SOMEONE ELSE’S WINDOWS: Nation without a soul

MALAYBALAY CITY (MindaNews / 23 May)—Filipino pet lovers—and those who are pretending to be pet lovers—ranted and raged on social media over the killings recently of two hapless Staffordshire bull terriers by police officers in London. Nothing wrong with that. Like humans, those dogs also had a right to life and decent treatment.

What I find wrong, terribly wrong, is the absence of outrage over the fire that destroyed the historic Central Post Office in Manila. It wasn’t just a building, it’s a piece of heritage, a part of our soul as a nation.

And yet, when a portion of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral burned a few years ago, not a few Filipino netizens feigned sadness and lamentation. Spare me the hypocrisy, please.

There are suspicions that the Central Post Office fire was deliberate, allegedly a handiwork of some business interests that want the structure replaced with a high-end hotel. For now, that’s only a conspiracy theory. Nonetheless, the government is guilty at least of negligence, and we, the citizens, of indifference.

What could have caused this indifference towards our national heritage? Our long history as an enslaved race that erased our sense of identity? Decades of being misgoverned by leaders who couldn’t care less if a symbol of our nationhood is lost because they themselves lack a sense of history and patriotism?

Compare the Filipino’s response—or absence of it—to the Central Post Office fire to how the Cambodians reacted after some media outfits reported that a Thai female actor allegedly claimed that the Angkor Wat belongs to Thailand. They stormed and vandalized the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh.

Yes, what the Cambodians did was wrong, but their hearts were in the right place. On the other hand, the Filipinos may have committed a graver crime by remaining silent over this latest travesty against our national heritage.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. H. Marcos C. Mordeno can be reached at hmcmordeno@gmail.com.)