Are you laughing or does it hurt when you laugh?

This country of ours is so driven by politics it is not a laughing matter anymore. Filipinos surely love to insult others or put their kababayans down. It is such a natural tendency which I feel is already embedded in our culture. Instead of helping the country move forward toward progress, we would rather lambast our own people, thus, making our country suffer more humiliation from the rest of the world.

It is normal for politicians to destroy each other and we know that this is a problem we have yet to resolve. But when Filipinos working with foreign companies or organizations talk negatively about our country and its people, it is no longer acceptable.

I have just come across several so-called “country experts” who were sent to the Philippines this past week by their foreign organizations. My gosh! I could not believe the attitude and behavior – all a bunch of snobs and bitches. Kala mo ang galing nila! In the first place, how can they be country experts when they do not even live here. How can they evaluate our country when they have not worked with the people in the different communities even more so with the different ethnic groups? Tell me how?

Beware of these snakes in the grass. They come as intellectual egoistic snobs, of superior quality, thinking they are better than us. They have no respect or the decency to acknowledge the talents and skills of Filipinos who work and live in this country – the Pinoys who have pure hearts, who have stayed on to keep this country moving.

We actually need your morale support not your badmouthing expertise. We do not need you to ridicule us or make us feel we are indios who do not know anything. We live here, we work here, we know our people more than you visiting Jews.

When you come to this country, it would be a big help to be humble. Do not prance around thinking you are gods with all the solution and clout. We expect you to be professional. Bring the experience, skill and the attitude you have learned from wherever you came from and show us the way. Do not join our bandwagon and take advantage of our weaknesses – we need you to help us become better people, a better race. You should be constructive instead of being destructive forces as you go about the business of finding the way to help this society. Show our advantage over others. Make us proud of being Filipinos instead of ruining us – tearing us into pieces and sabotaging “would be” projects for our country’s development and welfare.

You should be ashamed of yourselves. You are like snakes in the pit waiting for our country to fall deeper so that you can serve your own egos. How dare you even come back and pretend to help the country when the whole truth is you just want to feed your own egos at the expense of your native land. You are the type of Pinoys who will never leave a legacy to be proud of. It will be tainted with deceit and personal greed.

Our OFWs and the balikbayans who bring their families for vacation is another case – they are a cheerful site. We welcome you. We know that you are proud of your heritage and our people. I salute you for the love and affection you show our countrymen. They are the opposite of those scheming, corporate ‘effect guys’ working for world organizations who are nothing but self-professed intellectuals who are shameless even when they know deep in their hearts that they have betrayed their country.

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Once politics intrudes in any project, it is doomed to fail. When this happens the beneficiaries suffer and the proponents who are sincere of heart are left with nothing to gain but pain for failing these poor innocent people. At the onset of projects politicians can easily mark up a project cost to 1,000 percent leaving Filipinos with more taxes to pay. When the deal is investigated and an inquiry is done the Sandiganbayan is only able to charge a few culprits, the rest are able to get away with the loot. I tell you everything that government touches get dross up to the point that the opportunity for the improvement of our infrastructure, serving our basic needs and services is lost.

How I wish we’d get our act together. There are just too many of our government Big Bosses engaged in such silly games of proving that they’re “King of the Hill.” We need a sense of commitment to the national purpose. We need to use our neighboring countries who have already surpassed us as models of change. Even if it takes to change our form of government – what the heck!

It seems to me that we spend so much time and waste so much energy attacking each other that the nation grinds to a dead stop just so we can indulge in hysterics and useless name-calling. With such attitude and conduct in public platform, with this type of role models we are exposing our children to, we lose the race towards national progress, chiefly because in the past squandered century, we’ve failed to evolve ourselves into becoming a true nation.

Why can’t we progress? We are so paralyzed by politics. It is not funny anymore. Our country’s fractious, elite-dominated political institutions are major contributors to this disaster. When a good project is proposed, the other camp shouts foul. When a road is built, the other camp tries to put the project on hold. We have no “road map”, only scribbles in red ink on reports, memoranda, letters and proposals, directing Cabinet members and bureaucrats to do this or do that or look into this, or study a plan’s feasibility, et cetera. What is mistaken for action is the act of creating committees here and there to study ways and means of taking action. But in reality no action is achieved.

Our country will continue to fall if we continue to treat each other this way. We Filipinos lack nationalism. We are so into ourselves, our families and tribes. Flattery soothes but ultimately destroys the object of its wiles. In contrast, the truth hurts – but usefully sweeps aside the cobwebs of self-deception.