Blog Response

EVERYDAY HEROES
by: “KOJAK” HUGHS

The Negros Chronicle is available on line. Many readers like to access the online newspaper and leave comments concerning various articles. When a reader takes the time to leave a comment concerning something I have written, I feel it is my duty to give them the courtesy of a response. The most important comments are those that are negative and critical. You never learn from those that agree with you; you learn from those that disagree with you. A lot of people are teaching me at http:// www.negroschronicle.com/?p=6053#comments The following is a comment left by an unhappy reader. – Percy Valdero said in October 5th, 2009 at 12:06 pm

Yeah, also not impressed. Kojax not calling for anything, just taking potshots. What are you doing dreamer, what’s your plan? What’s Kojax to end deep-seated problems here?

Corruption? Killers for hire on motorcycles? Where’s anything beyond, “OK, everybody, act like we do back in the US?” Kojax refuses to say much of anything—he doesn’t say where he stands on gay or much else. What’s German women peeing in the streets got to do with anything?”

I felt that Percy’s comment might be a reflection of other reader’s thoughts and deserved a wider response. PERCY… You are absolutely correct.

I am not doing anything to solve the major problems here in the Philippines.

But do you actually think that should be my role? Do you think Filipinos want another outsider telling them what to do and how to do it? I started my column with three parallel missions. FIRST: I wanted to refocus attention from the negative to the positive.

Give a platform for the often forgotten positive aspects to life here in Dumaguete City. When people complain about things here, I try to show that their complaints are not about a unique “Pinoy” problem, but most often a human condition, a world problem. For example, when people complained about “public urination” and acted as if the Philippines was the ONLY place in the world where this is a problem, I set the record straight. At one time, in downtown Los Angeles you could not walk outside the bus depot because the homeless had turned the sidewalks were an open sewer.

The “First World” nation of Germany has a higher public urination rate than the Philippines. I offered no solutions. I merely tried to show that the problem was not just a Filipino problem. Why even mention it? Good question. I mention it because I get tired of people pretending that the Philippines are somehow bad and other nations are so much better.

The problems that exist here, exist everywhere. Why do I not give a solution? I do not offer a solution because that is not my role as your guest. Filipino problems must be solved by Filipinos if those solutions are going to work.

SECOND. When someone, Filipino or foreign, does something bad the story never dies. In fact the story grows uglier with every retelling.

When Filipinos and foreigners do something good, the few who know about it quickly forget.