The Fault in Ourselves

Cherry Ann Mandaquit

The Filipinos had yet posed a very disappointing act, showing immaturity and
tactlessness on how they handled their reactions regarding the inconveniences that
they have suffered during the 2015 Asia Pacific Economic Conference held at Manila
last November 17-20.
We were all aware to the heavy traffic, thanks to our social media feed. People
were posting their photos along with their status and the hashtags with the words
APECtado and APECfail. We had somewhat forgotten that those posts are for the entire
world to see. We had shown them how narrow-minded Filipinos can get, making a very
huge deal out of a situation without even considering why we were taking those
measures in the very first place.
Another trending topic was #APEChotties featuring Mexican President Enrique
Nieto and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. We cannot deny that we were all
fascinated by their good looks and all their amazing qualities but is it really necessary to
make it such a hot topic?
Because of these happenings, we should be aware of an issue that has been
hurting the image of the Filipinos. We are complainers. We refuse to see the bigger
picture. We are impatient. And most of all, we are unbelievably indifferent to the point
that we are willing to flaunt all the flaws of our country to the expense of the immense
effort of our leaders to show the world the good in us. We tarnished the warm welcome
our visitors had received with the unending rants of the people on how this event is
causing them nothing but nuisance. We are the ones destroying our own image, the
other nations does not even have to do it for us.
It was a great honor to host an international event, to show the world what we got
and to let them know the qualities that lie behind our nationality. It was of enormous
importance to be able to participate in an economic conference, to be able to
incorporate the priority areas of development of our country to the world setting and to
be able to address the challenges we are facing that hinders us from being a fully
developed country. It was a wonderful opportunity to be a part of the history, to be able
to witness the gathering of the world leaders on our own land, to be a partaker to the
event that will help give our economy a boost and to help our country make our
aspirations come true. However, the saddening truth is that, most Filipinos failed to
realize these things in order to appreciate what our government has done.
There were numerous subjects that could have been trending worldwide. There
were topics that could have shown how Filipinos care about the on-going conference.
There were people who could have been known for helping make the event a

successful one. There were far more important details that could have made the people
talking and exchanging ideas. There were the ones that could have been worthy of
conversing about.
This years APEC theme is Building Inclusive Economics, Building a Better
World that focuses on investing in human capital development, fostering small and

medium enterprises participation in regional and global markets, building

sustainable and resilient communities and enhancing the regional economic
integration idea. These areas aim to provide more job opportunities and
employments on the domestic level. It also includes alleviating poverty through
good governance and domestic reform. It also intends to enable people to
discover their full potential in order to promote dynamic growth and greater wellbeing. These aspects are integral to the development of our economy for the
reason that it is designed in such a way that the needs of the stakeholders will be
addressed and dealt upon with. And as we all know, the greatest stakeholder of
this country are the Filipino people. They are the people that had once again, let
their motherland down.
What we seem to lack is understanding, the kind that is so profound that
we are going to endure the hardships we are going to experience for a few days
in exchange for the benefits that will help us for a very long time. We seem to be
lacking in social awareness, nationalism and objectivity. We fail to know the
details and what it will entail before making statements that will have adverse
effects on ourselves.
Just like the ultimate objective of the APEC for this year, Filipinos should
have the purpose of having an inclusive growth. Growth within ourselves that will
let us have the heart for the greater good, to abandon our personal pleasures for
the benefit of all and to open our minds to the sacrifices we have to do for us to
become a better nation.