Filipino Hospitality: A Myth

The Philippines being a former colony of Spain and the United States has left a severe cultural scar within the Filipino psyche today. Colonial mentality as most people would call it is deeply ingrained within Philippine culture today. How is that evident today? The other day in the MRT this white Caucasian guy came into the train. Probably half the people in the car were staring at him just because he was white, and he literally stuck out like a sore thumb among the Filipinos in the train.

Eventually random Filipinos asked this random Caucasian guy mundane questions, such as where he was from, where was he going, or did he have a girlfriend. He was even offered a seat on occasion. Now would people do that to a Filipino in another country? When pigs fly, I guess. One look at the Caucasian guy and I could tell he was kinda annoyed. I guess that is why Filipino hospitality is so legendary in a sense that if you couple it with colonial mentality, voila, the end result of being overly-nice to foreigners.

This attitude is not exempt to Caucasians alone. Probably almost any foreigner with a certain accent that silly Filipinos call "twang" would pass as a candidate for our hospitality. Singaporeans, Australians, and even the Koreans would suddenly get some sort of VIP access to many areas around the country. When I was waiting for my guest at NAIA Terminal 1, this group of Koreans were suddenly allowed to go past the Greeter's Area so that they could welcome their friend. Filipinos who wanted to do that were still held by the guard as opposed to the Koreans who were simply waived through.

In terms of customer service, as a Filipino, if you go to most retail stores or other service-related places, you would be given a rather indifferent treatment and most service staff would just give you an indifferent experience with limited smiles and limited customer service. If you were a foreigner, you would instantly become a VIP in your own right and you would get what you want if you simply complain. Basically if a Filipino is in trouble, we treat it as a "wala lang" kind of deal. Indifference. If the customer was a foreigner, we would be very careful and give this foreigner the best, and only the best.

So why is it that we Filipinos don't help our own kind? Probably because we got fed up of seeing each others faces for a long time that we just don't care about each other any more and apathy took over this thing called "bayanihan" that seems to surface only during times of crisis and elections. Then we see these foreigners in the poshest of places in the country, enjoying whatever is there.

I performed a little experiment with some friends one time. Because of my knowledge in Nihongo and my looks that could pass off as a Japanese person, we went to some stores and I acted like a Japanese person, speaking in Nihongo to the best of my ability. (And how convincing it sounds, I might add.) I just told my friends to play along and observe how people would react at the stores we visited.

At a retail store, we went around the store and I gave comments in Japanese, with my friends playing along. I eventually noticed all eyes were on us and the sales staff were stalking us around the store. When I reached for an item, one sales staff suddenly offered me a shopping basket. I just said "Iranai." (no need) as a reply. When we left the store, we tried to hold in our laughter until at the mall's exit where we finally let out our laughter and had one of the best trippings ever.

I've been using this colonial mentality to my advantage somehow. If I wanted to get a bit more, I would simply pretend to be a Japanese person at let's say, a fast food outlet. If I wanted a bit more in my serving, I would talk in Nihongo and they would give some more fries in my serving. If I revealed my identity as Filipino they'd probably tell me that's the normal serving.

Unless Filipinos could learn to mature and say that foreigners need not be our masters, I can always go around the next store and exploit the sales/service staff with my Japanese facade.

The Bus. Part of Urban Blight.

Dubbed as "Kings of the Road" second to those blasted metallic hunks of scrap metal called jeepneys, buses in our country are no different in terms of crass methods of "professional driving" for public transportation. Like in most developing countries, the drivers and the methods of these buses are very dangerous to an extent that it endangers both the passengers and motorists on busy thoroughfares. Well-known for their smoke-belching, loud horns and simply blocking the traffic flow, buses are definitely a blight in our system today.

Because of the increased ridership in our train system nowadays which still needs improvement, you could find buses either half-empty or with no passengers at all. That is because buses fail at being an efficient public transportation system. You could find all sorts of buses within Metro Manila so let me profile them for you.

1. The "Survivor"

- The non-aircon bus. These are basically buses with no air-conditioning and equipped with uncomfortable seats. And more importantly, railings. Why? For you to hold on

for your dear life. These things are like zombies for some reason. Made out of the carcasses of rejected buses and refurbished to function again, they move slow during the day because of the heavy traffic. However, come nightfall, these things are speed demons that make your ride a rollercoaster, literally. Personally, I would only ride this for short trips or if I have no other choice. You may also find more of these in the provincial routes. For you thrill-seekers, enjoy.

2. The Japanese Second-Hand

- A small second-hand aircon bus imported from Japan. These buses are quite noticeable for their old, musty interior and refurbished seats made to fit Philippine standards. (And by

Philippine standards, I mean mediocrity.) Unaligned seats, musty smell and suffocating air-conditioning make your ride uncomfortable in this death trap. If you're having trouble spotting these, look at the windows inside these buses and look for the Japanese characters written on it. That's the one. It started life as an efficient transport in Japan and ends up in our country, corrupted to its core. I try to avoid these buses as much as possible.

3. The Chinese/Korean Express

- Now these are nice Chinese/Korean buses. I try to get a ride on these buses as much as possible because it's still brand new. It would be better if this would replace all those other ugly buses on the road, as these kinds of buses have sufficient lighting, reasonable seating, and have smooth running engines all because it's still new. The only problems it brings are those normally associated with our Philippine buses.

Now let's tackle the normal problems associated with these "road demons". Although the MMDA has already placed a Rapid Bus Transit System, these efforts are but a drop in the ocean. Traffic would still occur not because of normal cars going on the bus lane, but because buses will stop and pick up passengers at ANY point of the road, except in Makati during the day where they miraculously obey rules.

Next would be the regard for human life and the road. Buses will go at great speeds whenever possible and normally disobey regular traffic rules. Even if you are crossing the street as a pedestrian, these buses will try to beat you from crossing the street, thanks to their demonic speed on the road.

Now about that part when they pick up passengers. Drivers and conductors from what I've heard aren't paid monthly, rather by how much they've earned during their shift. This is the reason why they go beyond the passenger pick-up time of around 10 seconds and try to hoard as much passengers as they can. One time, I was riding this bus from Gil Puyat into Makati, and this rival bus company of theirs got angry when our bus "stole" a passenger from them by driving up next to it.

The conductor of the rival company was angered like a monkey and shouted profanities at our bus and threw an empty bottle of mineral water onto the bus body. Along the way those Japanese second hands break down a lot too, as I see discontent passengers behind their broken-down bus looking for another ride. It also broke down during Makati rush hour, of all times and places.

Alright, time to talk about solutions. Personally, I think there should be less bus franchises on the road, and with that the drivers and conductors would be paid more. With the eve of train transportation (which should be greatly expanded), there should be lesser buses on the road. Those second-hand buses gave me an idea when I saw these buttons by the windows. These buses eat up precious commuting time when they pick up passengers, so a button to nag the driver to hurry would be fun to implement.

It could be some sort of flashing light or voice directed at them to keep moving and stop what they're doing. This should penetrate the human mind, right? Well Filipinos are stubborn little buggers anyway, so let's wait and see what happens.

For now, we can only tolerate their shortcomings, but for how long? If we reduce these gargantuan coffins of iron on the road, our streets would decongest somehow.