Warped Yet Hopeful

Thursday, 26 August 2010 00:00

Written by Louie C. Montemar

“Warp,” says an online dictionary, is a noun most probably coined before the 12th century, from the Old English “wearp”, akin to the Old High German “warf,” and the Old English “weorpan” which means to throw, as in the Old Norse “verpa.” The word now means several other things — a rope for mooring a ship or boat, or “a twist or curve that has developed in something originally flat or straight.” And then there is the meaning of warp as a “mental aberration.”

The 1960's science fiction classic TV series Star Trek, popularized the notion of "warp drive technology" as the posited power behind interstellar travel in the Star Trek universe. In that universe, being able to “warp” or travel faster than light meant the difference between being considered developed and underdeveloped. This E-zine column carries the name “Warp 9!” inspired by that Trekkie idea of the theoretically fastest speed that an intergalactic traveler could go.

I am certain that, to the extent possible, we all want the Philippines to move forward in the international development game — not just for the sake of the game, as it were, but with the end in view of contributing to the general betterment of global society, of humanity. With this in mind, this column tackles various aspects of Philippine reality in a constantly changing world, a world replete with hope but scarred by a lot of aberrations. Aberrations, the most challenging of which are, in the final analysis, actually products of the human mind; aberrations as warped practices borne of warped interests. Some may dare say that we Filipinos have a warped culture. Warped culture?

Culture, broadly defined in the social sciences as the sum total of human experiences or practices, is something malleable and yet highly amorphous or shapeless. Another way of looking at culture would be that it is all that a person learns from society. Look at it this way, anything that a person has by nature is her biology; everything else that she acquires through learning from others in society is culture.

Seen this way, one can perhaps raise interesting and delicate propositions about the recent tragedy at the Quirino Grandstand area at the Rizal Park in Manila where a lone perpetrator, a former police officer, held hostage a bus of tourists mostly from Hong Kong.

Particularly after the incident, when some unscrupulous characters posted online pictures of certain Filipinos who used the ill-fated bus as a background for their group photo-shoots, derogatory statements were posted even by Filipinos against their own nation or people, their government and their own culture. I can understand and even agree with many of the very strong criticisms leveled against the government and its personnel, but against the nation? Against culture especially? It must be pointed out that the nation, the people, are not their government. The people, yes, shape and create culture, but all cultures are a melange of countless responses to and is part of a messy social reality. Especially considering that in the Philippines one finds various subnational cultures existing within the same social milieu, to say that “Filipino culture” is so “wrong,” “bad,” “damaged,” or “warped” is really quite meaningless if one thinks about it.

I am reminded here of a quaint and enlightening incident which I experienced in a multicultural setting some two decades back. I was with a bus load of Filipino and Japanese students then. No we weren't being held hostage. We were on an 'educational tour' around Manila. At one point, when we were to get off the bus, a Japanese student hurriedly stood up and bumped his head hard on the overhead baggage compartment. The sickening sound of possible pain made all heads turn. Now guess how the Filipino students reacted? Take a guess...

Most of us Filipinos laughed. If you guessed right, you may indeed be a Filipino at heart. How about the Japanese students? They sighed collectively, making a sound which I heard as an expression of concern and commiseration. Yes they did, as the Filipinos laughed. But we Filipinos immediately fell silent when we realized the awkwardness of the moment.

Were we an inherently rude set of students? Were we so heartless a coterie of cretins? Were we intrinsically “bastos” [disrespectful]? No. I realized then — mind you, I was in fact one of the few Filipino students in that bus who didn't laugh — that we were simply being Filipino. If that incident with the Japanese students happened in a bus with only Filipinos in it and it was a Filipino who was but mildly hurt, we all would have been laughing perhaps and would have made fun of the “victim” by probably giving him a moniker like “Boy Untog” [Boy Bump]. In that multicultural setting however, being irreverent Filipino was not the most apropos or respectful way to behave perhaps.

We know from Anthropology that various people in the world have quaint cultural practices. Let us not name that 'nation' anymore but we are told that in one culture, one “old tradition” was when a person reaches old age and thereby becomes an invalid, he or she is sent off to sea with some provisions to wait for death in solitude. Imagine parents, grandparents, and loved ones being considered already passed on to the netherworld as they leave the shore. Now how does that cultural practice sound to us Filipinos in this modern (or postmodern) world? Can we really just judge or label such practices as “bad” or “wrong”? Perhaps no one practices such treatment of seniors nowadays and in the Philippines we give our respected senior citizens privileges and “senior citizen cards” and not mere provisions for an impending death. In the Philippines, Filipino norms demand that we care for our aged up to their dying days—a noble thing if you ask me compared to the predisposition of certain other cultures.

In light of these, I submit that we reconsider our view of those Filipinos who have been labeled rude and insensitive for posing for a photo in front of that bus. I submit that we reconsider this unduly broad and undue criticism that Filipino culture is warped.

It's a warped world perhaps. A world of aberrations. But culture changes. Culture is dynamic. It is thus also a hopeful world that we have for humanity learns from its mistakes—however “major, major” they may be. We all should learn much from this tragic incident about the virtues of cultural sensitivity and cultural literacy. In aworld growing smaller and smaller and more e-connected by the minute, hope springs virtual and, still, eternal.

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