Where's the outcry or the outrage?

That we are a people with selective sensitivity on matters of honor and pride is quite mystifying. Said otherwise, there are instances that the national dignity is shred in tatters, but the nation passes it up without any reaction of umbrage, or shame and loss of face. Conversely, similar tags that are utterly degrading and revolting as well, the Pinoys get ballistic.

The latest incident of the latter category was when Hongkong columnist Chip Tsao called the Filipinos a “nation of servants”, with no personality or right to complain however their foreign “masters abuse them.

And sadly, Filipina women including college graduates and professionals do menial work as domestic helpers (DH) abroad. Some tyrannical foreign employers have raped them, overwork them with hardly any rest, eating putrid food or leftovers, and maltreat them like slaves of yore… Many have so far been repatriated with mental ailment, and some landed in jails for, obviously, fighting back the abuses by cruel employers.

If there be any to blame, some talk show hosts and their guests and opinion makers lay it on the failure of the Philippine government to provide job opportunities. Others point to the uncontrolled population explosion which, again, the government has failed to address. At the root is utter poverty that EQ-steeped OFWs are compelled to work as menial DH, and risk their honor and lives.

The circumstances stacked against the OFWs may also be imputed to the vulgarism that the “foolishness of the Filipinos go home to their bodies”. In other words, we as a nation have wrought the national indignities upon ourselves, one way or another. For instance, there was silence when the Philippines was rated as the most corrupt country in Asia, and one of the top ten in world. Our silence could spell acquiescence, and perhaps, rightly so.

For another, others aren’t blind to the Pinoy propensity to cheat, or put one over another. The best, or worst, spokesmen are the politicos who trade barbs every election time of cheating to win. It has become a vogue that there are no election losers, but only victims of cheating, vote-buying, and violence.

In board/bar examinations, and most probably in school exams, cheating has also become almost SOP. In fact, almost all schools employ board/bar ops which are aimed to eke out possible sources of test question leakage, or the euphemistic “pointers”. Remember the 2004 board exams for nursing that became a notoriety that spread abroad?

Even in matters of morality and decency, again, many Filipino youth now habitually patronize the internet cafés to engage in pornography with prospective alien clients, by exposing their “boobs” and, who knows, their own more private parts. And yet, there has been no national uproar so far!

And lately, the Philippines has been tagged among four nations as “tax haven” by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. This “tax haven” blacklist is at the instance of the influential G-20 countries. With the RP, are Uruguay, Costa Rica, and the Malaysian territory of Labuan, as the “worst offenders” where money launderers and corrupt government officials, international gangsters, and other cheaters and money launderers stash their “loot”.

And yet, except for a weak voice from the government to take steps to de-list and recuse from the shameful tag, where is the outcry and outrage from the Filipino people?