THE CLASSIC PHILIPPINE DRAMA

There goes the poor Pearl of the Orient Seas, left alone with nothing. Its children are way too busy working out their lives to even notice that she is stripped of her pearl, standing naked in front of them. Stripped of her dignity, sovereignty and beauty, exposed and defenseless, she tries so hard to cover her nakedness with juicy celebrity scoops, epic boxing and basketball matches and teleseryes to pass the time. What once was a glorious, lustrous and magnificent Pearl of the Orient Seas now contents itself with temporary concealers that never do any good to cover her aching soul, looking distantly at her children.

            With roughly twenty-five million poor Filipinos, more than two million unemployed individuals, twenty-one new cases of people with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) every day, one out of ten young Filipinas aged 15-19 pregnant, unresolved territorial dispute, rampant corruption… how can the Filipinos still manage to smile?

            It’s no secret that the Philippines is a struggling country. It is evident enough that one needs not to even try to be observant. From the point of view of a common citizen, many people have grown weary of the daily news filled with killings, corrupt officials, rising economy with no impact to common people- just plain hopeless endless cycle of bad news. Somehow, the people have devised a way to battle the negativity that surrounds them. That is, by growing immune to the routine: the tedious abysmal plunge to darkness and uncertainty of the many facets of the Philippines as a nation.

They’re tired enough fighting every day to feed their hungry family, doing a job that never pays enough, trying hard to keep their sanity and their spirit to keep them living and working. They have learned to turn a blind eye, mastered the art of being numb because they have already endured too much pain and difficulties. In order to mask the pain, many Filipinos manage to smile despite the many problems they face. As they say, fake it till you make it. Some people are fascinated with this smile while others think it absurd to smile when they have lost everything after a great typhoon or flood. But what is there left to lose when they have lost everything? So they smile, smile the brightest smile they can, because at the end of the day, they want to see themselves fight. When they have been hurt too much and they are just too worn-out to cry, they smile and mock the face of their many obstacles.

          The Philippines may be a developing country but it is also a country of resilient, creative, hardworking and spirited individuals. It is a nation of survivors, masters of adapting to various kinds of hardships since time immemorial. It is very definitive that no matter how the Filipinos seem discorded at times, there is always a moment when they unite for a single cause. With the rate the Philippines is going, it needs more moments of unity to catch up with its Southeast Asian neighbors.  It is one thing to progress as an individual and another to progress as a nation. Why advance alone when both can be done at the same time? To accomplish this, massive reform is needed from top to bottom, inside out, both as an individual and a Filipino citizen. Even so, Filipinos believe in miracles. It wouldn’t be that hard to make one- not for the nearly one hundred million strong determined Filipinos.