Notes on Cultural Untruths, the Filipino Writer, and Speculative Fiction

Three weeks ago, I posted part 2 of “The Writer and the Question of the Filipino Identity“, and proposed that

“We need to be aware that, especially as a former colonized country, our sense of identity as a nation is besieged by untruths left written into our culture by decades and centuries of lies designed specifically to keep us from forming a sense of identity.”

Reader Tina commented that:

“i think exposing and questioning the cultural untruths ingrained into our minds is one of the most important things a filipino writer ought to do… it’s something the country urgently needs. on that note, i’m curious about what you consider as our cultural untruths. ^^”

I’m writing this week’s entry in response.

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I was in Davao when I posted that message, and was still in Davao when I read that message. (Yes, I just can’t shut up about Davao), and I set about compiling a list of what I thought were the biggest “cultural untruths” ingrained into the Filipino psyche.

Out of habit, I stopped at seven, and then set the list aside to write the next two weeks’ articles, planning to use the seven as an outline for this week’s article.

Eventually though, I came to realize that all the items on my list were really just variations of the number 1 item on the list, which I had first represented using the phrase:

“Ganyan talaga, wala ka nang magagawa.”

I also realized that in many ways, that’s an assertion I’ve been fighting for most of my life, that my deepest career goals have to do with combating that particular attitude, and that the battle against it has colored the vast majority of the decisions that led me to this place in my life.

I’d been conscious of that fact for some time, so it wasn’t a great epiphany or anything, but I had not managed to put it into words until now.

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