I think it’s pretty lame for some Filipinos to think that just because someone has already migrated elsewhere, they don’t have the right to criticise the Philippines anymore. Filipinos in living in the Philippines do not have the monopoly of love of the country. More often than not, Filipinos who have been in the country far too long are the ones who have been desensitized and are already lacking empathy towards people who are suffering. I was even laughing at a friend who said that because of Efren Penaflorida’s work, the plight of the poor has been highlighted. I said to him “Does that mean Filipinos are blind or something?!”

People have different reasons for leaving. Migration is not a new phenomenon. It’s not even exclusive to Filipinos. Even animals migrate to greener pastures.

Please check out my blog Between Poverty and Ignorance.

http://antipinoy.com/between-poverty-and-ignorance/

By the way Ms sparks, to set the record straight, I didn’t leave the Philippines “under difficult circumstances”. Life there in those islands described in history books as “the Philippines” was ok as it usually is for people who grew up in the right family and company, who enjoyed the right connections, and studied in the right school (i wouldn’t be able to write as brilliantly as I do if it were any other way). But unlike most Pinoys, I don’t enjoy succeeding under such circumstances. I’d rather slug it out on a LEVEL playing field (such as what one can find in a more egalitarian society like Australia) and claim my success as an adult as truly my own (unlike some “presidential” candidates there). I am eternally grateful for my folks for giving me much of the upbringing and education that gave me such a HUGE headstart in life. But then that’s really nothing too different from what ANY decent parent would try their darndest to give their kids. And for my part, that is something i am now doing NOW. It’s not any more complicated than that (certainly not in the way other “migrants” like Jim make it philosophically complicated for themselves).

But do keep on guessing. ;-)

borderless world ang drama natin, kapatid? that’s very patricia evangelista circa2000 of you. ;p

official site for the fight for Sarah’s tenure: http://www.tenureforsarahraymundo.blogspot.com

about sheila coronel, kung ka network mo isa sa mga writers sa pcij perhaps you can get a scoop. sheila left for reasons that do not involve death threats or her “giving up” on rp and and all that jazz. media’s silence about her is conspiratorial. i wanna think it’s actually a form of respect for what she’s done for philippine press.

about jim, obviously may silbi pa ang philippines sa kanya kaya siya bumalik. but i don’t agree that just because he emigrated to australia and came back for a second chance at his career he now doesn’t have the right to say bad things about the philippines. his changing of citizenship should have nothing to do with his diatribes against the philippines. his nega moments should be criticized for what they are, and not because of his citizenship. i get the sense that you feel he’s less filipino for leaving the country and therefore has less right to criticize it. nationalism/patriotism has nothing to do with being nega. besides, he is no-less filipino for being middle class and emigrant to Australia than mang pabling who can’t leave the country. surely, there’s more to being filipino than class status and migration.

sabi nga sa kantang anthem (from chess the musical) “my land’s only border lies around my heart”. char char

So let us just respect what a father and a husband will do for his family. Remembering also that until his last day, he will be a Filipino artist. Sa puso, sa salita at sa gawa.

There are more than 100,000 Filipinos here in Australia. We might have the Australian citizenship but we never forget being Filipinos.

Re: Sheila Coronel. Pagbalik-bakitarin man ang mundo, she will always love Pinas. Please don’t make it difficult for Pinoys leaving our country if there are valid reasons. And there are hundred reasons. Hindi porke umalis kami diyan ay tinatalikuran na namin ang bansang Pilipinas. We return in so many ways the rewards and benefits we are getting here.

As for Sheila Coronel. It’s a good move being at Columbia. She gets more kudos for less effort. The only way she gets her due here is if she sweats blood. Our people rely too much on second-hand opinion when they judge others. Let her have her years at Columbia. The position is quite impressive as well. Maybe she is writing an important book–that will make her stay there truly worthwhile.

That’s the problem with being a public figure I guess: bits and pieces of your life is laid out for the world to see and judge, and as much as you’d like everybody to understand each of your actions, to do so would require you give up more of the dwindling privacy each person cherishes. A double-edged sword?

To question the man’s motives and integrity, however inclined you are in your beliefs, is to question his whole life. Paredes has spent decades of his life (longer than I was alive) giving the Filipino reasons to love their own, and yet when he does something he felt he needed to do for his family (surely you don’t think he went there to find fame and fortune?), you question his credibility?

Do you think can use the same “you abandoned your motherland, you have no credibility” argument on all the OFWs?

but jim paredes can’t just speak of heart here. he is a public figure, a self-fashioned intellectual, someone who sells himself as a credible filipino (being principal for the Pinoy Dream Academy house for example, where he mentors young artists), singing about american junk and being pinoy.

without a doubt, jim’s moving away, saying he has given up on Pinas — the Pinas that was good to him and his family by the way (his daughter was already beginning a TV career when they left, etc.) — affects his credibility. without a doubt, moving away puts into question all these things that jim has said he believed in about this country, puts into question the kind of image he has created for himself as an artist and individual who is purportedly BY and FOR the philippines.

the fact that jim IS a public figure obviously comes into play here. this is also what makes it problematic that after having left, he has come back for work here periodically (living here more often he says, than australia), and has felt invincible — no one should question his presence here, no one should bring up the issue of his citizenship, or his loyalties. even as he decides to continue to speak about this country as if his geography and his heart aren’t elsewhere, or haven’t been split between here and elsewhere. as if he hand’t left at all.

this is the height of hubris. when you leave your nation in the throes of despair, and you’re of the economic status and cultural position as jim paredes, you have got to explain some things before you demand for your credibility back. unless of course you do it another way, which sheila coronel has shown everyone to do: leave quietly, and stay pretty quiet while away. and when you come back, the first thing you do is give us all an explanation — and a reason — to see you as credible again. you don’t presume credibility. you earn it.

I see nothing wrong with leaving, esp. if your heart is in the right place. I believe those who’d attack Mr. Paredes for choosing the best environment possible for his family (I don’t understand how any of you can judge the guy, have you been his in shoes? Do you know his family circumstances?) are ridiculously judgmental and closed minded. If the Philippines cannot provide the safety and opportunities for your daughters you’d want for them, and you as a father had the means to give them an alternative, wouldn’t you?

I had no choice, having had no say in the matter when I was a child, but I have never lost love for my mother country, it was even strengthened when I made the decision to come back to reside for a few years. True it is incredibly frustrating having to witness daily the thieves in public office, the abysmal depths that corruption has reached, and the ‘to each his own’ attitude prevalent and obvious in everything, in even as simple as traffic, but in each ‘taint’, I am also given reasons to fight for a better Philippines: The poor but honest cab driver who returned a laptop left in the backseat of his cab, that nameless guy I never got to thank who jumped in 4 feet of flood waters to help push my stranded truck, the hungry yet bright-eyed children who found reasons to smile in the worst situations…

There are worse things to do than leaving. I know Mr. Paredes ‘left’, but his heart is there, no matter what you accuse him of. He doesn’t stop trying to make the Philippines a better place, if not for himself, then for his countrymen. Whereas one could stay I guess, for lack of a choice or otherwise, but to lose hope, to succumb to complacency, to stop trying, even in your own little way, every single day, now THAT is the bigger sin.

I say to Sparks: Go! Thank whatever divine entity you believe in (or not) and grasp the opportunity that it has given you and expand your horizons, make the most of your widened world view. But don’t forget to look back, because no matter how badly your heart has been hurt by the sins of the faithless few, the reasons you fought will always be there.

Let me end before I get too sappy. The part of me that never stops trying: It’s not the part that’s left, it’s the part that has SEEN in other cultures and in other countries, what COULD BE – what the Filipino can achieve – if just given the chance.

i was actually working in congress.

oh, and i was only doing my masters. if i were to follow a walden bello-esque trajectory, then the philippines is only one site of struggle among many :-)

This post was mentioned on Twitter by carlosceldran: belatedly learned PCIJ journo Shiela Coronel migrated. RP’s loss is Columbia’s gain! http://bit.ly/7eJcfc...