Why save the Filipino culture

Why save Filipino culture Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 04:08:00 05/14/2011 Filed Under: Culture (general), Graft & Corruption, Religion & Belief I ONCE listened to a homily of a priest-friend who said it is the degenerating Filipino culture that is the culprit behind our present difficulties. I agree: a malignancy afflicts our culture. Government anomalies no longer scandalize us. Corruption and immorality no longer outrage us. We have become numb to heinous crimes. We are no longer incensed by the arrogance of the powers-that-be. We no longer cringe in the face of brazen dishonesty, blatant lying and lawlessness. We have grown used to social iniquities. We know the gravity and danger of ?small sins,? yet we tolerate them. We claim to be a Christian country yet we do a lot of things that are unchristian. Gone are the old traditional Filipino values of bayanihan, pakikisama, pakikipagkapwa-tao, paggalang, etc. The government has had a big role in destroying our culture of the past. With its power and influence, it has slowly instilled in many of us its crooked values, practices and ways?dishonesty, cheating, corruption, disloyalty and disrespect for life and property. We are as if we are back under the yoke of colonizers. Because of their colonizers? strong influence over a long period of time, our forebears fell into apathy and low self-esteem, and they developed a willingness to be exploited and abused. We manifest these attitudes in similar fashion these days. Let us reject these ghastly attitudes and their accompanying evils. Let us be agents of cultural change. Let us revive and preserve our traditional Filipino values. It is only then that we can bring back our country to its old glory. REGINALD B. TAMAYO, reginaldtamayo@yahoo.com