I wrote “Reflections” a few weeks back after contemplating on the Pinoy’s current state of mind and why, even after the blatant cheating, stealing and lying, you don’t hear the majority ranting and raving about it. The rage is simply not there, which made me realize that there must be really be a collective spiritual and intellectual crisis in our midst.
I do not understand the apathy, but I am trying to find a glimpse of understanding.
Amid all these happenings, Brian Gorell happened. In all instances, we should be like him. Somebody he trusted cheated on him, lied to his face, stole his money and hell hath no fury like a person’s intelligence insulted this way! He put up a blog and turned against his ex-lover. He is enraged. He wants to get back what was supposed to have been stolen from him and unless the Ex pay up, the blog will continue to run, and the high society ’secrets’ will cease to be… secrets. Meanwhile, the Pinoys went crazy over it, blog traffic was incredible in today’s standard for a personal blog. Some even left comments to commiserate, support, offered sympathy and best wishes. Nothing wrong with that, really.
But the way I see it, what happened to him is simply a microcosm of what this nation of Filipinos needs to do, now. You see, the collective Filipinos are in Brian’s shoes: cheated, lied to, stolen from by the person he trusted, in our case it’s Gloria and her government. But while he created a storm with his revelations and his fight to get back what was stolen from him, we did nothing of that sort.
Another observation. Take a hard look at Brian’s case. He’s a foreigner but he gets more sympathy than this country could ever get. How can we rant and rage to give him justice when we couldn’t even stand up against the real thieves and cheats in our own backyard? I am not saying he doesn’t deserve to get his money back, in every respect he should and must and with it, his sense of pride and self-esteem.
But if we can rally behind a foreigner against our own kababayan who he alleged to have duped him, why can’t we do that for the country and the future generations? If we could believe his allegations, how come it takes a lot more evidence and time to believe the exposes and investigations against gloria and her cohorts?
The answer came to me from where else but my trusty best friend, a book.
In the Foreword of his book, Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People he enumerated the present society’s Challenges, Blame & Victimism as one of them. He wrote that
“…the children of blame are cynicism and hopelessness. When we succumb to believing that we are victims of our circumstances and yield to the plight of determinism, we lose hope, we lose drive, and we settle into resignation and stagnation”.
He added that so many bright and talented people feel this and suffer the broad range of discouragement and depression that follows and that the survival response of popular culture is cynicism:
“Just lower your expectations of life to the point that you aren’t disappointed by anyone or anything.”
I believe this has got to be the best explanation of this pitiful condition.
Sad, but true. Now, my next question is how do we get back our collective sense of pride and fight the cheat, the liar, and the thief like Brian did?
