Hateful nonsense and the bashing of Chinese Filipinos

National Artist F. Sionil Jose responded to my column criticizing his comments on Chinese Filipinos in an email which I’m sharing here in full:

“Thank you for your reaction. At the very least, you didn’t call me a racist or a bigot. Of course, I know that many Chinese Filipinos are really Filipinos. I never lumped all Chinese Filipinos as possible collaborators with the Chinese.

“All I said was that there will be more Chinese collaborators in the future than there were during the Japanese Occupation. I did not say, and I never said ALL Chinese Filipinos will be collaborators. What is misunderstood is the fact that I did not quantify many; I made that conclusion from our experience with the Japanese during World War II. What those who disagree with me did was to hoist conclusions I did not make. Do read me carefully, again.”

In his follow up article on Chinese Filipinos, Manong Frankie was much easier to read … unfortunately.

“What I ask of our ethnic Chinese who are Filipino citizens is simplicity itself: In a war with China, will you be on our side?” he wrote in the Philippine Star. “The unequivocal answer is either yes or no. Any evasive answer is, of course, a rationalization of disloyalty. If you say you are with us, how wonderful! How reassuring! Then go shout it from the rooftops … Otherwise, leave this country which has made you comfortable, and go to China which you so love, and stay there.”

It’s disconcerting to watch a national figure echo the nonsensical, dangerous views of Filipino bigots who’ve been leading the attacks on Chinese Filipinos.

Fortunately, young Filipinos are speaking out against the racist bashing. This is evident in the social media comments and reactions to Manong Frankie’s columns and to the denigration of Tiffany Uy, the UP student whose academic achievement is belittled by those who didn’t like the fact that she’s Chinese Filipino.

“I can see that people are incensed. And right so,” Carmela Lao, a Filipino graduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote. “Be incensed.”

Fellow INQUIRER.net columnist Oscar Franklin Tan, who is in his 30s, also has been vocal on the issue, even using a provocative, click-bait headline, “Women are nothing but sex objects,” to drive home the point that when it comes to racist attacks against Chinese Filipinos, the reaction from the mainstream media has been mostly muted.

He is right: The way the attacks have been framed in mainstream Philippine media is troubling.

Take the view of another INQUIRER columnist Jose Montelibano who described my and novelist Clinton Palanca’s reactions to Manong Frankie as “very amicable, very courteous, but very clear as well.”

“It is so refreshing to find contrary views so civilly expressed when the issue could be very hotly debated,” he writes.

Montelibano then says: “Unfortunately, Filipino-Chinese are on deck because China is generating so much ill will against all Chinese. It might be a good move if Filipino-Chinese communities and organizations make overt public expressions of their loyalty. That way, if and when we have to deal with Filipino traitors, we will not be distracted.”

If you don’t get too distracted and read that paragraph carefully, you’ll catch the dangerous spin in Montelibano’s argument.

He notes, correctly, that Beijing is using its economic and military might to bully the Philippines and other smaller countries in the region. That leads him to conclude that it’s not totally surprising that Filipinos would blame Chinese Filipinos.

“Wrong or right, it remains a fact. And those who don’t think so, especially Chinese-Filipinos, would fare better not to be so defensive but more reflective. … I am not saying there is good reason for Filipinos to resent Chinese-Filipinos, or do not. I am saying that there is a quiet resentment that is more general than selective.”

That “quiet resentment” is clearly no longer that quiet, of course. And Montelibano makes a mind-boggling conclusion: It’s really up to Chinese Filipinos to prove that they don’t deserve to be subjected to all that hateful bashing.

For dig deeper in this doublespeak, and this is what he’s really saying: ‘Yeah, blaming Chinese Filipinos for Beijing’s bad behavior isn’t right. But then again, it is right, it does make sense because, you know, this is about China and the Chinese government and these are, well, Chinese Filipinos.’

It’s a point-of-view that is neither courteous, amicable nor clear.

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