On moving on, the principle of reciprocity and the jeepney culture

In the Philippines today, the moment you stand opposing or questioning the king who sits in the Palace or the acts of any of his henchmen, you will be branded yellow, bayaran, and a liberal who knows nothing but utter complaints.
To probe people’s way of thinking is fine, to hold them responsible for their opinion is perfectly understandable, but to resort to shaming, to threat and to question, especially when delivered in a language as foul smelling as the waters of Pasig river, of whether one’s remark is pious or not simply because you see your thoughts as supreme to his is obviously not freedom of expression.

Don’t misunderstand freedom of expression as a blanket authority for someone to lambast a person wrongfully. Don’t misunderstand the right to be heard as a something that gives you the absolute power to speak what’s in your mind. Freedom of expression is way beyond that. It is one of the guiding virtues of this world, and it comes both a right and a responsibility. I hope the followers of the mighty king who is seen as perfect and incorruptible by some of his cult fanatics understand this loud and clear.

Right now, I am losing the last strand of hope about Filipinos and how most of us embrace the internet and social media like a 2-year-old child trying to hold a spoon for the first time. We are better than this. Let’s not make social media home to callous behaviors. Let’s not just embrace everything on the web as the truth. Let us ask and verify information. Let’s not share information coming from fake sites. It really hurts when people use expletives and bash other people for voicing their opinion. Let us respect one another. Again, everybody is free to express their mind as long as it is done with propriety.

On Moving On

I have written my opinion about the Marcos burial at the LNMB and why I believe it is unjustified. As I go rethink about it and with all the recent events unfolding, all I can deduce is that this is not a case of moving on. When people say that we should move on in this manner, I cannot help but cringe. The pictures that flash in my mind about the Marcos regime based on the personal accounts of martial law victims are utterly horrific. I cannot help but ask why people are so willing to forgive this man who until the last of his breath has stood that he has done nothing wrong to this country and its people. What’s worse is that his family seems to be unapologetic about what transpired during some of the darkest years of the history of our country as if it never happened. How can we move on when the perpetrators are still proud of an era of poverty, corruption, and injustice? Worst, some perilous powers are now painting it to appear as the “golden years” of this country. No, we should not be in favor of this kind of moving on. This is detrimental to the core of our independence and our quest for justice.

I am not against moving on, but I believe we should do it the right way. We must move but in a way where there is acceptance and recognition of mistakes. We should move on through learning and making sure that what has gone wrong will never happen again. Moreover, we should all stand that moving on is about giving the much-deserved justice to the victims and their families. Moving on is not about forgetting. It is not about giving credence to someone whose crimes to humanity has created wounds that may take forever to heal. The moving on that we must seek should be genuine and not filled with lies.

On the Principle of Reciprocity       

While it’s better to give than to receive, it surely is best if we can mirror the kindness that we get from other people. The maxim “do unto others what you want others to do unto you” in its many forms is considered to be one of the oldest ethical teachings of the world. But it is actually a superficial principle – something that can be interpreted along the spectra of positive to negative. From “an eye for an eye” in Hammurabi’s Code to Buddha’s “let a man overcome anger by kindness, evil by good" and to Confucius' words “do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you”, the application of the ethics of reciprocity is a matter of personal preference and opinion.

Why am I talking about this? The reason is that in our country this seems to be exhaustively used and abused. Our notion of “utang na loob” requiring to be repaid with acts of kindness, that regardless of whether right or wrong must be carried through, perfectly fits this brand of behavior. Recently, I also noticed that we also have the belief that if we want to avoid the possible menace that may be brought by the black sheep of our society; we might as well do something to eradicate them regardless of whether the method we use is morally upright or not.

There is also the existence of counter-attacks. When the king and his henchmen is questioned about some of their unfounded and twisted beliefs and words, instead of elucidating and educating people by embracing such criticism with an open mind, the king would rather counter-attack and let his henchmen conduct character assassination of those whom he thinks is a hindrance to the utopia of his liking. When people only want to point that there is dirt in the eye, the king’s side would immediately seek for the individual’s eye, either destroyed or completely taken, rather than work to clean his own.

All these are childish acts that are way out of the norms. As a nation which promotes democracy and due process of law, these are completely crooked and against the principles of liberty, justice, and equality. But what can we do? In a country where propaganda is news and people are driven by memes and swayed by troll accounts, we have gone far worse than just a simple slide to the downside of the strip.

By Keith Kristoffer Bacongco from Davao, Philippines - beep beep jeep!, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9628465

On the jeepney culture

Public transport in the Philippines is one of the finest. We actually have very accommodating drivers who would let 30 people squeeze in a PUJ whose passenger capacity is 24. We have responsible commuters who while literate are not able to distinguish a no loading and unloading sign and would stand right beside it to wait for the same jeepney and become the 31^st passenger. We also have a great drive for music as a craft with our street children who would run and cling to jeepneys amidst the risk of an accident just to offer you a taste of the yuletide season. Mind you, these street children are even reassuring with their explicit claim that they are not snatchers or thieves; they are really there to offer Christmas songs to the beautiful ladies and handsome bachelors.

There is also FIFO or the first in first out belief. As if getting close to the driver’s seat would let someone acquire a highly contagious disease, passengers are more than willing to fill the stern part of the jeepney first. Well, maybe the reason is that we are just too careful not to touch those bacteria-laden coins and bills as passengers pass their fare towards the driver.

If you really want to know the truth about people, let them ride a jeepney, and you’ll uncover their personality with a breeze. There are the social elites who think they are riding their private vehicles with their precious bags occupying the seats reserved for the asses of the masses. There are the group road-trippers who believe jeepneys are extensions to coffee shops and boutiques where they can discuss their woes in life while others are expected to not hear it. There are the lovers on a tight budget who think a public display of affection is a cultural norm now in our country. There are the sleeping beauties (sometimes beasts), the I can still fit in there, the clingers, the power rangers, and many more. Another thing worth pointing is that while I think being sexy and dressing sexy is not a disability, I believe drivers have it the other way around.

It is amazing how the mundane public utility jeepney has become the home to a unique culture. From the drivers to the commuters, Filipinos surely have embraced PUJ as part of their daily lives – as part of something that has gone to be a norm with all its good and bad sides.

Sadly, as long as the jeepney culture exists, we Filipinos will be nothing but individuals filled with self-entitlement and ego. We will stay like this until the end of the world, which is the time when Trump accidentally hits the launch button. :D