AL ELLEMA

We have been tagged albeit unfairly as imitators of other races and cultures. In more ways we are influenced by the fashion and lifestyles of western countries, chief of which America.

We had developed that mentality of opting to adopt identities of other peoples and cultures. Our fashion had hugely been what we see are being worn by Americans and other western countries.

Apart from the fashion wears we too are fond of the foods and recipes of other countries. We try to like the taste that seems to us imported in lieu of our palatable native dishes. And we try to adopt the technologies that advanced countries had developed in our desire to be in fashion and live the lifestyle of modern people.

Our systems of government and education are likewise a copycat from other countries. We have adopted systems that are often inapplicable to us, failing, we put the blame on us rather than on the system we force adopting. The problem is often in the unfitness of such things which we copy but we copy anyway and effect adjustments on us, taking the system as accurate and perfect as we see them well with the peoples of their origin. We blindly copy without regard to the unique traits that we have as a people which may be incompatible to the system we are adopting.

Then we develop a penchant for modern gadgetry that advance nations show us. We become captive markets of technological products which are dumped to our country. Gullible customers are easily caught in such gadgets that are dependent from their countries of origin for operation and maintenance. We get hooked in the use of such modern things and fall as perennial customers of the industries of such countries.

But in all our tendencies to be imitators, there is one aspect of governance and socio-political life that we must have copied but we continue to fail doing so. We already adopted mostly American ways of fashion, lifestyle, education, governance and technology. Unfortunately, we remain an immature people as we continue to fail to develop the way we see it practiced in other countries, specifically America.

Our democracy, education, government setup and many other aspects of life are in a way copied, mainly from America. The only thing we fail to copy is the kind of democracy they have and their electoral process where winners are known too fast and accurate and losers concede too quickly without blaming or protesting the outcome however and whatever the people’s will be.

In the continuing fight to defend our territory from arrogant bullying of China, our leaders could hardly copy the patriotic stance of its neighbors that assert their right and claim over their territory. The most that had been done so far was seek cooperation from its ally America in the conduct of mutual military exercises aimed at driving away the chinese forces encroaching Philippine territory.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com