Malu, Malu, Malu!

Thursday, August 23, 2007

So it was that, while waiting at Jollibee along Sucat Road last night, I received an SMS from Isabel that a certain Malu Fernandez had written an article that contained rather nasty remarks regarding OFWs.

And that this Malu had been – and is still being – sliced and diced all over what is called the blogosphere.

I downloaded a copy of her From Boracay To Greece! earlier today and read on…

Surprisingly, I found nothing wrong with her remarks. At least, not in the way that most people had.

Before anything else, my father has been an OFW even before the acronym was coined. Mum, too, works overseas although she left quite later than Pa did. These sensitivities are perhaps why Isabel sent me that particular message, as she had gotten to know both of them for some time.

Anyway, back to Malu Fernandez… I do not see how she had been offensive in her remarks. Trust me, I have also traveled alongside OFWs and, as much as I respect what they do for their families, most of them are piss-worthy people.

Yes, their remittances do help the economy stay afloat.

Yes, they do show the world how wonderfully talented and how greatly skilled Filipinos are.

But, do you also know how our OFWs wantonly break laws on alcohol and gambling overseas, feeling as though they were in their own backyards?

Do you know how our OFWs smuggle pork into Muslim countries, knowing full well that it is illegal?

Do you know how our OFWs go into malls wearing nothing but short pants and sandos, making natives think that such are our national clothes?

Do you even have any idea how so many of our OFWs spawn and have spawned so many illegitimate children?

Most of all, do you know how so fucking many of our OFWs have tainted and continue to taint our nationality so fucking much that so many other OFWs have suffered and are suffering fucking PREJUDICE?

The problem here is not how Malu Fernandez or any other fucking socialite chose to describe them.

The problem here is how so many OFWs conduct themselves indecently in foreign lands. That part about them talking out loud in aeroplanes, asking questions like, “Katulong ka rin ba?” shows just how happy they are about meeting other Filipinos overseas. That bit about their colognes wafting from the cabin all the way to the boarding gate displays just how humble they are.

One part of me says they really cannot be blamed for such behavior, some of them having come from the provinces and all…

BUT! BUT! BUT! How many fucking years will it take for them to learn how to act like fucking civilized people? A decade? A century, perhaps?

¡Que barbaridad!

The real problem here is not that a fucking socialite chose to write wantonly, and in perhaps the only way she knows how, about OFWs.

We, who belong to the working class, are also guilty of our own misgivings regarding them cake-eaters, the evidence of which is the proliferation of fucking tabloids and fucking afternoon gossip shows.

The real problem here is that a deep and wide chasm exists between the haves and the have-nots in this country, which leads us to the well-known fact that

FILIPINOS GO OVERSEAS BECAUSE THERE ARE SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH JOBS HERE TO FEED A FAMILY DECENTLY.

Having said all of this, I would just want to ask everyone who is seething over Malu Fernandez’s article:

When the dust has settled, does it matter really who points out what?

What is distasteful, after all, when everyone may say anything about anything or anyone?

Is that not the beauty of learning, when we can hear or read or see not just the things we want to?

Er, do we not have a liar and a cheat for a president?

Shigata ga nai. Karma, neh?