My recent two week vacation to the Philippines – June 1 to 15 2013, the second visit this year and the sixth over three successive years, begs me to write my observations and significant after-thoughts that besot my mind about the Filipino dichotomy.

Fearless that what I opine here will draw severe criticisms from readers, particularly from Filipinos who have a xenophobic attitude towards what is said distastefully from their foreign visitors, I will write without prejudice or fear

Having said that, I accept that nothing that I write here will ever change the mindset of the Filipinos in general.

“It’s more fun in the Philippines”, so goes the Tourism slogan in the Philippines.

The Taxis

Tell me how can it be more fun in the Philippines, when a taxi fare from SM Mall in Bacoor City to Glorietta 3 in Makati City cost 500 Pesos for a distance of 18 kms but the taxi fare from SM Mall in Bacoor to Tanza, Cavite costs a whopping 3,500 Pesos for a distance of 21kms. Both taxi rides were in daylight hours, hence the question of surcharge is negated.

There is no recourse for the aggrieved tourist in the Philippines to rectify this outrageous rip off despite all that belief that deck the Welcome banners, jingoistic pride amongst Filipinos that theirs is the enfattened cow for milking from the multitude of tourists and Filipino stubborn righteousness that “sharity” begins in the Philippines.

Taxi drivers even refuse to run their fare meters.

The Sloths

While on the matter of the foreigner with the unflappable Filipino “sharity” sub-culture, a visit to a family easily landed me in trouble after I decided to sponsor a girl, Michelle Mae Campomanes for a 4 year College course.

A woman appeared in her house. She looked well fed and sat there silently only listening to my conversations with members of the family.

As I stood up to leave the house, she requested for a handout of 1000 Pesos to pay for her two sons resumption of their school semester.

This fat and lazy woman I am told epitomizes legions of her kind in the Philippines who in face of many essential needs, they do nothing all year round, get free meals from their neighbors and wait like vultures to feed on the unsuspecting.

What Filipino filial love?

After my plane landed in Kuala Lumpur on my return home, we alighted from the aircraft and had to walk down the stair ramp.

A feeble old Filipino woman tottering with her walking stick made her way down in a stealthful manner. Half way down , her younger female family member, let go holding her arm and made her way down the stair ramp in a hurried manner.

She caused the stair ramp to vibrate and shake. Yeah, another FAT Pinay!!! The feeble old woman lost her balance and with her walking stick flaying sideways, she was nano seconds from tumbling down to a certain physical disaster.

I grabbed the old woman’s upper right arm and held her from moving.

When the old woman and I reached the ground, the fatso female did not even thank me for saving the old woman from a calamitous fall.

Shame on that fat Filipina filial love and caring!
Shame on Cebu Pacific Airways for not providing the needful handling for their senior citizen passengers!

More observations to follow…

Some weeks ago, I received this photograph from Lainy.

Having had a good experience with photography, I felt the photo did not do justice.

Not only does it lack good portraiture, it is also overcrowded…

Having had a good experience with photography, I felt the photo has to be corrected, like this..

Now, this is a photo that would launch a thousand ships!

It makes the person the center of focus with just a little in the background for the spectator’s imagery interpretation; interpretation for the sultry and wistful demeanor of the person in this case.

If the width of the photo is given a tad more, it would accentuate the leggy-sexiness of the person.

One drawback in that photo as well as with 99 percent of Filipinas – it is that they love to wear those oversized “Owl” very dark sunshades. It hides most the facial beauty, their “double” eyelids, smiling eyes and their high cheek bones that is craved for especially by white women.

Filipina women ought to realize that NOT everything that white women wear is consummate for Asian beauty. Most white women do not high cheek bones. Hence, when a white woman wears those “Owl” sunshades, it hides that facial flaw and enhances their facial look.

WYSIWYG is a well known acronym for What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get.

But of course, young women find that sexist if men think it applies universally.

However, in a rare instance, this toddler Xyle a.k.a Morning Dew, the nephew of Lainy wholeheartedly believes it is true.

I can imagine three scenarios from that photo.

Scenario One

Morning Dew faces an impossible task to heave Tita Lainy by her feet, swing her body over his head and slam dunk her on the floor.

Scenario Two

Morning Dew experiences his first act in Voyeurism.

Scenario Three

Morning Dew and Tita Lainy are playing Doctor and Patient
Morning Dew persuades, “PUSH Tita, PUSHHHH !”
Morning Dew exclaims, “OMGGGG! Tita, it’s your poo coming out!”

Well, Reader…what do you think?

I shall try my best to write in plain English and try not to confuse the reader by sounding polemic.

The idiom, “To each his own” is said to originate from Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC), a Roman author, orator, & politician.

In Latin it is suum cuique, short for suum cuique pulchrum est.

There is a mistaken translation from Latin to English as we now know it as an Idiom, “To each his own.”

In the true meaning of the original Latin, it rather means, “In the opinion of each person, what is his is beautiful.”

This difference must be noted because as we idiomatically use the phrase, “to each his own” changes the entire meaning thereof and exposes the fallacy in how it is being used.

What we commonly know is that it means each person has the right to make choices. It is with this meaning that we often shrug our shoulders through lack of a better explanation or we take a neutral position when declaring, “to each his own.”

Whether it is said in the context of, “to each his own belief”, or “to each his own ability”, or “to each his own choice”, allow me to emphasize that one must be wary about the accuracy when using this Idiom.

It is important to know the context in which the Idiom is applied. Failure to understand what the implications vis-a-vis the context could bring about a fallacy of composition, reducing the Idiom to jargon.

What is a Fallacy of Composition?

It is when a person makes an inference from the attribution of a known matter to every one such that every one possesses the same known matter.

Commenting on the subject of Circumcission, several Bloggers gave their opinion on the matter of “to cut or not to cut” by saying, to each his own.

Taking it from there and it can be said as follows:

Every circumcission performed is a personal choice.
Therefore, circumcission is regarded for the general good.

Now even if the premise is true of each and every component of those two premises, the end result may turn out to be traumatic, irrevocably harmful and a personal mess.
Hence, to say, “to each his own” by this reasoning is incorrect.

To say “to each his own” may also be disconcerting. For example, a man leaped to his suicidal death from a multi-storey high rise building and would one say, “to each his own”?

That and many other examples may be given. So my dissertation is that when the Idiom is used without logical relevance to the context as referred to in this case, it may not only promote but it also justifies the choices made by individuals who also fall in the MOST WANTED CRIMINALS in any country.

Returning to the true meaning of its Latin origin, it means, “In the opinion of each person, what is his is beautiful.”

And may I conclude, Circumcission is NOT beautiful by any measure.

Unless and of course, there lives a man who after his circumcission, runs around town yelling, “In my opinion, my Circumcission is beautiful. Come, see!!!”

Just a little while ago, I shared to Windy Papaleng’s publication about Child Circumcision: To Cut or Not To Cut. He told me that he published a lengthy comment at that particular post which he sent to me via email.

Here it is:

For whatever reason; religious, cultural or personal genital hygiene, circumcission is a deplorable act.

If it is for religious connotation, did not God create both man and woman in His perfect Design?
Then religious fanatics like divine soothsayers add more to what is in print and claim circumcision as a symbol of the covenant between man and his Creator. Makes me think that God must be seen by these religious fanatics as one HUGE PENIS or one HUGE CLITORIS!!!

Then for those cultures that adhere to circumcision of their infants, it is because their ignorant great great great grand fathers or great great great grand mothers did it and therefore tradition must be upheld even when it is senseless to circumcise. And you might ask, why did these great great great grand fathers and great great great grandmothers circumcise their infants? It is because in the Stone Age era, these people apart from hunting wild animals, they had nothing else to do but fiddle with their infants genitals and thought it made sense to pain their infants for all the crying they made at night causing them sleepless nights.

Then you have those sick minds who think that germs only hide in the folds of human genitals. Therefore, you know the reason why. But they might as well cut off their fingers and thumbs because truly there are more germs hiding under the finger nails and thumb nails than that. They wash their hands. Why then they do that circumcision for? So my point is if they wash their hands for hygienic reasons, why they did not think of the same thing for the genitals?

And till today, stupid men and stupid women think that God’s creation of man and woman is IMPERFECT and that circumcision makes it man-made perfect

Man-made perfect? Baloney!!! Does anyone know how much mutilation and impotency has been caused on both infant boys and girls?

What about you? Were you circumcised too or not? Oh come on! Don’t be shy. Ha! Ha! Ha! If you’re a parent, would you allow your kids to be circumcised?

Windy can be very expressive on his thoughts about circumcision. And why not? He has got three sons to boost! His own experience as a Dad to his three boys can vary from every parent though. Windy comes from a Malaysian/ Chinese culture while Filipinos has got this masochistic idea about getting circumcised. 93% of Filipino males are circumcised- a percentage so much higher than the world’s rate. If you don’t get a circumcision, you’ll have to bear the brunt of silly jokes and funny tirades.

Admittedly, circumcision is considered the rite of passage for Filipinos. This may sound quite absurd but yes, that’s how some Filipinos measure masculinity. What else do we know? A good number of circumcised Filipino male specie does not even live up to the word “masculine”, if you know what I mean.

I have very high respect for Windy’s beliefs and choices about circumcision. I must say, to each his own.