Identity and Culture

An interesting discussion has sprouted in my comments, a usually quiet place.

Marie blogged about the percieved lack of culture in Singapore by a former Filipino classmate, to which I commented on how any one could say that Singapore lacked culture here.

Surprisingly, one of Marie's reader, Gracia raised a question in my comments:

Why do you think philliippines has no culture? just curious. i read your comment at omegajuliet.org.

To which I answered:

perhaps no culture is the wrong term. i meant no cohesive culture. no national identity. Filipinos are still too regionalistic. You're either a visayan, etc., even in luzon your still divided between those from manila and those 'probinsyanos' or out of town people. also, i'm also thinking of language. another disadvantage is that even if we claim Tagalog is the national language we still have to contend with the fact that there are over a hundred different dialects. and, really, when you read a novel written by a Filipino, you don't instantly go, Hey, the writer's Filipino. Unlike Indian writers, or Japanese or Chinese. You know by the voice and style of writing what country the author originated from... so, i guess that's my answer in a nut shell.

So, now, I'll be answering Marie's question:

Just a thought: do you think it's because the people have not come to terms with a certain identity that is apparent to them? I mean, what happens if they have an identity, but it's not the one that they can accept for themselves? Do you think that's possible? I'm just taking it to the perspective of colonial mentality here. =)

At first I was inclined to disagree, then I thought about it, why don't we have a cohesive identity? Because, nationwide their has been a resistance to accept one identity. Mindanaoans still think of themselves as a breed apart from the Visayans and us folks here in Luzon.

We have an identity crisis about our identity.

We say Filipino out of convenience but in reality they think of themselves as either Ilokano or Visayan, or Bicolano. But we never truly mean it in the truest sense because we always want to be somebody else.

Ask anyone of the streets and ask them to make a choice to stay in the Philippines or live somewhere else and without hestitation they'd say, they'd like to go to the US. That's the reason why we have doctors, who after med school immediately go to nursing school because they would like to go to the US and earn dollars. Leaving us, those left behind, with a shortage of doctors.

*sigh*