Post Colonialism

Post Colonialism Critical Commentary

Colonialism is a big factor in our current identity as Filipinos. As I’ve said in my previous commentary regarding the indigenous Filipino, it was because we were conquered that we became what we are. As we stand right now there is this notion that Filipinos are Western oriented people and we Filipinos unlike most Eastern countries are so called modern. This sounds good but if we expound on this further it means that we have this mentality that anything from the west is good. In fact our preference for beauty stems from the west. As you can see in our perspective whenever we look to our media everything AMERICAN and EUROPEAN we go gaga over. I’m not a hater here but that is just the plain definition of colonial mentality. Sure, we’ve been an independent state for almost 60 years already but if you look closely can you really say that we are really independent?

The Americans gave our independence to us for almost 60 years already and as it seems why does it feel that we are still under control from the Americans? Why is it that until now there is this feeling that we are just subordinates to the countries of the west and we idolize them? To be honest, yes I do patronize western products. I am more of a western person when it comes to my appearance but there’s this struggle for me that says this is wrong, we are independent and we should be proud of what we truly are not try to mimic or idolize someone that we’re not. In fact I see that this struggle becomes harder to fight because of capitalism and the media. I admit that we have this notion that the west is the best but it is amplified with the fact that capitalism makes it more appealing for us to patronize the western culture and products. Look at McDonald’s it is a form of capitalism that aims to hit our weakness regarding colonial mentality in the sense that it offers food at the same time it is Western. Same with many many products that we see from commercials, in the supermarket; those products are all western oriented carefully made by capitalists in order for them to make profit. Look at all the billboards and all our commercials you can almost never see a “Pinoy na pinoy” in a commercial, what you see our foreigners or those who are so called the lucky ones the mix breed that are blessed with western genes. From tuna commercials to soy sauce commercial and to beauty products you can see that their models are all western looking people. Going back to the pinoy na pinoy look, still you see them in a commercial but most of the time they’re the ones that are spoof commercial or the commercials that are intended to be funny. Same with media, the stars that we have are almost 90% mix breed of Filipinos and Western breed.

In my honest opinion I do not have anything against foreigners and mix breed people but it is quite unfair to say that “oh you need to use this in order for you to be whiter”. Why can’t we just be contented with who we are? Yes, true Filipinos may not be matangkad, mestizo and maputi but does it really matter? Does it really matter if we don’t have those traits? In fact I can see many Western people, marrying Filipina and those Filipina are those who are pinoy na pinoy. Why don’t we start appreciating who we are and be proud of our heritage?