What the media conveys is accepted by the masses with arms wide open not considering if the content is right or wrong. Racial and ethnic stereotyping in Philippine media has been going on unchecked and accepted as normal, especially in the previous century, although I observed that there has been a “slight” reduction of such the past few years.
As a child growing up in Mindanao I was made to believed that my first language Cebuano was the most inferior language or dialect in the world. I thought tagalog was in the upper level of status, a notch lower than English.
I could still vividly remember we had a neighbor who got married in Manila; she brought her kids with her for a long vacation. Her two kids were the stars and had all the special attention when all the children including me played with them. A month or two later, her kids started to speak a little Cebuano. She freaked out. Her kids should not speak an inferior language, she brought her kids back to Manila. At the back of my seven year old mind, I agreed with her.
Metro Manila t.v. shows made me think that way. Our language and accent was the constant subject of bigot jokes in comedy shows. My reaction was just laughed it off thinking it was just normal. Media is a powerful tool that even the erroneous or non-existent ideas are born acceptable.
Take for example the words “soccer” and “football.” Americans call the number one sport in the world “soccer” because they’ve created their own and called it “football.” Since the US is considered the media center of the world, the word “soccer” has been the accepted name for “football.” Although the word/sport “football” was invented by England thirty years before the Americans had their own brand of football.
Thank God, i got educated in Cebu, it was there that i learned to love my first language, to be vocal of the stupidity of the Manila media, thus this blog.
