Filipino Culture

If you, like many Filipinos, have lost hope in the Philippines and have mentally labeled it as a “Lost Cause”.  Don’t lose hope…  Not just yet.  There’s one other “hopeless” poor and Catholic country that managed to get its cultural, economic, and political act together.  We can look to IRELAND for a real life historical example of how we can rise up as a people and as a nation.

Ireland was exactly like the Philippines as recently as a few decades ago:

People wanted to emigrate the fuck out. As in immediately.  Starting with the Irish Potato Famine, Ireland began losing a large chunk of its population to emigration.  Just as in the Philippines–10% of Pinoys live outside the Philippines.

A hidebound and dogmatic Catholic Church made sure the country stayed assbackwards  The Irish Catholic hierarchy had a strong voice in national politics.  So much so that birth control and, later, legal abortion, took awhile to become law.  The Philippine Catholic Church has spearheaded the successful drives against many birth control initiatives.

Anemic economy.  The Irish economy was stagnant for most of the 1800s and 1900s.  The Philippines, post-Marcos era, has been the “Sick Man of Asia”.  In fact, Vietnam and, soon, Cambodia will overtake us in economic development.

Crappy infrastructure.  Irish road mileage, until recently, couldn’t compare to other European countries.  The Philippines, likewise, has lagged in infrastructure development and maintenance.

Insurrection/Rebellion.  The Northern Ireland issue was a constant thorn in Ireland’s side until recently.  The Philippines has a decades old Maoist insurgency and Islamic rebellion to deal with.

In terms of culture, many Irish were considered by some racists as “worse than blacks” when it comes to sexual morality, industriousness, and general civility. Many of the more “respectable” WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) would call them “green niggers”. This is very similar to how our Northern Asian and advanced ASEAN neighbors would consider Filipinos as “lower” than them.

Irish prostitutes filled brothels wherever in the world the Irish emigrated.  The same could be said of Filipina bar girls, “entertainers”, and massage parlor staffers.

Irish men were often derided by other ethnic groups as drunks, lazy, and “good for nothing”.  One need only read your typical Pinoy forum to see this instances of this “observation”.

For years, the Irish bore the mental wounds and low self-esteem wrought by centuries of English coloinialism and subjugation.

In America, Irish were so universally looked down upon and derided that it took a while for Americans to consider them WHITE. See: How the Irish Became White

Irish Resurgence and Development

But until the recent economic meltdown, Ireland has become one of the THE investment destinations in the EU. Many Irish who emigrated in the past started flowing back. Real estate boomed. The economy rocked. The war in Northern Ireland finally became a political issue instead of a military confrontation.  How did they do it?  A change in cultural mindset.  This change in mindset enabled Irish leaders to pass tax cuts and other economic incentives that allowed the economy to boom.

Ireland’s ascent, the same as Scotland’s ascent in the 1700s, and Japan’s in 1800′s PROVE that Cultural Change can bring about Economic and Political progress.  If they can do it, what’s stopping us?