It all started when Dr. Sienna Brooks had had her public service in our very own Philippines when Dan Brown himself started to describe Manila as the gates of hell in Inferno's Chapter 79. According to this author,
Manila is the most densely populated city on earth, which has six hours of traffic jams, suffocating pollution, and horrifying sex trades whose workers consisted of primarily young children, many of whom have been sold to pimps by their parents who took solace in knowing that at least their children would be fed. It's a chaotic place of child prostitution, panhandlers, and pickpockets. Manila - the gates of hell.
. . . and ADD in your list the idea that this character had nearly been raped in the aforementioned place.
Isn't it indeed horrifying to know that instead of being featured in some novels as a country/city of which would be flowered and adorned with all the positive descriptions, we were labeled in the other way around? Isn't this a big slap in our faces?
Imagine this, a worldly-known and hailed author published another masterpiece of which we are featured yet in a negative manner? Imagine how many races and nationalities will be able to read such? And imagine how will we be belittled? Absolutely, scary!
It surely mirrors not just us, not just the ones in positions, not just the president himself but the kind of government we are having. Will we just let the world look at us in this wrong reflection? Will we just wait for another "48 years" for the government to work on this? Will we either wait for the ones in positions or those big fishes to swim slowly for their trail to be finished? Or either way, will we be hesitant to do our own minute act of change? Undeniably, as what I've been telling my students, the prerogative is always ours to be made.
Let's just not be angry about this. Let us just be reminded that each individual is entitled for his own opinion. Probably those are the opinions of the author based on how he sees our country, based on what our country shows to them.
This, I believe isn't something that we should be angry about, instead it's a wake up call for us - Filipinos, may in position or not, may a president, an official, a government worker, or a naive layman - to show to these people who look so little of us. It's our wake up call that amidst their "dirty" descriptions to our country and to all of us we still have what it takes to progress and eradicate all these negativeness. Hence, we need to rise all together and show to them that we are capable to be called as "paradise". It's our wake-up call to prove to them that we aren't deserving to be labeled as the "gates of hell".
Let us all work with all of our little things to be done, let's all start it within ourselves, and in due time, believe me, we'll be featured not as like this anymore. ^^
