A culture of hate?

“Let he who sinneth not cast the first stone.”

Last week, I attended the inauguration of the Cebu Cultural Center—another milestone in what to me is Governor Gwen Garcia’s prolific 7-year governance of the Republic, este, Province of Cebu—and the edifice, along with other events surrounding the Province’s 442nd founding anniversary, most certainly magnified my pride of place (as if I don’t have more than enough Cebuano pride—already bursting at the seams!). But I will write more about the Cebu Cultural Center and the warranted attention the governor is giving cultural heritage in another column. Today, I’d like to concentrate on an aspect of our culture I find rather disconcertingly pervasive among Filipinos.

In this cyber age where certain freedoms (like expression) enjoy almost unbridled democracy, it’s impossible for one to miss all the anger, hate, that many of our people don’t mince words to articulate. Perchance it’s a likely effect of our sad and sorry tale marked by centuries of oppression, corruption, abuse, and impunity from both foreign rulers and our own elected leaders. I will not even dare ask people to shut their mouths when they feel like voicing all their frustration and disgust. After all, it’s everyone’s right.

It’s different when politicians attack each other, condemn Gloria. I don’t like to listen to all the hate rhetoric from our leaders, and it helps that their hypocrisy is naturally deafening. At times when some of their words find their way to my ears, and I’m forced to hear their holier-than-thou tirades, I swear, I feel like puking in my mouth. But like boys will be boys, politicians are politicians. What I’m driving at here is the level of anger and negativity we as a people generally have in our hearts: the attacks against the Church—the RH debates, Pajero bishops, Mideo Cruz’s controversial “art work,” etc.; Gloria and Mike Arroyo; and so many more contentious issues and personalities. I’m always for meaningful and diverse discussion and a plurality of views, but sometimes I feel all the hate is too much. Destructive.  

In total honesty, I still don’t know what to feel when I hear people declare that what’s happening to Gloria is karma or gaba, as if we all had a say on divine justice and how it works. And as if we’re all so sure that her illness isn’t just for show, because it might actually be an elaborate plan to evade accountability from a government their family believes to be unfair (and I won’t even judge her or be surprised if such is so—honestly, haven’t we ever used a medical condition, whether real or imagined, as an excuse before? How much more if it’s jail time you’re excusing yourself from?). In such case, it isn’t really karma but a masterstroke of Machiavellian genius (a move someone like GMA has the propensity to pull off), and we’re all wrong. Still, I’m entirely for accountability and I’d like to see GMA in jail if it’s proven beyond reasonable doubt that she’s guilty (in the courts of course, and not in another episode of the “Leila de Lima Show”).

Nevertheless, a big part of me feels sorry, or embarrassed, each time I hear or read people attack, name-call, wish her (or others) ill, and unflinchingly exploit to the hilt the freedoms afforded us by the world wide web and our very own democracy. Was it really that bad during her time that we can’t be more compassionate towards ‘GMA the sinner’ and let justice take its course without being so judgmental of her? You say it’s a privilege of our democracy to express (or attack)? You’re probably right. But so is due process. 

Also the quality of information being passed on in the internet, a lot if it hearsay, and the number of people who take these at face value and in turn pass it on, make me wonder if “critical thinking” for Filipinos is limited to the mere act of criticizing and (deliberately) excludes the very core of the virtue and process which involve keenly processing and evaluating information before it’s passed onto others or before a judgment is rendered. Probably it’s a tall order, considering how boundaries and limitations have been rendered close to non-existent with the internet, and considering how impatient we all must’ve become after witnessing years of impunity and abuse in our leadership.

Ours is a beautiful, colorful culture. But the anger, the hatred, it’s all there. And I’m not sure what this means for us as a country, our values, our future, if it’s either good or bad. I don’t know. I’m just saying it’s there and all the hate, it bothers me. 

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Tonight on The Bottomline with Boy Abunda: International YouTube sensation Maria Aragon will wow everyone as she answers the toughest questions (especially for any 11-year old). The Filipino-Canadian child prodigy who’s appeared on TV’s ‘Ellen’ and performed with Lady Gaga also shares the incredible journey it has been for her thus far.

Watch it after Banana Split on ABS-CBN. Encore telecast on the ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC), Sunday, 1:00 pm.

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