Fil Garciano

I BSBA OM, Enderun Colleges

Philippine History, Government, & Constitution
Dr. Greg Samar

A Change In Times: A Brief Analysis and Reaction to Angeli Diamantes Article I Hate
This Country on the Philippine Daily Inquirer

A young professional and relatively recent graduate of the Ateneo de Manila
University, Angeli Diamante wrote an article for the Young Blood section of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer that was published on the 26
th
of June 2014. The article, named
I Hate This Country, encapsulates a mode of discourse and aggregate societal opinion
that is prevalent at this particular epoch of Philippine history. Diamante certainly captures
a dominant collective sentiment that is essentially a reflection in our collective psyche of
a very negative, aggregate reaction to major social stimuli (the Napoles fiasco, Typhoon
Haiyan, widening socio-economic disparity) that are transformed into preconditions that
necessitate a truly bleak view of the present health of societal structures and trends and an
unoptimistic outlook on our general future as a society. However, I am of the opinion that
there is something truly and distinctly positive in Diamantes article that sets it apart from
similar intellectual pieces scattered around social media these days and I will share this
opinion once we foreground it by beginning with a sound analysis of the contents of this
article.
To begin, I must say that I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments evoked by
Diamante on the pages of her article, as it is truly heart breaking to see us stagnating in
terms of social development amidst promises and predictions of national advancements in
terms of our booming economy and transforming political landscapes. This notion is
arguably very agreeable among most of our countrymen, as in recent years the Filipino
populace has made sweeping steps towards political reform in the electoral realm of our
democracy.
It is at that point where we begin the first part of our analysis. This yearning for
political reforms in 2010 was a social reaction to the political harshness and social
stagnation of the Arroyo presidency. It was during Gloria Arroyos regime when there
was wide electoral cheating as in the Hello Garci incident, numerous extra-judicial
killings of student radicals, massive fixing of government contracts to benefit
administration allies as in the NBN-ZTE Broadband controversy, and many others that
were symptoms of the larger problem of a cancerous Filipino social superstructure that
the Filipino citizens yearned to remedy.
So in the General Elections of 2010, the Filipino electorate acted on its yearnings
through the election of reformist legislators and local government officials, and of course
the election of the current President Benigno Aquino III whose identity and campaign
was centered on the idea of reinvigorating democracy through two main agendas: 1)
socio-political and socio-economic reform through countering corruption (Kung walang
corrupt, walang mahirap or If there is no corruption, there will be no poverty) and 2) a
shift in governmental political obligations from padrinos (godfathers) and other
individuals and institutions that contribute to political campaigns to the actual Filipino
citizenry (Kayo ang boss ko or You (the Filipino people) are my boss). Aquino won
the presidency with these political mantras, which rode on the Aquino brand of
democratic restoration that was fresh in the minds of the masses because of the 2009
death of former President Corazon Aquino.
The Aquino government, in spite of an administrative agenda that is far from
impeccable and various incidents that continue to cause serious problems in the Filipino
political and diplomatic climate, has no doubt acted on its two main points. This is shown
wonderfully by such things as government agency reshufflings and of course, by the two
major clean house agendas of the Aquino government: the Corona impeachment and
the Napoles trials. These two events garnered approval for the administrations anti-
corruption measures but at the same time caused massive social turmoil and political
uproar as an expression of outrage for the exposed corruptness of character and lifestyles
of the accused. This public outcry was fueled by the publicity of the debates and hearings
for these corruption cases; television and social media were filled to the brim with
pictures and anecdotes of the rampant corruption of several officials and Janet Napoles
herself, which severely angered the Filipino citizens.
This brings us to our second main point of analysis which is that public nature of
these issues allowed for the quick and solid formulation of opinions in the minds of a
large chunk of Filipinos; opinions that, of course, are negative. This negativity then
formed public discourse in such a way that discussions that are centered on critique and
analysis of Filipino social trajectory is now characterized by a looming sense of
pessimism and general negative attitudes towards Filipino society, culture, and especially
politics. This is well exemplified by the content and general mood conveyed by Diamante
in her article. There is a myriad of other articles aside from that of Diamantes whose
ideas are obviously responses to negative social stimuli such as the Napoles hearings.
One such article is a similarly titled piece called I Hate Filipino Culture by a blogger
called Jaywalker on his Blogspot account that garnered much attention from social
media participants. The contents of the article by Jaywalker has many similarities to that
of Diamante in the sense that it details strong negative feelings against such cultural
trends as traditional politicians, actor-politicians, or widening class disparities. Other
similar articles are associated with the loosely organized Filipino Free Thinkers, an
organization based predominantly on the Internet that uses online avenues to discuss
social issues, commonly with a theme of the necessity of aggressive changes within the
government and within society in general.
However, as mentioned in my first paragraph, there is one thing that sets apart the
content of Diamantes works from all the other intellectual pieces about the serious
problems plaguing Filipino society, and that is its recognition of a multifaceted cause of
these social cancers and the simultaneous rational exclusion of the victims in the form of
the marginalized. Diamante clearly emphasizes in her tirades the menacing role of
government officials in failing to actualize basic public service obligations such as
providing effective administrative guidance for mass transport entities, ensuring the
fulfillment of social welfare programs such as healthcare and education, or even fulfilling
their basic roles during natural calamities. Diamante does not stop there, however. She
drops criticisms on syndicates forcefully taking advantage of members of the
marginalized sector, syndicates that contribute to the atrocious negative perceptions of
the poor within the realm of public discourse. She also fervently attacks the media for
proliferating unintelligent and socially insignificant pieces of news that destroy the
caliber of public intellectualism in the country. She also beats the idea of Filipino
resilience in the face of calamity as an agent of complacency, pointing out that our
continuing to hide behind the mantra of Filipino resilience only induces a false sense of
comfort in front of natural calamities and reduces actual creation of preventive measures
that will minimize casualties and damage.
Those are what I point out to be as the multifaceted causes. On the other end, the
rationally exempted victims are indeed those who suffer under the aforementioned causes.
As she pointed out, there are those driven to move and work abroad to provide for their
families in the Philippines or the poor who are forced to live and survive under brutal
conditions among other things. These victims are the people who are unjustly bearing the
negative effects of social recklessness and the consequences of deliberate incompetence
and selfishness on the part of the government and the socio-cultural hegemons, and thus
could not be entirely blamed for many sins attributed to them by such bloggers as
Jaywalker. The mode of thinking represented by Jaywalker puts the blame on Filipinos,
particularly poor Filipinos, who he believes are, in their own individual capacities,
perpetuators of severe social flaws such as voting incompetent officials into office or
actively ignoring serious matters of debate in favor of the particular media frenzy of the
day. That mode of thinking is a very dominant force in todays cultural critique as shown
by the popularity and number of articles such as that of Jaywalkers. However, thinking
along those lines is seriously dangerous in the advancement of public intellectual
discourse as it fails to recognize the causalities that play a major part in the social decay
of our superstructure.
That is where Diamante succeeds; she analyzes the fundamental problems of
Filipino society in a multifaceted manner and recognizes the existence of victims in
society, and does not blame them. This method of critical analysis will be triumphant in
creating conclusive and significant conclusions, as it will be immune from misplaced
blaming and shallow observations that attack only surface problems. This mode of
critique evident in Diamantes article addresses the core problems of Filipino society in
its recognition of perpetrators and victims. Her article is, therefore, a beacon in
contemporary cultural critique and a reminder of how we should analyze cultural
problems.