaged in discussions over territorial claims and navigation rights in these contested zones. It also has immigration laws to bring to bear when regarding the matter of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals residing and working in the Philippines.
And yet, China does not respect any of these.
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For that matter, is it only the Chinese that don’t respect Filipinos? Perhaps this is an opportune time for Filipinos to look into a mirror for answers. Take Filipino drivers. They are obliged to respect not only traffic rules but also one another. The principles underlying this obligation are simple. Firstly, traffic rules are there to be obeyed and, second, all drivers share public roads and, therefore, are called to respect one another’s share of it.
In practice, however, Filipino drivers are anything but law-abiding nor respectful of one another. They flout traffic rules as a matter of routine and even as a matter of personal pride. They cut one another off on the road and endanger people’s lives by speeding, driving vehicles that are not road-worthy, drink-driving, and jostling even with pedestrians.
Step back even further and one will regard an astounding landscape of ingrained disrespect in Philippine society. Filipinos litter, talk loudly, piss on public streets, jump queues, chew with their mouths open, sing and play loud music at the wee hours of the night, leave manholes uncovered, allow mangy pet dogs loose on streets, and cook foul-smelling food in crowded apartment buildings. All of these are habits perpetuated with no regard for community standards and the wellbeing of others.
In short, Filipinos don’t respect Filipinos!
The important question is therefore a confronting one. In a society where respect is in such short supply, how then can Filipinos demand respect from Chinese people? They cannot. Because sustainable respect can only come when it is earned. Filipinos should therefore pause and take a hard look at themselves and ask if they deserve respect.
For that matter, even if demanding respect may sometimes deliver results, Filipinos do not possess the means to do even that. Demanding respect requires power. In global politics, power comes in the form of money and guns. The recent incident involving a Chinese vessel allegedly ramming and sinking a boat and then leaving its Filipino crew to die demands retribution out of respect for the victims. The trouble is, the Philippines lacks the means to hunt down the offenders and give them a good slapping to teach them some important lessons about the respect its people now demand.
We may quibble over what is wrong or right all we want. Ultimately, however, when it comes to walking that talk and effecting both consequence and reward for wrong-doers and good-doers respectively, one needs to have the tangible capability to deliver what is coming to the other. Whatever issues Filipinos may have with China — and vice versa — is between the Philippines and China. Developing a healthy mutual respect between the two parties is something only both can work on. For that, a healthy ounce of self respect is essential.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Thus the need for more rules/regulations/enforcers/lawyers in PH.
“Bawal umihi dito” is a sign you can only find in “only in da Pilipins”. And since that sign is not floating on the sea, Chinese tourists take it to mean they can pee all they want in El Nido’s pristine crystal blue waters, esp. since there’s no way Duterte’s gonna catch them too right?
Good thing there are hundreds of virgin beaches yet to be uncovered. “Proud to be eating Penoy! Senya na kalat at amoy mga tol; at least biodegradable ang egg shells diva? “
More informed middle to upper class Filipinos are increasingly becoming overly environmentally conscious though – which could be a good sign. Respect for the environment is fast outweighing that for fellowmen.
Capital punishment being meted out to litterbugs of plastic is not that far fetched an idea. A likely scenario if Sara becomes president – with her “taping at malasakit” slogan turning out to mean the latter word as referring to the Environment instead of bronze-skinned Homo sapiens.
Then back to our good ol’ jeepney: isn’t it utter disdain for the value of one’s passenger’s lives to be counting loose change while speeding down the highway? Are a few measly pesos really all that’s worth of those 18 souls on board your mobile coffin?
Respect- truly a lonely word in a consumer-driven nation with no shortage of hungry mouths to feed.
Filipino OFW slaves are working in China, as household help. Not only in China, but throughout the world. Our international reputation, is : “supplier of household helps”, working for slaves’ conditions and for slaves’ pay. OFW slaves can be abused by their slave masters as long as they want.
Trillanes and Pnoy Aquino, sold the Scarborough Shoals, to the Chinese. They even sold the mountains in the Philippines, that allowed the Chinese to use as landfills. This was done, when Trillanes, did a “backdoor diplomacy” in China, at the order of Pnoy Aquino.
Now, the Chinese expanded the Scarborough Shoals, turned it into a military base; threatening the security of the Philippines. How corrupt can Trillanes and Pnoy Aquino get ?
Tell me, do Filipinos deserved Respect from the Chinese ? Absolutely not…their leaders are too corrupt, that they are selling Philippine territories and mountains, under the noses of their own people.
And, their own leaders, are selling Filipinos as OFW slaves, to foreign masters.
Filipinos accepted their fates, without any complaint or whimper….
Do we really deserve respect, from the international community ?
Can we do something along the line of an “eye for an eye” and retaliate within the confines of our territory? We have millions of Chinese in the Philippines and perhaps we can make an example of 22 of them who are in all kinds of criminal wrongdoing, prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, and jail them forever. Would that be sufficient to earn a modicum of respect? Maybe. But we have to be prepared for what may come next from the Chinese.
The respect that Pilipinos understand is about “kindness”, like the way a Master treats his/her pet dog with kindness, and in return the dog respect you, so it’s nothing more but a Master/Pet relationship.
In a human to human relationship, respect demands equality that is one must show and prove to the other that they have the same level or even higher level of intelligence. But how can this happen in the Pilipino society when the system of education is meant to be unequal.
“In global politics, power comes in the form of money and guns.”
That wouldn’t be any different from the law of the jungle. Any bully can acquire a gun and act like he’s the king. If the other party doesn’t know about respect, then show it- esp. if you’re positioning yourself as a superpower. It’s how you “sustain” respect from everybody in the long run.
Character — the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life — is the source from which self-respect springs.
Now I would like to make a comment on this latest blog of @Benign0 regarding on “respect” & especially on a recent news regarding on the ramming incident of a small wooden made Filipino fishing boat by a huge & modernized Chinese fishing boat. And later today that Pres. Duterte will go to a small town of Occidental Mindoro which is home to the survivors of the Filipino fishermen of the said incident & he’ll talk to those survivors to tell the story about it. But then if our president shown a copy of an investigative report coming from the Chinese embassy that the reason why it happened on that said incident is due to some of the Filipino fishermen side had shown a disrespect or rude attitudes to the Chinese fishermen who are on their own fishing vessel and many of them flip a middle finger salute & a cussing words from the Filipino fishermen & later on the Chinese fishermen got insulted to their immoral actions, so they’d intended to ram their small wooden boat to show their moral lesson to them but those Filipino fishermen just like our corrupt officials & Filipino criminals will surely deny this allegations. And imagine if that will make a headline to the mainstream & social media to our country & the rest of the world, then surely this will be a slap to our face showing that we are really unfriendly, rude & arrogant people. Just ask the Australian basketball team when they had a brawl with the Team Gilas Pilipinas last year. ?
If this will be the way of thinking and sentiment of GRP-reading Filipinos about the Recto Bank incident, then the Chinese need not even have to explain anything. They’ll just let the pseudo-intelligent cheerleaders deliver the message and speak for them and it’s alright! Wow, simply respectable!