In defense of Dan Brown

I haven't actually read Dan Brown's new book Inferno, but Metropolitan Manila Development Authority's Francis Tolentino may have overreacted to Brown depicting Manila as such a horrible place in his latest novel. Whether the portrayal was accurate or not, it's a work of fiction, and Brown can write whatever he wants.

Mr. Tolentino may have reacted because Dan Brown's description of Manila might be dead on, or just really close to reality. But is it appropriate to react that way if that is really the case? Is it also appropriate to react if the depiction was clearly the opposite of what is real (which is what Mr. Tolentino alleges)? Suppose that Dan Brown created a character called Francis Tolentino, or Frank Tolentino, or Fred Tolentino, or something similar, who is a government official but is actually the Devil in disguise but hit his head somewhere and had amnesia, and so he doesn't know he's the Devil. Should Mr. Tolentino cry foul?

I am not saying that Mr. Tolentino and the MMDA need not react over Manila's role in Inferno. They should do a lot of things about it, but sending fan mail to Dan Brown is not one of them. Manila may not be the literal gate to the Christian hell, but it surely is a kind of hell, with the traffic jams, poor sanitation, pollution, high crime rates, and poverty. It's not what the MMDA and the rest of the Philippines wants the world to see, but that's what it is. Go see for yourself - take a train ride from Baclaran to Monumento, or drive along EDSA from North Avenue to Taft. Enjoy the view. And the smog. And the smell. And enjoy getting your wallet snatched away by an expert pickpocket if you let your guard down even for a minute. Perhaps it is a good thing that Dan Brown drew attention to these things that ail the city - so the people responsible, namely its citizens and residents, are reminded that there is a lot of work to be done.

Sexism and the modern "Filipina"

Whenever Filipinos lament that women today do not act the part of the ideal shy, religious, quiet, submissive Filipina maiden anymore, it clearly stems from the assumption that for a woman to show one hint of assertiveness, even one sliver of archetypal manliness, is to be evil (thanks to three centuries of Spanish rule). No wonder the liberal Filipina comes across as defensive and insecure. She is being vilified despite the improved position of women in today's Filipino society. Because old habits are indeed hard to break.

My grandmother was booted out of nursing school when she got married, and that was in the twentieth century, in the early 1960s. As a consolation, she was still able to have a job and to raise her growing family at the same time, which wouldn't have been possible had she been born a few decades earlier. Though discrimination still occurs today, the Filipina of today lives in a relatively less sexist society than her predecessors. She is able to move freely, literally and figuratively. She is not required to wear restrictive clothes. She is able to have a career. She is free to choose whether to start a family or not. She is aware that not all her contemporaries enjoy the same privileges that was bestowed upon her, and she works hard to bridge that gap.

Now something about the word Filipina makes me wince. It doesn't sound right. Why do we refer to ourselves as Filipinas, not as Filipino women? The difference is apparently superficial, especially if you're familiar with how Spanish speakers attribute genders to inanimate objects, like la mesa and el avion. The modern Filipino language acquired this practice along with thousands of Spanish words, and the word Filipino itself is a remnant of the country's colonial past. It is uncomfortable, even painful, to be reminded of a dark past, but like it or not, the Philippines is a former Spanish colony, and the Philippines as we know it wouldn't even exist as a country today if not because of colonization, which in a way unified most of the different tribes that inhabited these islands.

But I do not like how the words Filipino and Filipina make it sound like the Filipino man and the Filipino woman are two distinct nationalities. The word Filipina has its sexist implications. It differs greatly from the words girl and woman, since it refers to nationality. Sex is an inescapable biological thing that differentiates men from women (though it doesn't make them any less equal), while nationality (which, to some degree, is related to the concept of race) is a contraption made by society to facilitate group cooperation. How could one woman feel a sense of unity and cooperation with the man next to her when their nationalities are referred to using different words?

Even though the Tagalog-based Filipino language is gender-neutral, it has become common practice to use the gendered Spanish words that we have acquired such as doktor and doktora, and I think that is where the confusion arises. That is why the letter a at the end of doktor seems to make all the difference. We simply aren't used to gendered words.

I think it would pay to return to Tagalog's unsexist roots, i.e. refer to both men doctors and women doctors as doktor, refer to both men and women from the Philippines as Filipino, etc. It's one step further towards bridging that gap between the two sexes, something that both modern Filipino men and women should strive for.