A reply to you out there who disagree with me

There are those who were outraged by what I wrote last fortnight about us being shallow.

Let me reply by analogy. I like bagoong — salted fish sauce to you out there who are unaware of the food of the poor. I like caviar, too, on those very rare occasions that I am privileged to eat it. The uninitiated does not know the difference but this difference means nothing to me because I like both. How I wish caviar were available to more Filipinos — not just to the very rich.

Sure, there is depth in poverty. How many people have known this depth? I have! But having plumbed this depth is never enough. Many are stuck in the bowels of poverty because they lack the intelligence and the will to rise above it. Who will give these to them?

Sure, there is stupidity everywhere, even in the rarefied realm of academe. In the United States, they too have rag publications, trashy TV shows and true believers in those obscure and fanatic religious sects. But on the whole, the Americans can afford their shallowness, their garbage, even their big-scale corruption. We cannot; so many Filipinos eat only once a day.

To repeat, we are poor precisely because we are shallow. We elevate to the highest offices nitwits, cheats, thieves, ignoramuses because our shallow media have made them popular, and the dimwitted masa have sanctified them. This is democracy coño — so we punish ourselves because we legitimize our own despoilers.

Am I a Filipino basher? Of course, I am, because there are many cockroaches in our midst. Even I, sometimes, deserve to be bludgeoned because I am often a coward. But I stayed behind — a masochist perhaps, taking all that punishment like so many others when I should have migrated a long time ago. Remember, most Filipinos bloom abroad, having fled the narcotic if suffocating shallowness of the homeland.

Is there a redeeming greatness in us? Virtue and excellence? Heroism? Of course, there is lots of these — just look at our history which we do not remember because we have no memory. They are emblazoned there — our greatness as a people — if we can only emulate them — Rizal, Mabini, Jose Abad Santos. But we don’t.

So you out there who were outraged by the truths I flung before you — I said nothing new; I merely emphasized the obvious which is a writer’s traditional chore. You should be outraged at the gross obscenities in our country — the callous oligarchs who exploit us, our apathetic poor who whine and expect the government to feed them. Why don’t you be outraged at the politicians who lie to you, the corrupt police who condone the rampant crimes against us, the crooked judges who sell justice to the highest bidder. Why rage against this tired, old hack who merely confirmed what all of you know? The truth is out there for all of us to see but can’t, because we are blissfully wallowing in the shallows. –F Sionil Jose (The Philippine Star)