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To be honest with you, at first, I really didn't know what to call this part of my bin. All I planned to do was to place a myriad of self-improvement articles as well as personal rants and reflections here. So for lack of a better name, I settled on the word insights.

A friend of mine was lucky enough to go to Hong Kong during the semestral break. And while in the former colony, he had a very memorable experience. He told me that he went to an established clothing retail store, which incidentally has branches here in the Philippines, during his stay. Like any other customer, he went to the fitting room to try out some of the shirts that he liked. What he saw inside the fitting room shocked him: There was a big sign in bold letters that stated, “ang magnanakaw ay ipahuhuli sa pulis.” (Thieves will be reported to the police.) What was a sign in Filipino doing in a clothing store in Hong Kong? Should not the sign be in Cantonese or in English, the two official languages of the special administrative region? Mind you, there were no other signs in whatever language – Thai, Indonesian, Korean, Japanese and others – inside the room. Obviously, the sign was only meant for Filipinos. Why was this the case? My friend tells me that the sign is the store’s response to numerous thefts of merchandise committed by Filipinos. Reportedly, the thieves would bring a lot of clothes in the fitting room and make it appear that they would try all of them. Unknown to the store clerks, the thieves would actually hide some of the clothes inside their shirts or pants, return some of the clothes to the store’s racks and simply walk out as if nothing extraordinary happened.

Such a bad reputation for Filipinos is not confined in Hong Kong. In Singapore, for example, signs stating “bawal magtapon ng basura dito” (trash should not be dumped here) are present in order to address the tendency of some Filipinos there to liter. Yet another illustration is an episode from the Australian television series Mother and Son where the actors equated Filipino wives with mail order brides. And who cannot forget the Filipino nanny in Taiwan caught via a hidden camera maltreating her employer’s baby. Incidentally, the video from the hidden camera was broadcasted by major news organizations around the world such as CNN. As if all that is not enough, there is word going around that the creator of the infamous I Love You virus is a Filipino.

Some might think that I am degrading Overseas Filipino Workers, Filipinos abroad or Filipinos in general. I am not; I am merely telling the truth. It is really sad to see how the actions of a few Filipinos in a foreign land would create a very bad impression for Filipinos in general. So for the Filipinos out there, the next time you are comprehensively checked or interrogated by immigration authorities abroad due to your citizenship, think of the incidents I have cited above.

Note: The insight above was actually one of my published columns during my term as the Operations Manager of my school's official student organ.

Should you want to comment on my reflection above, I encourage you to sign my guestbook or to even contact me. On the other hand, should you want to read more of my insights, please feel free to go through my bin's archives.

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Last update: May 7, 2000

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