National vices: Six bad habits Filipinos should break

MANILA, Philippines - As an active member of the United Nations and the home of Charice Pempengco’s hairstyles, the Filipino nation can be pretty remarkable. But let’s be honest, guys, we Filipinos tend to give ourselves a little too much credit sometimes. Below are some cultural traits that I think, as a nation, we’re more than a little guilty of having.

If we can help it, we will cut in line.

One time while waiting for the train during rush hour, a really frail old lady clung to my arm when people crowded all over us, but when the doors opened and we all started walking towards the seats, she elbowed me, ran, and took my spot. (It doesn’t matter that I would have given it to her, anyway.) I don’t even know why I was surprised; whether you’re waiting for the bus, a concert, or your turn at the community water pump — everybody does it. Cutting the line is the ultimate national affliction.

We think road rules are suggestions.

There is a reason why some stereotypes exist: it’s because they’re true. Filipinos are generally terrible drivers. (I know, the truth hurts.) To many of us, if we can get away with making illegal U-turns or jaywalking, we’ll do it. Where else in the world does the yellow traffic light mean “Go faster”? Sometimes I don’t even know why the government bothers to issue licenses, because they’re a total waste of money and plastic.

We never ask questions.

Sure, we’re a resilient bunch — we’ve gone through years of colonization, war, and political upheaval. Perhaps it is this determination to keep calm and carry on that has conditioned us to stay quiet in the face of adversity. In the modern setting, however, this kind of translates to our tendency to avoid asking any questions. This is particularly important in the workplace, where we fear that our superiors will think less of us if we show signs of needing help. So what happens? We don’t speak up until we mess up, which can often make a relatively easy task take a difficult turn.

We don’t know how to develop our talent.

Forget the argument that Filipinos are just second-rate, trying-hard copycats; there is nothing quite like Filipino innovation. Who else but a Filipino can turn a bottle of cooking oil into a dustpan? Thing is, we tend to have a problem with taking these skills to the next level. The jeepney, for example, has been around for years, but it has hardly improved its construction or gas consumption. We used to be the ones to teach our Asian neighbors how to properly harvest rice, and now we’re the biggest rice importer in the region. The only thing I think we’ve kept up with is consistently inventing ridiculous novelty dances on noontime variety shows.

We’re nicer to foreigners than we are to each other.

Filipino hospitality is famous all over the world, just not in its country of origin. It’s incredible how much we can bend over backwards for someone whom we may never see again, but we can easily be rude and mean to our fellow Filipinos. Is it really due to colonial mentality, or do we just chalk it up to the cartoon dollar signs in our eyes? To me, it doesn’t matter why this is so, but it is saddening to realize that we’re not as nice as we think, that we’re all secretly the cruel kontrabidas in a terrible primetime teleserye.

But we also hate on foreigners who hate on us.

You gotta admit, we can also be a little critical of our own shortcomings; just ask all the self-righteous thinkers on Twitter or Facebook. We’ve all got our own intelligent opinions on why our nation still struggles to develop, but if anyone does so much as say that balut tastes disgusting, we bring out the racist card. (Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you get the picture.) We’re so bad at hearing criticism about ourselves from people who supposedly don’t know us, that we’ve probably banned a lot more public figures from entering the country (remember Claire Danes?) just because they have a less than stellar opinion of the Philippines and its people.