I am amazed by the way we, Filipinos, react strongly to criticisms against anything Filipino, and this is recently exemplified by the virulent, but to me totally unjustified, condemnation of Anderson Cooper, a CNN anchor doing a live coverage of the devastating aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda in Leyte, who reported and lamented the absence of Philippine government personnel in the devastated area he visited and covered. Cooper’s comments were true. Five days had elapsed from the time Typhoon Yolanda passed the Philippine Area of Responsibility (“PAR”), but government had not done anything substantial to alleviate the suffering of the typhoon victims. Filipinos don’t like criticisms, true or not. I remember years back that Kate Winslet made an unfortunate, yet true, observation that Manila was littered with garbage, and she was swarmed with shrill protest. Many foreign celebrities befell the same fate. Offhand I remember Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, and, more recently, Justin Bieber. We, Filipinos, love to criticize somebody else, especially when done surreptitiously among select group of friends. We call it tsismis. But we certainly hate to be at the receiving end of tsismis.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 03:16:36 +0000
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