My Mindanao Mind and the Metro Manila Media

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.

11 comments

  1. hey, mr. gwapito!

    i beg to disagree you labeling the cebuano language as inferior language… let’s just say that it’s a less dominant language…inferior is quite negative…

    anyways, im a cebuano and i love my native tongue. only those people who have no sense of themselves can consider their native language inferior…

    and about people’s perception about the media…well, we cannot stop them from thinking that everything they see, heard, and read is true. That’s why everybody should be well educated so that we won’t be like stupid idiots who would just hastily believe everything we heard or see.

    1. Actually, I only hear or see the racism you speak of against Cebuano are from Cebuano themselves. They definitely pride themselves for being Cebuano, but they always try to compare themselves against Manilenos.

  2. nah, c empress kay wala ka kuha sa unod sa gi suwat nimo bai. hingpit kong naka.uyon sa buot nimong gipasabot bai. nakabantay pud ko nga ang mga magtagalog kay mga maypagka hambogero.on manulti or basin sa ilang tuno lang pud. tuod, gahi man ta manabi ug tinagalog, pero wa man pud ta mangandoy nga matagalog ta, kay pinangga man nato ang atong pagka bisdak. ü

  3. Well I was born and grew up in Mindanao too. Taga-Davao ni! Yeah and yes I agree with you Mr. Gwapito. I have the same experience with people coming in from Manila visiting Mindanao… man they are really stars. Specially when they start to talk tagalog…big time and dating. 🙂

    I remember one time….I felt like a “monkey” when I find myself in a Jamboree that was…I got myself sorrounded by locals from Luzon who speaks fluently tagalog. I just keep silent and pretend to be one of the tagalogs. Looking pasts that yesteryears I was such a “Jack-Ass” to have done so otherwise.

    And the media…ala eh..number one lagi Sharon at Gabi Concepcion tandem dun eh. Kasama din ako sa nakipag pilahan sa sinehan para masilayan lang ang megastar. Nowadays Sharon literally have become a “Mega” (I leave you guys to your creative imagination kung ano ibig ko sabihin ok – :-))

    Although I cant quiet fully agree to you Mr Gwapito that the media can be solely blame for inducing such backward thinking. I guess its the attitude of the people that dominates the trend even today. It grips every basic social unit of our community. Family, schools and the people in the media. All of em have contributed to some extent as to why we think such way. And I do believed that even through this modern times there still humans in Mindanao to have think the same we did before. Its already a sickness thats hard to eradicate

    Even here in Metro Manila its worse….basically everyone I know and its sad…think like a foreigner. I guess its true they say that we are indeed a double standard nation. We feel like americans, speaks like americans, dressed like americans, we worship the spaniards for their beauties and idiosyncracies thats already embedded in our system and quadruppled that by our being a locality. But all in all the sum total of all such sophistication and outlook we still act as who we really are….a simple down to earth native to this land. Some of us seem to forget that…and as one proverb claims “He who does not look where he is from, cannot reach its destination”.

    Far-out dude!!! 🙂

  4. Thanks for your comment Bongkoy.

    I’m not really fully blaming the media, but i believe it has the bigger influence on the people’s way of thinking than any other factors.

  5. Marame naman nontagalog sa pilipinas more than 100 languages. Bahala na sila magisip sa mga languages na yan kung anu tingin nila.

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