The Colonial Mentality of the Filipinos

Upon waking up in the morning, when you are about to brush your teeth, you have to choose between two toothpastes- Colgate and Kutitap? Trust me, you would not even think about it, you will grab the colgate. Sadly, one of the characteristics, we Filipinos have developed colonial mentality? How have we developed this hard-to-eradicate trait? Our history might have this answered.

Of the essays I have read, Letizia Constantino tried to explain the cause of this colonial mentality. It tells that the fact that we lack social structure before the colonizers came may have contributed to it. This made us easy to conquer. Unlike other countries, we failed in keeping our racial worth intact.

The nature by which we are colonized also affected our colonial mentality. Other Western colonizers rule their colonies indirectly through their chieftains. This made their cultures untouched. Unlike them, our colonizers- Spain and United States- worked on our national consciousness and had used religion and education to cause great changes in our customs, values and beliefs.

We also desire self-government and education. We thought United States would help us achieve that. We regard United States as our hero, our true generous teacher and guardian who had freed us from Spain. Through them, we are able to taste fake independence by allowing us to held elections. We should not be fooled. They just use this superficial democracy to take better hold of us. The independence we have is just political sovereignty for until now, we are still economically dependent on United States. And why is this happening? Because we let United States to intrude in our affairs, we agree on what they say, we fail to pinpoint our real national interests apart from them due to our colonial mentality. We see ourselves as inferior to other races like them, so we believe to what they advise us. Not knowing that these advices would benefit them only, and not us.

Many administrations had already come and go. How come have we not yet lost this attitude? Although we now have culture, our own arts and music, this is not enough for this only masks their economic control over us. How are they exercising their economic control? Through transnational corporations, through loans from international organizations like the World Bank and through their aids! Although it us up to our government to accept these aids, we should think, are they really helping us with no strings attached?
If what I had said earlier did not give us substantiate reasons to remove this attitude, let us discuss the bad effects brought to us by our own colonial mentality. An example is the fate experienced by our soap industry. Why aren’t we able to produce brands of soaps when we are rich in coconut oil? It is because we do not patronize our own products. Cannot we see? Companies run by Filipinos cannot thrive or even survive in our own market.

We Filipinos also blame ourselves for the wastage and destruction of our natural resources. Little of us knew that our resources are depleted by foreign corporations and not by us. And who profits? Again, they profit and not us. We somehow had contributed to the wastage of our resources by keeping our eyes closed and letting them exploit.

I am saying these things so that we would realize the importance of removing our colonial mentality. As we can see, our problems with our natural resources and economic dependence are rooted in this trait. To address with these problems, we have to eradicate colonial mentality. And how can this be done? First, by viewing everything carefully from a nationalistic point of view all aids offered, loans granted and programs advised by non-Filipino organizations and governments. If we are able to do this, then, we can already pinpoint our national interests apart from them. Only when we have freed ourselves from our colonial mentality, when the Philippine market is dominated by Filipino companies and our natural resources is used only by us, can we truly say that we are an independent nation.

Sources:

CONSTANTINO, L. 1984. American Meddling in the Philippine Politics from Issues Without Tears: A manual of current issues. Volume I. Philippines: Karrel Inc., pp 32-39.

CONSTANTINO, L. 1984. History From the Point of View of the Filipino People from Issues Without Tears: A manual of current issues. Volume I. Philippines: Karrel Inc., pp 32-39.

CONSTANTINO, L. 1984. Fishing Industry and Japan from Issues Without Tears: A manual of current issues. Volume I. Philippines: Karrel Inc., pp 32-39.

CONSTANTINO, L. 1984. Roots of our Colonial Mentality from Issues Without Tears: A manual of current issues. Volume I. Philippines: Karrel Inc., pp 32-39.