First of all, I'm a Filipino citizen. Born and raised and living in the Philippines. I went to Philippine Science High School and am now in a state university. My surname's Chinese but I can't speak a word or it (okay, maybe a word or two). It doesn't change the fact that I was born a Filipino citizen and I don't think I'd want it any other way.
Second, the population of the Philippines is approximately 92 million. That's a lot of people. That's a whole lot of people. Some of them may be a bit dull, but surely there's at least one in 92 million people who isn't. And it's unfair to lump him with the 91,999,999 dumb people because he lives with them.
Now that's stretching the truth to breaking point. Remember the school I told you? Philippine Science High School? There are eleven campuses comprising the system: the main campus, found in Diliman, Quezon City, and ten regional campuses, one of which is found in Jaro, Iloilo City and which happens to be my alma mater. On top of that are two more campuses in the making. In the regional campuses, each of the four year levels are divided into three sections, whereas in the main campus there are eight sections. Each section has 30 students.
If you don't want to do the math, let me do it for you. There are at most 240 students per year level in the main campus, which amounts to 960 students maximum. Each of the regional campuses has 90 students per year level, which amounts to 360 students. That, multiplied by the ten campuses, plus the 960 from the main campus, amounts to 4560 science students with ages less than 18. Here's a news clipping about a few of them.
Here's another one featuring Fred Nyll Tupas, whom I know personally.
And here's a whole lot of them, featuring Carmela Antoinette Lao, whom I kind of came across when I was actively participating in these math thingies. I think she's one year younger than me.
Oh, and she's not one of the 4560 students from PSHS. She came from St. Jude Catholic School, which is not a part of the PSHS system fyi.
Okay so, now that I've presented the facts and the numbers, don't you think it's a bit unfair to label the whole Philippines as a bunch of pretty fucking stupid people simply because of one incident that happened in one place? You can say all you want about how it happens in the Philippines all the time but no, it doesn't. For the record, never have I seen a gun being used, except in the movies. Never have I seen a person die of a gunshot wound in front of me. Never have I been taken hostage, and never has anyone I know personally been taken hostage. I've lived in this country for seventeen years and chances are, you've seen more violence that I ever have, not counting the movies.
I don't condone what happened concerning the disgraced policeman. I don't condone the actions of the police, I don't condone how they handled it, I don't condone the fact that they received insufficient training. But, please, stop generalizing. Stop saying that the Filipinos are stupid because their police acted stupidly. Stop saying that the Filipinos hold tourist buses hostage because the Mendoza guy did. Stop, just stop. Not all the Filipinos are like that and it hurts when we're seen as such even if we've already done everything just to stay clean and actually be good citizens of the world.
~
On a lighter note, I want a pair of these:
No comments:
Post a Comment