Dear Friend,
I truly enjoyed your letter and agree with most of your insight in the downward spiral of our country. I left the Philippines in 1963 when we were second only to Japan in the economy and first in Asia in education and in mastery of the English language so much so that many Asian countries send their citizens here if only to gain education and learn he English language. I was so excit3d that I remember excitedly telling my dad, who saw me off on the ship to San Francisco, "Pagbabalik ko number 1 na tayo!" I did not get the chance to return until a decade later and to my amazement our country was rapidly deteriorating!
May I be bold to lay the major part of the blame to the CHURCH, which has become inutil and irrelevant in its mandate to Proclaim the Gospel and disciple its adherents into the teachings of The Lord Jesus Christ. This is supported by our IGNORANCE of the Scriptures. The Church had become a habit, a tradition, nothing more. The Life-changing Gospel is glaringly absent in its teachings.
What when we see Bishops going to Malacanang and taking bribes!! When a mass is said in the palace among crooks who assuaged their consciences with a bunch of mambo-jumbo and leaving worst than they first came.
The Church has lost (Don't really think they had it) the life and heart changing GOspel. I teach Bible Study in the campus of a local University here in Dagupan and am appalled at the lack of, even a hint, of scriptural knowledge among the devout Catholics that attend. They are devoid of spirituality though deeply religious!
Prayer is our only hope, GOd's people banging on heaven's gates asking for mercy and grace.
Until the Nets are Full,
Douglas G. Chanco
Dagupan City
May the Lord's peace and joy be with you today and always.
Your Brother In Christ,
Doug (Matt 25:40)
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Pathetic situation
Pathetic situation
To Mr. Tamayo,
I have read your write-up published in the Inquirer newspaper. I find your views and assessment of thePhilippines' current social predicament worth reading and sharing to the public. I, too, find the situation pathetic, to say the least. It is saddening to see our values have gone corrupted. It is when we reached the point of complacence and indifference that positive changes and hope seem remote.
I am Psychology professor, by the way, and I try to do my humble share of making a difference in educating our students to be morally and socially responsive persons.
Thank you for sharing your time and views.
Amapola Lustre
To Mr. Tamayo,
I have read your write-up published in the Inquirer newspaper. I find your views and assessment of thePhilippines' current social predicament worth reading and sharing to the public. I, too, find the situation pathetic, to say the least. It is saddening to see our values have gone corrupted. It is when we reached the point of complacence and indifference that positive changes and hope seem remote.
I am Psychology professor, by the way, and I try to do my humble share of making a difference in educating our students to be morally and socially responsive persons.
Thank you for sharing your time and views.
Amapola Lustre
People should change
People should change
I agree that the Philippine culture is getting worse. I am a foreigner living in the Philippines and have seen it get worse each year. I also agree that politics is a big reason. One can not get elected without some sort of illegal activity. The people come to expect and yes hold out their hand to receive the expected rewards of voting for one person. The politicians expect to get power and yes more money from their election. Why would you spend millions of peso for a job that only pays thousands? You must also understand that the Philippines is not very christian. Their largest church has much to be ashamed of.
It has been said that you can not change a country without changing the people. I do not see the people changing.
From:
Tom
I agree that the Philippine culture is getting worse. I am a foreigner living in the Philippines and have seen it get worse each year. I also agree that politics is a big reason. One can not get elected without some sort of illegal activity. The people come to expect and yes hold out their hand to receive the expected rewards of voting for one person. The politicians expect to get power and yes more money from their election. Why would you spend millions of peso for a job that only pays thousands? You must also understand that the Philippines is not very christian. Their largest church has much to be ashamed of.
It has been said that you can not change a country without changing the people. I do not see the people changing.
From:
Tom
Role of the colonizer
I read your letter in the PDI,
This is the only former colony of Spain that I ever hear still saying all their social problems come from the Colonizer...
I think Pinoys should grow up and take responsibility for their own problems.. every week or so in the media we read somebody else blame Marcos for our lousy economy.. when its all BS..our lousy economy is due to our closed and restrictive over burdensome Constitution, and the domination of our business world by Tsinoys... rather than Pinoys!
Nobody in South or Central America and certainly not Mexico, Guam or Puerto Rico ever blames Spain for any of their troubles. Spain hasn't been here for more than 100 yrs, and the U.S. has been out for more than 50 yrs...
Any problems we have are of our own making!, We have a lousy Govt. because we elect lousy people... Why would we knowingly elect a do-nothing president just because of his mama and papa, when he did absolutely zero while in congress and the senate??
That kind of behavior, electing trapos like Binay and crazy people like Jamby is our problem, NOT some antiquated relationship with Spain!
Most grade school and high school students DO NOT even know anything about Spain and how we came to be called the Philippines, ask any of them who Philip II was and they have no idea...
Our former Colonizer is the least of our many problems and has nothing to do with our weak, and soft mentality.... Spain had nothing to do with our Pres. kissing the ass of China only to see the drug runners executed anyway.. Our neighbors all know we are weak and soft.. the Prime Ministers of both Sinapore and Maylaysia wrote scholarly papers about our weak soft behavior... The Problem is US not Spain!
sincerely,
jose luis pidal
This is the only former colony of Spain that I ever hear still saying all their social problems come from the Colonizer...
I think Pinoys should grow up and take responsibility for their own problems.. every week or so in the media we read somebody else blame Marcos for our lousy economy.. when its all BS..our lousy economy is due to our closed and restrictive over burdensome Constitution, and the domination of our business world by Tsinoys... rather than Pinoys!
Nobody in South or Central America and certainly not Mexico, Guam or Puerto Rico ever blames Spain for any of their troubles. Spain hasn't been here for more than 100 yrs, and the U.S. has been out for more than 50 yrs...
Any problems we have are of our own making!, We have a lousy Govt. because we elect lousy people... Why would we knowingly elect a do-nothing president just because of his mama and papa, when he did absolutely zero while in congress and the senate??
That kind of behavior, electing trapos like Binay and crazy people like Jamby is our problem, NOT some antiquated relationship with Spain!
Most grade school and high school students DO NOT even know anything about Spain and how we came to be called the Philippines, ask any of them who Philip II was and they have no idea...
Our former Colonizer is the least of our many problems and has nothing to do with our weak, and soft mentality.... Spain had nothing to do with our Pres. kissing the ass of China only to see the drug runners executed anyway.. Our neighbors all know we are weak and soft.. the Prime Ministers of both Sinapore and Maylaysia wrote scholarly papers about our weak soft behavior... The Problem is US not Spain!
sincerely,
jose luis pidal
Still, imagine
Theres The Rub
Still, imagine
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:47:00 05/16/2011
Filed Under: Culture (general), Religions
Most Read
There were a couple of interesting letters in this paper over the weekend.
One was from Benjamin Mallorca Jr. who said he felt moved by my column on the 9-year-old Japanese kid who gave to others though he himself had lost everything. The kid had lost all his family to the tsunami, but after being given rations by a cop as he queued up at a food line, he brought the rations to the distributing officer so others could partake of them.
Mallorca agreed with me that “the Japanese boy and Vietnamese cop are not Christians, yet as the story showed us, they had more Christian charity than we do, and they demonstrated a capacity for self-sacrifice more than we Filipinos do.”
“How soon will we Filipinos, who are mostly Christians, transform our society into one that can produce a generation of Filipinos with values like those of the 9-year-old Japanese orphan? When can we produce a generation of Filipinos who ‘understand the concept of self-sacrifice for the greater good’? Or will we just remain as we are now, mired in the culture of corruption, where selfishness and greed are (rife)?”
The other letter was from Reginald Tamayo, which runs along the same lines. “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.
“It’s as if we’re back under the yoke of the colonizers… 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.”
Tamayo goes on to call on us to revive bayanihan, pakikisama, and pakikipagkapwa-tao so “we can bring back our country to its old glory.”
These are thoughtful letters and reflect an ache that is widespread among, well, the thoughtful. And again it compels us to ask if religion—or at least the kind of religion we’ve known, which, courtesy of the friars, is not altogether removed from superstition—is not a factor, and a huge one, in the culture of backwardness blighting the country.
I remember in this respect an Australian (whose name escapes me now) who incensed a lot of people here a couple of decades ago by writing letters and articles blaming Catholicism, or our brand of it, for pretty nearly every ill in this country. It was the one thing that stood in the path of science and reason, he said, things that have long held sway in the civilized world. If he had to name one factor that thoroughly screwed up the Filipino, he said, it was that.
From the other end, Tony Meloto, the founder of Gawad Kalinga, notes the same thing but finds it totally unacceptable. We are the one predominantly Catholic country in Asia, he says, but we are also the one country that has fallen far behind, home to a teeming poor and even more teeming hopelessness. He believes that that should not be the case. He believes the opposite should be so, that the power of the Catholic faith lies especially in being given to tending to the poor—Christ was so, and did—and can be employed magnificently toward that end. He at least walks the talk.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. The problem is not religion, or even the Catholic faith per se, it is the kind of religion or Catholic faith we have. True enough, as Tamayo says, we never seemed to have shirked off the colonial yoke, and a good deal of the reason for that lies in the mental yoke the friars bequeathed to us, a set of beliefs that conduces dysfunctional behavior.
At the very least it encourages self-centeredness. You do only as much as is necessary to save yourself, or your soul from perdition. In fact you can buy a berth in heaven by accumulating indulgences the way you accumulate money in the bank. Such as by donating to the Church, which many landlords fearing for their souls did on their deathbeds in Spanish times. Contrast that with what the 9-year-old Japanese boy did, which was to share what little he had, or what virtually nothing was left to him, for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do, for no other reason than that it was the only thing he knew how to do. It had nothing to do with saving his soul, it had nothing to do with feeling big-hearted, it had nothing to do with, well, being Christian.
At the very most, it is a system of beliefs given to form over substance, to ritual over essence. Why worry about corruption? All you have to do is hear Mass and receive the sacraments, preferably before dying, and you’re good. You can spend the rest of your days, lying, cheating and stealing, or even murdering. I bet GMA considers herself a very good Catholic.
The opposition to the RH bill is a variation on that theme. The people who do so feel a lot more fervor for the “unborn children” (who must number in the trillions if you include concupiscent youth jerking off) than for the born ones, the ones who forage in the mountains of trash or sleep the effects of cough syrup in the sidewalks of the city. They would rather defend the mythical existence of the “unborn children” than the existence of the very ones who have neither the life of the body nor the life of the soul, neither the life of the heart nor the life of the mind, whose existence is slow-motion suicide, if not homicide. What is this but form over substance? What is this but ritual over reality? What is this but saying, “I love humanity—it’s people I hate”?
Still, imagine.
Still, imagine
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 21:47:00 05/16/2011
Filed Under: Culture (general), Religions
Most Read
There were a couple of interesting letters in this paper over the weekend.
One was from Benjamin Mallorca Jr. who said he felt moved by my column on the 9-year-old Japanese kid who gave to others though he himself had lost everything. The kid had lost all his family to the tsunami, but after being given rations by a cop as he queued up at a food line, he brought the rations to the distributing officer so others could partake of them.
Mallorca agreed with me that “the Japanese boy and Vietnamese cop are not Christians, yet as the story showed us, they had more Christian charity than we do, and they demonstrated a capacity for self-sacrifice more than we Filipinos do.”
“How soon will we Filipinos, who are mostly Christians, transform our society into one that can produce a generation of Filipinos with values like those of the 9-year-old Japanese orphan? When can we produce a generation of Filipinos who ‘understand the concept of self-sacrifice for the greater good’? Or will we just remain as we are now, mired in the culture of corruption, where selfishness and greed are (rife)?”
The other letter was from Reginald Tamayo, which runs along the same lines. “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.
“It’s as if we’re back under the yoke of the colonizers… 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.”
Tamayo goes on to call on us to revive bayanihan, pakikisama, and pakikipagkapwa-tao so “we can bring back our country to its old glory.”
These are thoughtful letters and reflect an ache that is widespread among, well, the thoughtful. And again it compels us to ask if religion—or at least the kind of religion we’ve known, which, courtesy of the friars, is not altogether removed from superstition—is not a factor, and a huge one, in the culture of backwardness blighting the country.
I remember in this respect an Australian (whose name escapes me now) who incensed a lot of people here a couple of decades ago by writing letters and articles blaming Catholicism, or our brand of it, for pretty nearly every ill in this country. It was the one thing that stood in the path of science and reason, he said, things that have long held sway in the civilized world. If he had to name one factor that thoroughly screwed up the Filipino, he said, it was that.
From the other end, Tony Meloto, the founder of Gawad Kalinga, notes the same thing but finds it totally unacceptable. We are the one predominantly Catholic country in Asia, he says, but we are also the one country that has fallen far behind, home to a teeming poor and even more teeming hopelessness. He believes that that should not be the case. He believes the opposite should be so, that the power of the Catholic faith lies especially in being given to tending to the poor—Christ was so, and did—and can be employed magnificently toward that end. He at least walks the talk.
The truth is probably somewhere in between. The problem is not religion, or even the Catholic faith per se, it is the kind of religion or Catholic faith we have. True enough, as Tamayo says, we never seemed to have shirked off the colonial yoke, and a good deal of the reason for that lies in the mental yoke the friars bequeathed to us, a set of beliefs that conduces dysfunctional behavior.
At the very least it encourages self-centeredness. You do only as much as is necessary to save yourself, or your soul from perdition. In fact you can buy a berth in heaven by accumulating indulgences the way you accumulate money in the bank. Such as by donating to the Church, which many landlords fearing for their souls did on their deathbeds in Spanish times. Contrast that with what the 9-year-old Japanese boy did, which was to share what little he had, or what virtually nothing was left to him, for no other reason than that it was the right thing to do, for no other reason than that it was the only thing he knew how to do. It had nothing to do with saving his soul, it had nothing to do with feeling big-hearted, it had nothing to do with, well, being Christian.
At the very most, it is a system of beliefs given to form over substance, to ritual over essence. Why worry about corruption? All you have to do is hear Mass and receive the sacraments, preferably before dying, and you’re good. You can spend the rest of your days, lying, cheating and stealing, or even murdering. I bet GMA considers herself a very good Catholic.
The opposition to the RH bill is a variation on that theme. The people who do so feel a lot more fervor for the “unborn children” (who must number in the trillions if you include concupiscent youth jerking off) than for the born ones, the ones who forage in the mountains of trash or sleep the effects of cough syrup in the sidewalks of the city. They would rather defend the mythical existence of the “unborn children” than the existence of the very ones who have neither the life of the body nor the life of the soul, neither the life of the heart nor the life of the mind, whose existence is slow-motion suicide, if not homicide. What is this but form over substance? What is this but ritual over reality? What is this but saying, “I love humanity—it’s people I hate”?
Still, imagine.
Why save the Filipino culture
INQUIRER OPINION - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Why save Filipino culture
Philippine Daily Inquirer
May 14, 2011
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
©2011 www.inquirer.net all rights reserved
Send your feedback here
< Back
Why save Filipino culture
Philippine Daily Inquirer
May 14, 2011
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
©2011 www.inquirer.net all rights reserved
Send your feedback here
< Back
Friday, May 13, 2011
Decaying Filipino Culture
Decaying Filipino Culture
Published in May 14, 2011 Free Press Issue
A priest who’s a friend of mine once said in a homily that the culprit in our difficulties is our declining culture. I agree. We are no longer scandalized by scams in the government. We are not outraged anymore by corruption and immorality among our officials. We are no longer incensed by the arrogance of the powers that be. We have become numb to heinous crimes. We seem to have accepted that all this is part of our culture. The government, instead of being the agent of change, is dictating its values to us. This cannot go on. We must deconstruct our culture and return to the traditional values that have made us Filipinos by practicing them—starting now.
—Reginald B. Tamayo, Marikina City
Published in May 14, 2011 Free Press Issue
A priest who’s a friend of mine once said in a homily that the culprit in our difficulties is our declining culture. I agree. We are no longer scandalized by scams in the government. We are not outraged anymore by corruption and immorality among our officials. We are no longer incensed by the arrogance of the powers that be. We have become numb to heinous crimes. We seem to have accepted that all this is part of our culture. The government, instead of being the agent of change, is dictating its values to us. This cannot go on. We must deconstruct our culture and return to the traditional values that have made us Filipinos by practicing them—starting now.
—Reginald B. Tamayo, Marikina City
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