raison d'être

Yesterday I was having a really interesting discussion with some people about the state of the nation...or more specifically, the state of the Filipino people. You could say that this conversation is the inspiration for this new blog...although for the longest time now I have been mulling the idea of writing about the many things on the Philippines that interest me...specifically, it's history, it's culture and it's politics...so no, that short talk is not entirely the reason, but it sort of got me going because one of them, a Scot, said something really interesting. He apologetically called it "being nasty" but I think he was just being very observant. He said that the Filipinos instead of absorbing the good values of our colonizers, learned their bad habits instead. So that these learned aberrations met at the middle and produced the present day Filipino culture. That statement made a lot of sense to me...we have become a people who have no concept of national identity, no sense of accountability for the future of our country. We lack of direction, discipline and unity...this last calamity, the epic flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy had glaringly shown this lack. It was pure chaos! Rescue efforts were uncoordinated...each and every agency from the NGO's, the government, the media were moving on their own...and the NDCC (National Disaster Coordinating Council) which was the lead agency supposedly coordinating the whole thing suddenly became just one of those agencies helping out. Why is that? Why are we so polarized as a people? Why have we become like this? What happened to us? As the days go by...I will attempt to answer that. God help me!