Gel Relos Santos: Manny Pacquiao statue to "scare off Mexicans"
"Pres[ident]. [Barack] Obama wants to know if they can build a Manny Pacquiao statue to scare off Mexicans from illegally crossing US border." So goes a "joke" made by Filipino-American community leader Gel Relos Santos on her Facebook profile in a post that has since been deleted.The following screen grab showing the ensuing heated debate on the merits and demerits of this fine specimen of Pinoy "humour", however, was captured and is preserved here (and reproduced below but cropped to fit the page) for posterity.
Pinoy nga naman talaga
Parang aso
Matangkad lang kapag naka-upo.
Nakakadiri sa yabang ang mga Pinoy na yan. I get the joke. And for sure it's funny when we're among friends watching the game, but for a media person like Gel Santos to post this in her public profile.
ReplyDeleteHaven't she heard about Rick Sanchez and Octavia Nasr and their twitter twits?
The propensity to joke is understandable, but for Filipinos like us who just attended the Global Forum on Migration and Development in Puerto Vallarta it reveals some problems in our Pinoy community in seeing the migration issue in a more balanced way.
ReplyDeleteIn the conference attended by governments, leaders of migrants and diaspora organizations asked governments to stop criminalizing migrants and to be more active in changing the negative perception of migrants -- whether latinos, asians, africans. We told them that we are willing to be partners of development if they started to treat us as equals, as fellow humans, as people who could bring change to both sending and receiving countries.
I am in Zacatecas right now and reading this discussion only made me aware that many Filipinos think they are in a different boat and could not even start to consider the causes that pushes migrants to risk their lives just to improve the situation of their families back home. This is a sobering fact, after we as a diaspora platform in the Netherlands offered the National Alliance of Latinos and Carribean Communities to cooperate in campaigning for a more humane and more progressive migration system in the US. There is much work to change such views within our community.
Basco Fernandez,
President, Damayang Pilipino sa Nederland
This Gel Relos disappeared from the scene her in the Philippines, na laos na siguro and now trying to portray herself as a community "leader" ? Leaders don't make insensitive jokes nor cause controversy, siguro gusto niya sa limelight ulit kaya niya ginawa ito. Grow up bitch, nakakahiyang sabihin pinoy ka lumipat ka na lang sa afghanistan, baka masabugan ka duon at matapos na lahat ng problema mo.
ReplyDeleteit is understandable why jokes like this could mean insult to some and fun to others. this joke unfortunately made the plight of mexican immigrants crossing the borders laughable and like an enemy in a boxing ring that needs to be "executed", which is not totally right. worse, the joke comes at the moment when this issue about immigration among mexicans into the US soil has packed a more serious implication to the plight of many immigrants from other countries like Philippines, rather than a stuff of joke by any one who has sympathy to poor people like migrants, refugees and slaves. this is not a joke about Manny; this is about Mexicans. and that to me is way off the border of our decency and intelligence.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah... filipinos can dish it out can they? all proud for something they didnt do. filipino pride usually only shows itself when somebody becomes famous... "ang sarap maging pinoy" when manny wins or when charice appears on glee or when arnel pineda of journey is performing.
ReplyDeleteon the other side of the coin, say for example the hostage crisis that killed tourists from hong kong, that "pride" is gone. nope... they dont want to be associated to the stupid police, the stupid government, incompetent mayor and vice mayor. or the recent plagiarized logo of the country's new tourism slogan "pilipinas kay ganda". then everybody becomes a critic. point here and point there. tsk tsk tsk...
to drive home another point, try the desperate housewives episode or alec baldwin's joke about the philippines... one imbecile senator challenged mr. baldwin to come over to the philippines to see "mayhem". and there are calls for public apologies, etc etc.
really now... since gel santos relos says that its the internet, its her opinion, and its a joke... here is my own opinion of her:
shut the fuck up.
the problem is that when you confront them with reality they get mad...its funny how this Gel person tried to savage her credibility. Face it, its damaged. My mom said that she knows Gel as a journalist but after reading this was disappointed. The joke is in the same level as the joke made in desperate housewives, and Filipinos went ballistic over that one. She should have ben more responsible and should have retracted immediately instead of defending her post and displaying her ignorance.
ReplyDelete