racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Fr. Vicente Marasigan, SJ, a fellow COPA-NET E-Group member, posted this in response to an email I sent to the group:

[[Whether Faye’s story is true or not, what’s important for me is that the fact remains that many of our kababayans are starstruck. — (Angelo)]]

I like to think that the Faye story is not a hoax intended to deceive but a dramatic parable intended to present a profile of Filipino culture as seen by its anonymous author and also by others including yourself. It is a “starstruck†cuture..

[[At least we have something to take our minds off politics, eh? -Angelo]]

Not quite. The story also contains a profile of politicians.

Here was my response:

In the last sentence of my previous post, I was referring to our ’starstruck’ culture, and not to the article on Faye per se. My apologies for being ambiguous on this.

It’s a sad reality that many of us would rather turn towards showbiz, in effect shying away from the realities and problems of life, political ones included. Consider the proliferation of showbiz-oriented talk and reality-based shows. It used to be that such shows were confined to Sunday afternoons. Now, we see showbiz oriented shows on TV on weekday mornings and weekend afternoons (yes, both Saturday and Sunday–i.e. “Morning Star,” “Ek Channel,” and “The Buzz” of ABS-CBN). The more popular primetime news shows also seem to have been contributing more airtime to showbiz news than in the past. We’re being overloaded with showbiz news!

But when showbiz personalities get into politics (and what recent national or local election did not feature any showbiz figure?), then that would be a different story!

On the Faye ‘parable,’ as we would now put it, I guess we had been focusing too much on looking for the facts pertinent to Faye’s identity. I do agree that what’s important are the lessons that the story imparts upon us. Lessons such as humility (i.e. in the concerned person’s preference not to be known), perseverance (walking
for miles in a strange distant land), and faith (choosing not to accept the ‘help’ from opportunitstic officials), among others, should be able to inspire those who read the account of Faye’s experience. Faye represents the Filipino who goes through similar experiences in his or her everyday life, in the end coming out as a hero, or more appropriately, bayani, to our nation.

**Last edited 1330H 04-Nov-04 (fixed formatting)

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