Filipinos are thinkers with no place to go
Analysis and Opinion
By Joe America
Most people are racist to some degree, labeling others based on common stereotypes. Filipinos get tagged as low IQ because their government does dumb things, the country can’t fix potholes, and schools mass produce laborers rather than tech geniuses.
My belief is that filipinos are POTENTIALLY as smart as anyone else. But never has a people been so confined intellectually, socially, and governmentally.
Intellectual growth should be fostered in schools but the Philippines mistakes following orders for good thinking. Teachers demand that students repeat back what they are told, not figure things out. Is that ridiculous, or what? How can a rigid educational framework produce kids who are able to find their way past the barriers that keep them from discovery?
They are taught to obey, and the nation’s social framework of authoritarianism reinforces it. Government officials snarl, bank officials scowl, doctors and nurses scold, even store cashiers give stony glares. Customers here are seldom free enough from a barrage of belittlement to be right. To think for themselves, confidently.
Obey.
My wife yesterday morning at breakfast said vote buying is dumb because people who sell their votes are taking money that was stolen from them by corrupt candidates. When she was poor, she would never have figured this out. Poverty would have forced her to rationalize getting the money as a good thing.
Need is a great eliminator of intellectual choices. It dumbs down thinking, not by brain power, but by stomach need.
And corrupt government officials love it.
They love being better than others. Tricking them. Gaming them. Using them.
Social classism is a form of racism within the race. Legislators and agency officials here are of the class of entitlement and impunity. The Vice President can get away with apparent stealing and it’s no big deal to the Senate President. And other senators of the class of holier than citizens.
Education, classism, and greed confine Filipino intellectual growth. Too many Filipinos have been taught to be resilient mimics. Barred from good data and critical thinking.
The barriers need to come down.
Free the Filipino!
Free the Filipino to think for himself. To obey out of knowledge, and respect. Not command.
It will be fun watching the entitled scurry for cover when citizens become informed and start demanding respect, compassion, sense, and a smarter government.
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Cover photo created by Word Press image generator using the prompt of a young Filipino student thinking about thinking.
