That the world was coming to an end in December 2012 revealed how humans are restlessly curious animals, always seeking excitement, even if it meant the end of the world. What now that the world did not end…?
If there are 7 billion people on planet Earth, the New Year should mean something different to each of them, but who cares about 2013, except for most of the Christian West that uses the Gregorian calendar? Not even half of the people on Earth really care about 2013. Muslims (1.5 billion),
Chinese (1.5 billion), and India (1.3 billion) are the large groups that alone comprise more than half of the entire planet that don’t use the Gregorian calendar, so in essence, January 1, 2013, is just another day for most of the
people of planet earth.
Filipinos are a people of exaggeration who imitate
everything with mind-boggling overzealousness. That overacting character is exemplified
by the adoption and extreme practice of Christianity that surprises even the
original Christians who introduced it to the Philippines.
Oftentimes, I wonder how Ronald Tubid, the basketball player whose picture/statue at age 17 was adopted by the church to represent Saint Pedro Calungsod, feels whenever he sees people worshiping his picture/statue. How
will his children/grandchildren and future generation feels knowing that Saint Pedro Calungsod, whom multitudes worship, was in fact their
father/grandfather? In this age and time, a computer-generated face can be created in minutes, if not seconds. I find it strange that the church did not request a computer-generated image based on Pedro Calungsod’s living relatives.
The use of firecrackers is very Chinese in character, which Filipinos adopted with gusto. It causes a lot of injuries with some deaths; a
practice that you don’t find anywhere else on the planet, yet neither Christianity nor the celebration of New Year is indigenous to the Philippines. These
are alien to Philippine culture that we practice with absurd zealotry.
That there is more fun in the Philippines is no empty slogan.
Whatever others can do, Filipinos can do even more…for better or worse :-(
NLK
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