The ugly side of being Filipino

On 22 March 2008, a local Filipino columnist of Saudi Gazette wrote in his column ‘Ang Pinoy nga Naman’ about poverty and its link to prostitution activities of OFWs in the Kingdom. He named Jester Soldevilla as the flesh selling OFW in Ramaniyah mall. The article started a two week long debate, anonymous and libelous emails condemning the author. It was later found out that the author himself was guilty of fabricating a story about Jester just so he could write something in his column.

I’ve heard several reports about Filipino crab mentality outside the Philippines but I never believed it until it happened to Jester Soldevilla. The columnist thirst to make a small amount of money resulted to his writing a very irresponsible article against his compatriot. The sad thing is that he never offered a retraction and apology to his victim.

The columnist was successful in making all Filipinos in Al Khobar who innocently go to Ramaniyah mall vulnerable to the persecution of the people working for the ‘Commission for the Prevention of Vices’ or the mutawas. It was affirmed with the few raids last Friday in some Filipino establishments in Al Khobar.

The bitter exchanges of hate emails between the supporters of Jester and the writer were something that Filipinos should be ashamed of. I do not condone with those tasteless emails but I can never blame them. They were hurt by what the writer wrote in his article and their thirst for blood against the writer is justifiable.

Corrupt and destabilizer politicians like Cory Aquino has been very successful in inculcating the mob mentality amongst Filipino people. Their vindictiveness has reached overseas where there are Filipinos. We are hurting and fighting each other without admitting who’s at fault. We thought that we can get away with everything. This Filipino attitude will not bring us anywhere. Unless we unite and forgive each other, we will never achieve peace in our country and in the countries where there are large Filipino community.

The Jester Soldevilla and Saudi Gazette writer fiasco has died down but this will never be the last.