This is an email from a reader of the FilipinaImages.com reader.

Steve Schertzer, esl_steve@excite.com
October 15, 2009

Disclaimer: The following is an opinion piece based on fact.

— “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing; to know in their hearts and see the evils going on around them, but to sit back and let it unfold whether out of fear, apathy or both.”

—Edmund Burke, Irish Political Philosopher. (1730-1797.)

I so want to be wrong about this. I want to be wrong because I feel vindicated and it doesn’t feel good. It’s not because of the Filipino mothers or the foreign fathers. It’s because of the children. I feel vindicated because of the children. In a response to a letter I wrote for www.filipinaimages.com on March 27th, 2009, titled “The Image of the Modern Filipina”, I said this:

“If the Philippines keeps on importing less than stellar foreign men to marry their women, in 10 years this once beautiful country will have tens of thousands of half-breeds running around looking for their foreign fathers, who will have awoken one morning to realize that marrying an uneducated, dirt-poor Filipina was not to their liking after all.”

Yes I did say that, but I was wrong. It’s not “tens of thousands” of children looking for their non-Filipino fathers. It’s hundreds of thousands. And it’s not “in 10 years.” It’s now. And, (if I may correct myself again), it’s not as if these non-Filipinos are marrying any of these “uneducated, dirt-poor Filipinas.” Most are not. So I apologize for my errors. You see, this problem of abandoned half-Filipino half-whatever children is far worse than I originally thought.

Here are three questions that I would like answered by Filipinos, men and women, after you have read and contemplated this well enough to respond intellectually and wisely.

1) Is there a “sperm war” involving foreign men in the Philippines?
2) Is this who Filipinas truly are?
3) Where is the outrage?

There is a seismic shift in Filipino society. It’s been happening for a long time. It’s not an earthquake, although it may feel like one. It’s not a series of typhoons, although millions of lives are being ruined by it. This seismic shift is not geological. Neither is it a product of mother nature’s wrath. This seismic shift in Filipino society is value based. It is a huge shift in personal morality and social ethics. It is a fall from grace. A huge fall from what once was to what is now.

The quotes I use from articles, newspaper columns, and websites will enlighten and inform, but I doubt if it will shock. That’s the real tragedy. Here is the full article from the October 5, 2009 edition of the Korea Times under the headline “Kopinos Search for Korean Dads.”
(more…)

Experiences make you realize. Believing makes you value. Marikenya

My family, my friends, and I, are still in awe and in great trauma from what we experienced from Ondoy and his wrath. There are so many stories, mostly, unpleasant ones. But now that all my family and friends are safe from the flood, I wanted to focus on the lessons I learned from the calamity that stunned the whole Metro Manila.

Realizations from the Water:

Every now and then I will post emails from FilipinaImages.com. This one is from Lan Tait, an American and married to a Filipina. He has had an amazing life on the cutting edge of computers and the Internet for more than 3 and a half decades

Here is Lan’s story:

To me, when I think of being a Filipina, I think of my deceased wife, Bhabes Gelito Tait.

http://bhabes.t8s.org/

Bhabes was 27 when she married me. The first kiss she ever received from a man was right after the minister said, “You may kiss your bride.” When we dated, we sometimes went as far as to hold hands! (Gosh!) In the presence of her parents, I was allowed to give her a quick hug when I arrived and another when I departed. The reason was that she was saving herself for her “God’s Best” husband! Let’s see, that was me!

Eight years later when Bhabes died in a car crash, she finished the course of her life having only kissed one man… Again, that would be me!

That’s The Filipina!

Bhabes was a real lover, a lover of God, a lover of Country, a lover of People and of course, a lover of me!

(more…)

Every now and then, we receive positive or negative emails from our readers from all over the world but it is not often that a Western man sends us his thoughts about the Filipina. Let me introduce you to Steve Schertzer who provides insights on the image of the modern Filipina.

Part 1

What a privilege and honor it was for me to come across both of your websites, www.filipinaimages.com and www.laurganism.com. What has been upsetting me lately is the very thing that has made you angry in recent years: The image and perception of the contemporary Filipina. Like you said, just google the word “Filipina” and what appears on every computer screen is mail order bride services masquerating as dating or key-pal websites, and more pornographic pictures of Filipinas than anyone can count.

In fact, these websites seem to be leading the charge in promoting today’s Filipina as little more than desperate gold-diggers who would do anything to meet a foreign man more than twice their age. They are often described as “sex kittens” and “coy” or “submissive” who would make good wives for older, Western men. This is insulting to both Filipinas and to myself as a Western man.

But as we are all too aware, many Filipinas today— in fact, too many of them— often portray themselves that way to get a foreign man to support both her and her family. Philippine society is not doing itself any favors by keeping its collective head in the sand by ignoring this issue. With hundreds of thousands of Filipina prostitutes plying their trade in places like Manila and Angeles City, (not to mention in countries like Japan and South Korea on “Entertainment” visas), the modern day Filipina is also a major contributor to the image of the Philippines as an international clearing house for prostitution.

(more…)