" Filipinos deep inside can relate to royalty. A system where somebody who serves no function beyond symbolism is popular . You don't believe me? Look at our president. "
https://twitter.com/#!/edrlopez/status/63623571095830529
I really think I said a lot there in four sentences.
Majority of Filipinos go by this simple mantra "Basta Pinoy Da Best". Don't you ever deny to me that this is not the case. How many times do you get bombarded with emails to vote for the Filipino entry regardless of how good the competitors are. They don't want you to know there are competitors. The problem with that thinking is it implies just by being born Filipino then you are ahead of everybody else. Isn't that what the Royals of the UK are? Entitled because of birth? No need to really do anything. They will cheer anything Pinoy and refuse to believe anything has more merit if it is from a different country. The spotlight is only on the pinoy. Take the case of Efren Penaflorida. All the pinoys wanted you to vote for him like it was a one candidate race. What they were saying is don't vote for the non-pinoys. We won't mention who they are what or what good they also they did. If that is not racism tell me what is.
With all this blind lemming type flag-waving , you get this slanted, twisted view that it's all about being Filipino and not about being good. And that my friends is racism. Adolph Hitler may have taken it to bigger extremes but in terms of mentality , hate to break it to you. You are in the ballpark if you blindly vote Pinoy on any international ballot (CNNN Heroes/ 8 Wonders of the World/ American Idol) every time. You are in the ballpark if you live by "Basta Pinoy Da Best".
It's all about competing. Specially now in the global economy we are in. When a certain discipline is ignored because there are no pinoys then how do you expect the struggle in that discipline to improve? You learn from the best. You go against the best. The Royals do not have to go against anybody. Being born is enough. Prince William then Prince Charles before him then the current Queen then before her the King's Speech guy. The Royals don't know competition from a hole in the ground. Noynoy did not have to do anything. He did not have to compete. Being offspring is enough. Having a sister who endorsed everything including athletic supporters also helped.
Noynoy in his campaign did not talk any substance. He did however talk about Destiny. Face it, from the day Diana gave birth to William this wedding today was destiny. It's like automatic pilot. No surprises. That is birthright. Noynoy did not have to be about birthright but then again he had nothing else to run on so he made it about birthright. Noynoy did not have to be about birthright but he convinced us it was because we are dumb enough to believe it. All he did was harken to days of yore. He was not part of Laban yet he flashed their sign. He was the only candidate that ran on the image of his parents and not what he has done. It's like picking someone who will make economic , legal and international relations decisions using the criteria of American Idol. Text your vote!!! It has nothing to do with merit. Forget about Noynoy looking bad. WE look bad.
Name recognition is not equal to deed recognition. When it becomes about blood and not about accomplishment then in the back of your mind that sense of birthright holds you back instead of focusing only on what you have to do. When it comes down to it, you can not be thinking your country of origin gives you any kind of advantage whatsoever in a variety of different arenas. You can't use it as a crutch or even a cross. There is no such thing as Royal Blood or noble blood. All this bunk about Royal Blood , I am sure it is just as red as yours and mine is.
What have they (Noynoy and Prince William) done to deserve the attention? Both had mom's whose funerals stopped their respective countries.I fully expect getting correspondence from the Royal Family threatening to sue me for daring to compare one of their own to Noynoy.
For those who don't know. The Queen, the Prince of Wales , Prince William and Harry, they all decide nothing. They just sit there. All the politics are taken care of Parliament, the Prime Minister and the Members of Parliament. Do you see what I am getting at? Noynoy is voted in because he is a symbol and not necessarily the nuts and bolt of performance and action. Yet he is in position where he has to decide on things that affect economy, laws and international relations. Take all those separate spheres of British tradition and government and Noynoy is performing them both. I don't even think he can do one sphere competently and he has both.
As a former long time Canadian resident, I thought Royalty is really much ado about nothing. Granted the one glaring exception to that was March 1983. Still all this stuff about prim and proper , stiff upper lip etc just really wore on me. Exact anti thesis of somebody like Bobby Knight. Bobby Knight now there is a guy. I am sure the Royal Family will not know what to do with Bobby Knight.
Back in 1994 Victoria , B.C. hosted the Commonwealth Games. Its mentality and terminology like that which make some British people think of places like Canada as the "Colonies". What I don't understand is people making a big deal of the Commonwealth Games. You have to go back as far as Roger Bannister before anybody can conjure up a Commonwealth game memory. We have free elections, we get to decide our path. Even if it's a dumb path. As the Master Tom Hopkins said , people buy emotionally and try to defend logically. If you don't believe for a second that intellect is not required to persuade the Filipino People, I dare you look at the commercials of ABS CBN / GMA7's most highly rated prime time and noon time shows and you not arrive at the same conclusion. Power to the people? Well sometimes you see the people are dumb.
Ed
Technical Note: Just to show you I am not a Brit Basher, I present you pure genius coming from Jolly Old England. The show is called the New Statesman. I find the show to be extremely realistic in terms of the lack of ethics of 99% of politicians. Only the Brits have the sense of humor to show you the way it is. That show could never be made here in the Philippines where they pretend to be moral and do the opposite. Video after the reprint of Efren Penaflorida's rigged win. Also found in http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1238/What_Prince_William_Noynoy_The_Royal_Tradition_and_Philippine_Elections_All_Have_In_Common ****************************
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1114/You_Mean_We_Have_To_Elect_A_Leader_
(Destiny)
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1004/The_Filipino_Cry_For_Attention
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/996/The_Queen_Invites_The_World_From_BC_Place_Stadium_March_1983_Video
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/132/Love_Him_Hate_Him_ (Bobby Knight)
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1065/What_A_Lame_Campaign_Noynoy_Related
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/British+Commonwealth
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/1238/What_Prince_William_Noynoy_The_Royal_Tradition_and_Philippine_Elections_All_Have_In_Common (original post)
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/journal/item/951/One_Person_Wants_To_Make_Dancing_With_The_Stars_About_Race_And_Not_Dancing
http://cornholiogogs.multiply.com/tag/noynoy%20aquino (even more Noynoy)
http://antipinoy.com/like-filipino-elections-efren-penafloridas-rigged-win/ (written by rafterman of Antipinoy.com)
http://antipinoy.com/like-filipino-elections-efren-penafloridas-rigged-win/
Like Filipino elections: Efren Peñaflorida’s rigged “win”
Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 18:29
by rafterman
After a stressful day at work the way I relax my mind is to go on Facebook to catch up with friends and see what they have been up to since the last time I logged in. So after an extra hectic day today, I got into comfortable clothes, turned the heat up to a comfortable temperature, poured myself a glass of juice, settled in front of the computer and logged on to Facebook.
The website opened up with a list of most recent updates my friends have made and I noticed that a lot of them have posted something along the lines of “Congratulations to Efren Peñaflorida, CNN Hero of the Year!” and “I am proud to have voted for you.” Once again, I had to shake my head in disappointment about the highly predictable reaction of the common Filipino.
Memories of other on-line voting “triumphs” came back to mind. One was that of Jasmine Trias of the reality show American Idol whom Filipinos rallied behind like a pack of rabid dogs using all the phones they could get their hands on. The same thing went for Brooke Burke in Dancing with the Stars. Heck, even the Chocolate Hills (which is really nothing compared to other wonders of the world) was not spared from this on-line/phone voting frenzy that Filipinos wet their pants in excitement about.
So I replied to one of those who posted about Mr. Peñaflorida and I pointed this out:
There really is nothing to be so proud about in Efren Peñaflorida’s so-called victory.
Let me explain. The nature of his “win” is rooted in a system called “on-line voting”. On-line voting involves people logging on to a website to cast their votes which are then tallied by the system running behind that website. Usually IP addresses and/or cookies are used to uniquely identify individual votes captured by the system in order to avoid duplicates. It is easy to get around this. All you have to do is reconnect your modem/router and clear your cache, then you can cast your vote again. There are many other ways for people to game on-line voting systems to vote multiple times, but this blog is not about the fine technical points of such activities.
To understand the significance of the loopholes of the sort of on-line voting system that catapulted Peñaflorida to world renown, consider the recent activity I monitored in the various mailing lists on various subjects that I am a member of. Some of these mailing lists are of Filipino groups and some are primarily American. In the Filipino groups, we were always bombarded by messages to vote for Mr. Peñaflorida and to forward it to all our friends. Some schlemiels even forwarded it to all their friends and back to the group. In contrast to all this, the American mailing lists were all discussing topics consistent with the purpose of their group and not once did I get an email soliciting a vote for Americans who were also part of the CNN Heroes contest.
efren-penaflorida[1]
I explained these points to the poster on Facebook and she basically said that Efren won because Filipinos wanted him to win. I replied that that is exactly where the problem lies. He won because Filipinos wanted him to win and not because he really was the best among the contestants. Yes, Mr. Peñaflorida did good. Yes, he should be happy that he won, got recognition and harvested a big chunk of money as well. But Filipinos should not be trumpeting about how proud they are of his “victory” because the way it was “achieved” was through a system which yields results that are best taken with a grain of salt. Maybe the CNN Heroes organizers do not realize it, but Filipinos in the Internet and cel-phone age have developed a propensity to get into what we call voting frenzies. Too many people who just have too much time on their hands keep going on line, voting and soliciting the heck out of everyone to jump right into the voting horde just so some Filipino can win and quench their compatriots’ thirst for the next “hero” to latch on to.
My explanation further inflamed the Pinay poster and she continued to defend Peñaflorida. What she and many typical Filipinos don’t understand is that it is not Peñaflorida specifically that was being criticized here. I acknowledge that he did a lot of great things and got funding (even a windfall if you count this latest one) for them. The criticism actually goes to the Filipinos in general (and maybe even Efren himself) who start tooting their own horns once things like this happen even if we all know deep inside that there was a lot of excess effort put behind his “win” compared to those of the other candidates.
Efren Peñaflorida’s “victory” did not prove that Filipinos are a cut above the rest. It was merely a recognition at most for what he has done above and beyond what a common man would do. What his “win” has proven though, is that:
1. Filipinos have a lot more time on their hands
2. Filipinos will exert more effort to win on-line or phone voting polls in order to create a new “hero” to worship than other nationalties
3. Filipinos will trumpet the “victory” of a person (or even a bunch of hills) even if what caused the win is a highly flawed system
4. Filipinos will get defensive and angry if you point out the realities behind the “victory” and resort to emotionalism
5. Filipinos need to get real and work on attaining real victories instead of virtual ones
As long as Filipinos keep on doing what they’re doing, what keeps happening to them will keep happening.
I am reposting this blog article in it's original form because sometimes the AP website is hard to get into.
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