An Eye Opener

An excerpt from Chip Tsao's article about The Philippines being a "nation of servants"...

Manila has just claimed sovereignty over the scattered rocks in the South China Sea called the Spratly Islands, complete with a blatant threat from its congress to send gunboats to the South China Sea to defend the islands from China if necessary. This is beyond reproach. The reason: There are more than 130,000 Filipina maids working as HK$3,580-a-month cheap labor in Hong Kong. As a nation of servants, you don't flex your muscles at your master, from whom you earn most of your bread and butter.

As a patriotic Chinese man, the news has made my blood boil. I summoned Louisa, my domestic assistant who holds a degree in international politics from the University of Manila, hung a map on the wall, and gave her a harsh lecture. I sternly warned her that if she wants her wages increased next year, she had better tell everyone of her compatriots in Statue Square on Sunday that the entirety of the Spratly Islands belongs to China.

It is indeed degrading. But we cannot blame him for calling our people as such. He has his own opinion. It hurts but I guess, it's true. Fine, we ask the writer for a public apology, which the magazine did. But this issue should be dealt with seriousness. Fact is more Filipinos are mistreated not just in Hong Kong but in other parts of the world. This should be an eye opener for all of us. Specially for our government officials.

Our president should think of ways to improve our economy, our standard of living so that Filipino's won't have to leave the country to work abroad, and become slaves to other nations. Instead of sending our OFWs away, our government should create ways to make more jobs with decent pay, available for the people. Sad to say, our government only cares for the remittances from OFWs. Our president is even very proud to say that the large amount of our country's earnings came from the remittances of our beloved OFWs. They are even called the "new heroes" because our economy depends on them. What happened to us?

We should respect our selves in order to gain respect from others. The main issue of corruption should be dealt first. And so are the issues of deceit, crab-mentality, poverty and selfishness. We will always be servants in the eyes of other nations as long as we won't see that for ourselves. We should do something to regain our dignity and self respect.