Memo to U.S. servicemen: “My brother is not a pig”
The movie " MINSAN, MAY ISANG GAMUGAMU," was really a political statement made by the enraged Filipinos against the US bases, including the US air base in Clark and the marine base in Subic, among many others all over the country. There was once a US air base in Mactan during the height of the Vietnam War. In fact, the US servicemen made Cebu a rest and recreation haven for the sick, tired, and lonely soldiers, who were in urgent need of, among others, human touch. That is why if there was a musical Ms Saigon, where our Leah Salonga shone, there should have been also a musical to be aptly called Ms Mactan, or Ms Olongapo, or Ms Clark. The soldiers left many memories of short-lived romantic entanglements that produced some Amerisians. And a virus called Vietnam Rose.
Of course, we do not want to remember those American legacies that left a bad taste in the mouth. In all fairness, the USA treats us in a much better way than the Chinese who keep on bullying us and encroaching into our territories, and the Japanese who ravished our land and made comfort women out of our venerable ladies in the mid-forties. The Americans have given a lot to the Filipinos and their most important gift to our people was our educational system, starting from the turn of the century with a shipload (USS Thomas) of American educators called Thomasites. The US government has given citizenship to our World War II veterans, albeit they failed to extend parity rights to them. But are these enough reasons to allow a US serviceman to get away with murder, albeit still alleged?
In that movie GAMU GAMU (Once There Was a Wasp), Nora Aunor, our ex-future National artist, made that classic statement of rebuke to the US soldiers: " My brother is not a pig" because his younger brother, in that story, was shot and killed by US servicemen who mistook him for a wild boar while scavenging in the garbage near Clark. That was indeed a sarcastic figure of speech, a masterpiece, if you will, of a remarkable expression of national outrage. As we very well know, the existence of US bases in the Philippines was ultimately terminated. It was a landmark and historic event in our struggles as a freedom-loving people. But with the departure of all US soldiers, many personal and filial relations were broken, a lot of white and black offspring were left behind with their abandoned mothers. Ala Ms Saigon.
Therefore, the alleged murder of Jeffry Laude, a.k.a. Jennifer, supposedly by suspect US Marines' Private First Class Joseph Scott Pemberton earlier this month, was, to the viewpoint of many observers in Olongapo, just a ''normal,'' or expected incident, which characterizes how Americans look at Filipinos, whether male, female, or LGBT. Somehow, we are being treated like pigs, if we may use the word of La Aunor, simply because we allow ourselves to be mistaken as wild boars. Some of our people, we are sad to say this, do not behave in a manner that inspires respect. And we even show US soldiers that our Filipino hospitality includes being insulted and even murdered. We do not want to dishonor the memory of Jennifer nor prejudge his case. But many Filipinos allow foreigners to treat them with abuse and disrespect and place themselves in compromising situations.
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