So, it has come to this. Sadly, while I am pleased to know that more and more people are waking up intellectually because of the Aquino administration’s repetitive mishaps, a lot more remain delusional regarding the true state of the country. To this day, I still meet a lot of people who are in vehement denial of the problems that our country faces in light of recent events. Of course, no country is without problems after all, but most Filipinos take it to a whole new level by being either being in complete denial of the situation or throwing a tantrum and accusing their critics of being bitter or a killjoy.
Well, I hate to break it to those who behaved negatively towards my articles accusing the common Pinoy of being childish and immature, but I will stand by what I said because I can back what I’m saying with some observations I’ve made over the years.
So here they are in case you’re still not convinced:
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We are Easily Distracted
One thing that can easily separate a mature mind from a childish one is that a mature mind can focus on a task at hand longer than a child can. That’s why, if you’ll notice, school hours in grade school is a bit different from those in college because children can only maintain their attention span on something for so long. Of course, as we grow older, our mind should also expand, allowing us to put our efforts on a given task until it is completed.
Unfortunately, as I have come to note, Filipinos aren’t exactly the most attentive people in the world. We are all too easily distracted from what we should do by delusions presented to us by the media. Take note that issues that should’ve been resolved years ago such as the financial scams many of our politicians are involved in and the turmoil that our brothers and sisters in Mindanao suffer on a daily basis are often easily covered up by celebrity news such as two celebrities who have little to do with us getting married in extravagant weddings or are beaten up by a rival. While there’s nothing wrong with the occasional distraction from time to time (hey, I myself am an avid gamer and consumer of anime), we should still learn to focus on what needs to be done and not be side-tracked by issues that are unnecessary to our survival or are outright irrelevant. For instance, I find it very foolish to be swooning over Daniel Padilla and Katherine Bernardo while there is a masked gunman looking in through your window with an assault rifle with attached grenade launcher and mounted bayonet and the words “God is Great” written in Arabic over his head.
We are Focused on Fun and Not Efficiency
As I have said in a previous article, a lot of Filipinos tend to be too allergic to strictness. I have met people who openly berate even otherwise respectable authority figures all because they were punished or even given a stern talking-to because of breaking the rules. When being told the do’s and don’t’s, it’s safe for me to say that no one ever really pays much attention to the don’t’s or simply think of ways to circumvent them.
A lot of people say that: “It’s more fun in the Philippines!” But, as Barney’s dad in How I Met your Mother said, the fun can’t last forever. The party has to end somewhere late at night or right before dawn. The troubles of real life are never far behind even when we’re partying and no matter how much we drink or dance, our problems will be waiting for us when we wake the next morning. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with having fun but forgetting your priorities like your family, your job or the health of your community in favor of having more fun will ensure a bleak future for you.
I’m sorry, but by focusing on too much fun, we miss out on what the more important aspects of our country. Worse yet, if you confront people about their happy-go-lucky nature, they tend to fly into a rage and tell you that what they do is none of your business even if their current activities is a nuisance to the community or is endangering the lives and health of the people around them.
We are Incapable of Responsible Decisions
Okay, this is probably the most glaring fault of the Filipino people. If you’re butthurt about this, I’m sorry but it’s true. Take for example that during elections, we often select candidates out of popularity and not their capability. It doesn’t really matter if the man can’t tell the difference between a washing machine and a toilet, as long as he’s popular, Filipinos will still vote for him.
And not only that, notice that our politicians are barely capable of functioning as leaders. What intelligence they do have is used in hoodwinking the people into giving them more money and using that money to better themselves and no one else. When appointing officials to fill their offices, they often select next of kin or close friends even if the qualities of their chosen officials are at best questionable and at worst outright incompetent.
Like children, we make choices based on what we like, not based on what should be. A good metaphor of what I’m talking about is that, instead of buying a good survival knife when going on a hike which any survival guide is essential when you’re out in the wilderness, we instead buy an expensive gadget like an MP4 which is quite useless in the great outdoors asides from providing a good distraction.
We React Negatively When Criticized
Getting criticized can be kinda bad. It makes you realize your mistakes and, more often than not, it’s very hard to swallow. But then again, by accepting criticism, we take the first step in correcting our mistakes. But by continuing to deny where we went wrong, we only set ourselves up to make the same mistakes over and over again.
By refusing to accept criticism, even when it’s positive, we never learn from the countless bad experiences and continue to plunge the country into greater degrees of misery. That many of our so-called leaders are criminals and the fact that many of our people continue to vote for them is evidence enough of our unwillingness to accept criticism.
We Have Difficulty Accepting the Consequences of Our Actions
This can often be seen in the people who like to complain about being treated unfairly when it was they who broke the rules first. They shout “biased” or “discrimination” without ever realizing that they either started or encouraged the idea in the first place.
When caught doing something inappropriate, immoral or illegal, many of us are quick to blame others instead of focusing on what can be done to save the situation. When things finally come apart, instead of owning up to the mishaps that occurred, we try to deny any responsibility in what happened. There are even those who will make even the lamest of excuses such as “I was fooled” even though you are probably partially guilty as well for allowing yourself to be fooled.
Any counter-arguments with sound reasoning will be accepted in the comments section below. And no, if you’re going to criticize me with being a hypocrite for enjoying anime and video games and that I too am childish or immature, well I got news for you: I watch shows like Haibane Renmei and play games like Civilizations V: Brave New World, media whose messages, concepts and lessons will easily fly over the minds of many Filipinos.
I HAVE RETURNED TO LAY WASTE TO OUR ENEMIES!
Do not dismiss the words of the old; they possess wisdom, which comes only with age, and often speak of things that the young are too immature to understand. Self appreciation is a sign of maturity, seeking appreciation is a sign of immaturity.
Immature is not the word, we should use the wording young children and totally brain washed children at that
All 100+ million are immature
Absolutely true…now 110 million, leaving this country 6 years from now…is a college degree even worth taking here? I’m gonna be living in the US anyway
Yes so many Filipinos are very immature and very shallow-minded (ang bababaw). It can be very frustrating when communicating your ideas across.
This is the sort of society that turns any intelligent idealist into pessimists and cynics given enough time. Oftentimes I feel like giving up hope for this country.
There are signs that Filipinos are slowly maturing as a society, but it’s not enough that we should expect any big change, the kind of change that will really move this country forward.
That I can agree with you. I grew up loving the Philippines… but upon returning I realized how many problems the society had. But I put up a brave face and tried to relax.
After 4 years of dealing with much hypocrisy, idiotic traditions, incompetence, and getting shafted in my education…
I’ve turned into quite the cynic and nihilist.
The Philippines to survive, needs to shun many held traditions such as “Hiya” and be willing to challenge the status quo. Rather than bow their heads and kowtow.
Marami kasi sa atin mas may paki sa pagkamatay ni Jam kaysa sa pagkamatay ng mga sundalo na hindi kinover ng media. Sometimes when I see articles in the internet about ‘MIRACLES’, Filipinos spam the comment ‘AMEN’ not knowing the article is FAKE. HAHA
…or even bothering to check if it is a fake.
#4 is especially true. Responsible decision making is a case by case type situation. Not everyone qualifies for that one.
Not all Filipinos are immature, in general. I think some, the uneducated.
Also, immature isn’t the most appropriate word. Uneducated pa siguro. Uneducated of the consequences of their nonsensical actions. And uneducated here does not mean that the person did not receive formal education. You can still get formal education and wind up an uneducated person. Case in point, those people who bribe their professors/school into letting them pass their course.
The majority of Filipinos who are immature are not because they are poor and uneducated. They are immature because they just keep on crying, talking, complaining, fighting with each other, blaming things outside of themselves instead of taking responsibility to correct things and make things better starting with himself/herself. Rich, poor, educated, uneducated, Pro-Pnoy, Nati-Yellow..etc…that kind of immaturity exists!
Spot on
I agree
Education has nothing to do with emotional maturity
The easiest way to find out if a Filipino is mature or not just say the word NO to them and you will quickly find out
I can say one thing: GROW UP PHILIPPINES!!!
Judging a class of people immature is not mature either. What you point out here are not specific to a class of people or unique to a race but they are common human nature or habits acquired by lack of awareness. It’s not only Filipinos who have these problems but the whole lots of people in every corners of the world. Give tolerance not judgments, solutions not criticisms. Do you think your reader will be inspired by reading this article? I guess not. Nothing is new in this article and this can be a generall assessment to an individual regardless of race and colour.
#1 – How about not knowing the difference between ‘judging’ and ‘stating clear facts’ and then posting a comment about it?
#2 – Just because it’s human nature, does it mean we won’t fix it anymore? If the rest of the world don’t want to change themselves, that is none of our business. We need to deal with our OWN problem, human nature or not, because no one will come and fix our country for us but ourselves.
#3 – Giving ‘tolerances’ have already been done and is currently being done, and this is exactly the reason why our problems continue to exist. Solutions? Awareness is the beginning to solve our country’s problems, because the main problem is our country’s people! As for criticisms, WE DESERVE CRITICISM! I repeat, our country deserves criticism! Let us as a country listen (not necessarily follow them though) to others’ criticisms no matter how badly they were said, instead of taking them personally. Learn from them, analyze and then apply to our own daily lives in order to begin the change that we should have started ages ago.
#1) Any form of adjectives given is a word of judgment whether it’s positive or not. If you say to me I’m immature, it’s clearly a judgment whether it’s a fact or just profiling my character. Stating clear facts do not involve judgments, it’s just stating what is so but does not belittle somebody for the decisions they’ve made as a country. It’s just stating what could go wrong and what might have been if they decided otherwise.
#2) The content of the article does not really give a unique perspective that is exclusive to a particular race or nation. Any human being regardless of where they come from are not exempt to the behaviours enlisted in this article, it’s basic human nature, it’s not exclusive to Filipinos only. I’ve been around the world and I can tell you it’s not only Filipinos that possess these unwanted behaviours. And any psychologist can give such assessment in a 2hr session to her client basically stating what’s been said in this article.
#3) you sound like you don’t believe there’s hope for Philippines to change and that we truly deserves criticisms being thrown by other nation. The mass of people will not agree to this but the key problem here is not really the common Filipinos but the corrupt government that is running the country and the obsolete culture that’s still pervading in 20th century Philippines. What if I tell you politics, education and religion are the root causes of dysfunction in every nation? You need to question the systems governing the entire nation. No matter who you put into office there would always be a problem, That education prepares you to be modern slaves, and that religion brainwashes you to keep you in guilt and that there’s being who would punish you to keep your membership. These systems are inherently flawed and need to examine why it was built in the first place. The whole world is suffering from this. What if I tell you that poverty is man made and the monetary system is built to enslave everyone to lifetime debts? America is for example is built on debts, almost everyone is indebted already while they’re young until they get old. We all need to educate ourselves and know the truth. We have accepted the systems and thought these are truths but underneath these systems involves lies and intention to subjugate every human being in the planet. The gist of my argument is that everyone should wake up not only Philippines but the whole people of the world, it is only through people power that any nation could have dramatic change if we badly wanted too. If we operate within the system, nothing will ever happened. According to Einsten, you cannot solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created them.
Regarding your #3 point “the problem is not the really the common Filipinos, but the corrupt government that is running the country and the obsolete culture that’s still pervading 20th century Philippines”. No, the culture is the totality of Filipino people, or you could say the Filipinos here are part of the culture. It is a messed up culture here and I putting it nicely, and I will give you one example… the endless begging that goes on here on a daily basis. The kids on this shit hole island I am staying on beg me all the time. Most of the time when I pass on my motor, the first thing that comes out of their mouth is “hey, give me money”. Where do they learn this behavior? From the government? What does that have to do with the government? Umm, maybe this is part of the obsolete culture of the 20th century? We are in the 21st century. It has been proven in my mind that most but not all Filipinos are immature by any logical standard. Most refuse to accept responsibility for their actions, and this has been demonstrated to me over and over again. You should re-read Jon Rolly rebuttal to your comments and let it sink in and marinate in your mind for a while!
ZenOllieRoss, I am quite astounded by that stream of free-associating, illogical nonsense, and if that’s the way people think (using the word in the loosest possible sense) then the Philippines is doomed for all eternity. I leave you with this quote:
“Mr. Madison, what you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response, were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
If I may, your article was pretty good until the very last paragraph. You sounded way too defensive which killed the message you were trying to convey. You just came off as an angry person trying to compensate and does not make for professional writing. I suggest you refrain from that in future works.
Yes. I think I did go too far there.
Hmm.. If you think the government is not responsible for the poverty of a nation. Think again. I’m still baffled by people who thinks any politician really cares about your welfare. Good luck Filipinos! I’m done here.
The writer is just stating his judgment on an entire population implying that he is mature by whatever definition he has for mature. How would he characterize the Arabs and other countries whose situation are far worse? I was looking for solutions he would suggest should be done but did not see any. It’s always very easy to point out what’s wrong bu not as easy on how to correct it that is doable. Politics, after all, is the art of the possible but with people the way they are, it’s never easy to shift paradigms. Those who benefit from the status quo will not allow change to their detriment. One bright aspect I keep hearing about the Philippines though is it has a rather high happiness index compared to more materially prosperous societies, and I believe it. The tiny country of Bhutan started that concept of measuring happiness instead of just per capita as a measure of national success.
Ah yes, the standard Pinoy response:
1) Just look at [insert shithole country here]! They’re far worse! Why are you pointing fingers at us?
(response: because the blog is about THE PHILIPPINES, not Ay-rabs or any other convenient scapegoat).
2) You’re full of criticisms, smartarse, but where are your solutions, eh? eh?
(response: do other people have to do ALL the thinking for you? How about deploying a little Pinoy Pride and thinking up your own solutions?).
3) It’s all OK anyway, because Filipinos are just so happy (cue Pharrell Willams).
Except they’re not. The oft-cited happiness of Filipinos is partly an artifact of the Filipino’s infinite capacity for self-delusion, denial of reality, and pseudo-religious ‘will of God’ nonsense … and partly a lie made up for those exact same reasons. The actual happiness index is here:
http://issuu.com/earthinstitute/docs/world-happiness-report
Which clearly puts prosperous, stable societies in the lead, and the Philippines closer to the bottom than the top.
What Filipinos certainly are is EMOTIONAL:
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/283217/lifestyle/peopleandevents/it-s-more-emotional-in-the-philippines-says-us-pollster
And that’s not the same thing as being happy. If anything, it probably has a lot to do with their relative unhappiness. It also suggests an objective measure of the immaturity mooted by Grimwald.
Another interesting article:
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/325968/lifestyle/peopleandevents/it-s-less-happy-in-the-philippines-2013-un-world-happiness-report-says
“WHO data shows there are 4.5 million depressed Filipinos, the highest incidence of depression in Southeast Asia.”
“Take note that issues that should’ve been resolved years ago such as the financial scams many of our politicians are involved in and the turmoil that our brothers and sisters in Mindanao suffer on a daily basis are often easily covered up by celebrity news such as two celebrities who have little to do with us getting married in extravagant weddings or are beaten up by a rival.”
My question is, if the people’s attention diverted from one issue to another, especially given that not everybody are aware or that involved in the issue, does it mean that the case have to slow down or the proceedings deterred? Oh yes, we’re in Philippines nga pala. The Philippine justice system won’t work well without vigilant Filipinos supervision.
Supposed to be, people mature as they aged. While young, the mature ones in the family guide and support the youth. As this youth emerged to the world working their way on it on their own that’s the only time they hone themselves to be independent and reliable individuals. Unfortunately in our society, mostly the lower to middle class tried to keep the children at home to help with the expenses and release them only when they will have a family of their own. And even if they have their own family, the parents or younger siblings still depended on them with other needs. Instead of being an active contributor to the country, graduates only become active contributor to their family. And if a person don’t contribute to his country and only sees the problem in his family that he ought to solve, how can he be aware of the important issues in the society? I say the immaturity begins in the dependency within the family.
I just hope to personally meet people that discusses about intellectual topics like this. I cant start talking with others about this kind of topics because I know they’ll avoid it as much as they canor will nnever understand me.
I wish to meet people with similar preferences like intellectual topics. Please help me find other people like me.
Hi Christian,
I’m glad there are still Filipinos who can still looked beyond the surface and dealt things decisively and squarely. Sadly majority of our people lacked the capacity to be more self aware from as an individual and as a nation. They abhor intellectual topics and shunned off personalities that project higher level of thinking. This negative pattern of mentality is deeply entrenched in our national psyche trapping us in a vicious cycle of stagnation and helplessness. We can only hope more should be awakened and thrusts our nation towards real change.
While I agree with many points stated here, I must also point out that ironically, perhaps another reason why Filipinos are perceived as immature is that we (there it is again) tend to generalize too much! I myself am guilty, as shown by my previous sentence!
I agree with you fully. I am an American who just married a filipino woman. When I introduced her to some of my friends today she turned away and started texting. On the way home I told her that was rude. She never apologized. She just made excuse after excuse then tried to turn the conversation into something I did wrong. I cant have any type of conversation with her involving any type of criticism without her deflecting and making a small argument into something big.
Lol. I completely 100% understand what you mean!! The Filipinas I have met are not into ANY. self reflection and if you ever try to talk with them about something they did wrong, all hell breaks loose!! I have met two different types of Filipinas here in the Philippines, the scammers and the very immature and unsophisticated! It’s so frustrating trying to date the women here. Lol.
I’ve been in the Philippines for two years now and I have say, that in my experiences with the filpinos I have meet are very nice people. But the women ?????. OMG. The ones I have meet were a nightmare!? Immature!!?! Hell yes. Unsophisticated?!! HELL YES!! And before someone says I only meet women from the bar scene! Nope I haven’t been to a at in over 13 years. I meet the women off Filipino cupid. BTW I can say this, filpinas make America women look like Awesome!!
Hi,
I’m married with a pinoy and I’m from South America. It is funny how got here in the first place. But anyway, I wanna say that all things you’ve said on this blog are half-righted. And I have a theory are like it. The answer (for me) is easy: you were colonized by Spaniards, it sounds cliché but I’ll explain it:
Long story short…
Spaniards after being populated the Peninsula by romans and consolidated as Iberians (Portugal + Spain all together) there was a Morocco’s invasion of the peninsula. At that time they were an islamic population who mixed with old christian spaniards, they lived together and propagated islam (not peacefully). Everybody knows the rest of the story(Moroccans got kicked out from the peninsula by Charles V of Amsburg, and bla bla bla). One thing just a few people notice is that the islamic world as well as all semitic-religions (Judaism, Christianism and Islamism as well) they are all kinda stubborn and arrogant people, they prefer think they have God’s blessings from their doings (does the phrase “I did from God’s name” sound familiar) and wrong-doing against the others and break their own rules before admitting sort of guilt and immorality.
Hebrews enslaved many people that even Jesus complained about it, you can check it on the bible. Pedro killed people who didn’t pay their own taxes. And Islamic world wasn’t humanitarian either. Disclaimer: I’m not going into details just because I don’t wanna sound like racist or anti-Semitic. I just wanna prove my point.
All of this moral’s hypocrisy and stubbornness from Semitics were passed through Spaniards by Colonization, in fact, most of our colonizers were the “Mr. No one” from their Towns (Rock breakers, shoemakers and criminals or tax-evaders) . That’s why Latin-Americans and Pinoys are so similar in our way to prove our morality issues, just imagine the scene where those kind of people where the ones doing the whole public administration (come on, bite me).
Most of the people from the both sides won’t admit it. but if you observe hardly, you’ll find a pattern and quite the same results between us.
That’s why I can relate a lot to my wife when my in-laws are trying to trick me with something (pasalubon, marites, selling technics and etc.)
The immatureness you see was due to hyper-globalization (wrongly called just globalization but it was actually a hyper one) from American television and Operation Mockingbird, that made the boomer being so childish when the pop-culture started. Causing even more all this mess of morality from youths.
Ok, this my theory and conclusion. Hope it helps to understand why we’re so familiarized.
Maybe I’m not right, but not all is wrong, perhaps.
Love and peace.
Kind Regards.
Spot on theory, actually. Among my circle of friends we eventually came to the conclusion that the indolence of the Pinoys trace back to Spanish colonization. We came to what-ifs if other colonial power did own the Failippine Islands instead.
And speaking of indolence, Jose Rizal did actually write the Indolence of the Filipinos. Our circle based that thinking around his writing. Turns out we aren’t alone with the argument.
if other “colonial” powers you say?
why blame the “colonial powers”.
that is utterly mindless drivel.
any people with any real sense of its own destiny will prosper regardless of any “colonial powers” thrown its way
Shoot man, wait ’til you hear a bunch of arguments if Failipinos wasn’t colonized. You’d be having a good laugh at the content.
the apotheosis of an uncolonized philippines would be a budget rate thailand.
the failure of the filipino, regardless of spanish “colonial” influence, is entirely its own.
no need to blame the opportunist spaniards and mexicans , they only saw their opportunities and actually grabbed it.
You can’t blame the past colonizers for the Philippines’ failures in culture, governance, etc. because Philippines has been independent for decades already, the Spanish regime ended long ago, it’s already a history.
Not trying to blame past colonizers about modern Philippines’s decay. But the easygoing and the way locals try to solve their problems. Evidently, it came from spaniards. It is the exact same behavior. The way pinoys react to some sort of problems and try it easily as it was nothing important, if you come to visit LATAM you’ll notice that it is the exact same way we do. And maybe, just maybe the consequence is bad public administration. Doing a domino effect.
Still, I love pinoys, but can’t deny that were are alike haha.
filipinos, descended from easy going seafaring gypsies,
who invented the beach life.
can hardly be expected to strive harder than the overly serious and self absorbed white man.