Disclaimer: I may not be a full-blooded Filipino, but I hold the Philippines near and dear to my heart. I’ve come to consider Manila my city, my home. I don’t think anyone would call me unpatriotic, despite what this post may tell you.
Over the years that I’ve spent here in Manila, I’ve learned to threaten with bodily harm subtly influence the things I can change, and to make peace with things I cannot. No country is perfect. The US is infected with Republicans, Saudi Arabia is 300 years late, Japan has cartoon alien porn, and Manila…
Well, Manila is full of fucking idiots.
If you haven’t already, please read the disclaimer above.
Case(s) in point: we Filipinos demand an apology from these Hollywood actors who we THINK have wronged us.

Claire Danes — for saying that Manila “smelled of cockroaches, with rats all over, and that there is no sewerage system, and the people do not have anything – no arms, no legs, no eyes.”
Now, I’m not a big fan of Ms. Danes. I don’t think she can act to save her life, but that’s neither here nor there. In fairness to her comments, she was cloistered in this old abandoned (and by that I take it to mean ‘dilapidated’) hospital in the outskirts of the city to shoot “Brokedown Palace”. I’m assuming there were roaches and rats to add to the ambience, and her Hollywood lifestyle plays a huge factor in her perspective.
Wake the fuck up, Manila. There ARE roaches and rats all over (at least in the ghettos and the inner city, but so does Buenos Aires, Shanghai, or New York)! If you so much as spit in some places, the sewer system clogs up so bad you end up waist deep in dysentery! And many of us are guilty of having no arms to clean up our own city, no legs to walk the talk, and no eyes to see that things can be so much better had our goddamn Juan Tamad (Lazy John) attitude didn’t get in the fucking way.

Teri Hatcher — well, not so much Teri Hatcher as the scriptwriters of Desperate Housewives. In one episode of the hit ABC show, Susan Meyer is at the doctor’s office and the doctor suggests she may just be going through menopause. Susan doesn’t take the news well and says “Okay, so before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Just to make sure they aren’t from some medical school in the Philippines!”.
Wake the fuck up, Manila. If the quality of medical training here were up to par, then why does the fucking president seek medical attention in the US? At this point, I know I’m going to alienate some of my friends who are doctors, but come on guys. If you had a choice between seeing a doctor that graduated from AMA Medicine College or one that came from Harvard, who would you HONESTLY go to? What about if your child was dangerously ill and you had the money to choose? The medical profession is all about credentials and qualifications. Let’s not be hypocrites here.
PS: Desperate Housewives is a SHOW. It’s SUPPOSED to be entertaining. If you can’t laugh at yourself then stop watching the fucking show.

Alec Baldwin — for joking on late night TV that he needed to buy a Filipina mail-order bride.
*slaps forehead*
WAKE THE FUCK UP, MANILA. Have you seen how many idiotic, brain-dead, money-hungry, gold-digging opportunistic fucks are out there? They span the entire sexual gamut from underage girls to old women to will-be-a-woman-once-i-get-the-money-for-the-big-surgery. They troll the streets, the girly bars, even the goddamn shopping malls. They litter the fucking internet, inundating craigslist with “h0t p!nay, luKin 4 to g0 to aMer!cA babeh! F0reiGners ONLY!!!!!1!!!”.
The truth hurts, doesn’t it?
The Philippines is amazing and Manila is a wonderful city to live in if you know where to look. And I’m sure we can make it even better. But until we stop wasting our energy on getting mad at Hollywood actors who think that Hollywood is The World, we’re not going to get anywhere.
Let’s fix what needs to get fixed:
- The legitimately slanderous piece written by Chip Tsao. We are NOT just a country of maids. We are artists, designers, media moguls, nurses, teachers, economic leaders, and corporate movers.
- Our Senate wasting time and resources investigating a sex scandal. In my head, Nancy Pelosi is cracking up trying to figure out why a Paris Hilton debacle would come under Senate scrutiny.
- Charter Change or Constitutional Assembly. While we’re at it, let’s find and shoot the motherfucker who dubbed it “CON-ASS”. Let’s just get it done. It will empower the local governments, abolish the senate, decentralize power, and allow for the creation of a federal government with better checks and balances for the office of the President.
- While we’re at it, can we give the copywriters responsible for these lovely gems a big fat bonus?


