Filipino Traditions

We talked about a few Filipino national traditions in my last Theology class. There's just two things I want to react to.

First of all, the teacher gave out a comment about how we Filipinos are so well-behaved when in other countries, but so love breaking the rules in our own home country. For me, it was insulting and generalizing at the very least. First, it's not a trait unique to Filipinos. It's a behavior found in almost every nationality and ethnicity. It was insulting for me on how the teacher made it out like it was only Filipinos who are like that (though I'm sure that's not what he meant, but the way he said it implied that). Secondly, there's a logical reason to that. In one's own home country, one knows the rules, culture, and mindset by heart. Therefore, a person is comfortable about his own actions and knows how far he can bend the rules. In a foreign land, it's a whole different scenario. He's a stranger in a foreign land where the culture and rules are different. He must rigidly follow the rules because he knows that no one, or very very few people, could help him if he gets into trouble or understand his predicament. Once he gets comfortable around the rules, he'll bend them as much as he's allowed to for his own convinence. And lastly, rules in other countries (US, Europe) is very striclty enforced, and the fines are very large. Here, it's not the case. Probably a unique feature to us Filipinos, is that the cops themselves are rule breakers. I remember my History teacher telling us that we're the only country that have to bribe our police force in order for them to work. An exaggeration yes, but still has some truth in them. They're also lenient on enforcing the laws. But that's also because of our lazy government. Whatever happened to the Clean Air Act?

Another thing is that at the end of the class, our teacher asked us how normal people can live out "pagkabayani". The class stated some examples, like OFW's and paying taxes. I agreed with them on those. But when they started giving examples like segregation, cleaning up after one's self in the cafeteria, etc... , I started scratching my head. For me, the word "bayani" always meant something extraordinary. This is just probably the pessimist in me talking, but how low has our values sunk if we put something as simple and as natural as "throwing trash in the garbage" as extraordinary? It's just depressing really. I mean, if something like that is "extraordinary", then how low must our status quo be? What would the "ordinary/normal" be then? Throwing trash in the trash can isn't something to brag about, but it seems like it is now...