Filipinos in the 21st Century

Mark Raymond Ferrer

Encystment of a conquering people is possible, for it signifies complete isolation, absolute inertia, debility in the conquering element. Encystment thus means the tomb of the foreign invader. -Dr. Jose Rizal 21st century the era of advancements, urbanizations, industrialization, commercialization and technology most of the people nowadays are way back more liberate and independent among themselves than before. All of them are loaded up of technologies that changed the way of life for the modern people and made everything a fast track. But with all these advancements does this affect the meaning of being a Filipino or even just the modern Juan de la Cruz? Can this be not a hindrance in preserving the Filipino values? Filipino peoples a group of people living in the great islands of the Philippines the pearl of the orient. The Filipino people are known as hospitable, respectful, kind, patriotic, generous and honest people where their culture is a mix of western and Asian cultures. They are also known with their use of po and opo as a sign of respect to their elderly. They are also known as conservatives and sacred Catholics. But with their purely conservative culture, the ways of life has been changed so with their values. There are many people nowadays who have forgotten the culture of a true Filipino. Furthermore, many Filipinos nowadays have forgotten the values of a true Filipino like the use of the words po and opo. Even the honesty is gone and a very few of them still remain that value. The reason for all of these things is the too much addiction with the western culture of many Filipinos. Many of them find the Filipino Culture as boring, non sense, old fashioned, and so much like Maria Clara. Many of them would turn to imported goods instead of their native products. Some are also addicted with much foreign music like K-POP and J-POP. These are just some of their changes that greatly affect their identity as Filipinos. Moreover, the spirit of bayanihan is also gone and we can just seldom see those things. They have forgotten the value of helping one another and just go in separate ways. They are just ignoring people who really need help. We can seldom see or hear that there are still some preserves that value of a Filipino. In addition, many of them are fond of modern gaming consoles and left what we call as Filipino Games dying and ailing and barely make a comeback to the Filipino children. The playing of those games like patintero, tumbang preso and piko is barely seen and it is just played sometimes as a part of their P.E. in such schools and universities like the University of the Philippines. Many children of today

do not even know how to play those games because of the penetration of high-tech consoles like Play Station Portable, Play Station, and Computers. Likewise, social changes like Jejemons contribute to the loss of identity. It made a big role to the hindrance of the original culture by changing the spelling and pronunciation of such words. Just like the balagtasan is toppled by the evolving fliptop. It just exemplifies the effect of the loss of the Filipino culture because the changing needs of the people and the advancement of technology in the world. Aside from that, the changes of culture or the way of life for the past years contribute to the change of attitude of the younger generation of Filipinos. Just like for example, many children are now brat and too much obsessed with the material things. Some of them do not speak Filipino that much and are always speaking in English. And some parents do not train them or show them the right attitude of a Filipino and just going their own way without even considering the fact that their culture is passed from generation to generation. Furthermore, because of the advancement of technology like the existence of cellular phones changed the ways of courting a lady nowadays. Unlike before, the man or someone who would like to court a lady would need to go the house of the lady and make harana in the middle of the night. The person who courts must service the family of the woman by fetching water and making firewood etc. Also the person who courts must go to the house of the lady asks for the permission of the parents of the lady to court her. But now, the person who courts will just text and message each other through social networking sites without their parents knowing. They will just see each other in school and just after days or so they will be in a relationship. This is a paradigm of a constant change of attitude and values of Filipino. Moreover, the spirit of patriotism is gone because of pop-cultures. Many Filipinos do not even care about their country because they are fond to go in trend. They lose their distinctiveness of being respectful, patriotic and nationalistic because of going into the trend. They always set aside the culture and go to what is eminent. Just like for example, the Philippine movie industry and music is being toppled by international films and music. Most of them prefer to watch and hear the international acts rather than having a pure Filipino show. Indeed, we, Filipinos have changed as time passes by. We have changed significantly that affected our culture and values. We have evidently changed the essence of being Filipino a Filipino who has the abilities and attitudes that our ancestors lived in. Maybe time passes and we need to change but that change in our way of life should not affect the Filipino Spirit on us. We should use those changes as a part of the advancement of teaching and nourishing our own culture. I, as a Filipino should take all this changes as a challenge on implementing a new way of preserving and nourishing of our dying culture.

But before I end, I will leave questions for you to answer. You as a Filipino how would you take all this changes and advancements to preserve and nourish our culture with all the technologies that has been evolving and the pop-cultures that exists everywhere? You as a Filipino how would you react on this? This I stress for you to answer and find out in yourself the true meaning of a Filipino today.