The problem is pride. That's why we are a Third World nation.
This has bothered me for a while now.
One night I was in my boyfriend's car, waiting. The car window was open and I was playing Temple Run 2 on my phone. A young teenager of about 14-16 passed by outside. Then as if an afterthought, she returned and thought of asking me for money like a beggar would. I disbelievingly said no because I knew she wasn't a beggar. She didn't press it and just continued on as if what she did was normal.
This is not an isolated case. I see this everyday. We are a nation of people asking, waiting for someone to give us money. Isn't that why we're so indebted to IMF? Why we're a nation of families waiting for an OFW relative to send money? Why we have no chance of being a First World country?
Call me cynical and negative but I think in 10 years, we will still be the same country and there will be minimal development. Changing this nation requires changing the mindsets of Filipinos.
Just look at the difference between our beggars and those beggars in other countries like in New York perhaps. There are also beggars in the subways of NY or in the Paris Metro but they do something. They play music or dance or something.
Earlier while I waited for a cab for an hour, a teenage boy approached the waiting line and tried to sell us Sampaguita flowers but you can see his chubby face contorted as if he really wants us to see that he's suffering. He was begging us for money for food. He had a long dialogue but I had no patience to listen.
A few years ago, I used to give money to every beggar who approached me. But now, they just annoy me because of their laziness. I wouldn't give them a cent of my hard-earned money. If they think they're having a hard life, then they should start working. Really working. If there's a will, there's a way. Poverty is not an excuse. It's the person's mindset that will determine whether he will be successful in life or not.
Sadly, we are a nation of lazy people. We're too lazy to work. Too lazy to complain. We go with the flow. We're the kind of people who would fall in line in a bank for an hour instead of asking management to add more tellers to serve us. I am guilty of that too.
We are too nice. We're too lazy. We don't value time because we only use it anyway to wait for money to come to us. We are not going anywhere.
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Apologies if you're reading this and you're offended. I'm just pissed because I waited an hour for a taxi. And this is what was running in my head.
(As usual, sorry for the grammatical errors.)
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I forgot to mention the PLDT phone booth at the Megastrip exit in Building A. I used it to try and call someone and it took my coins even if the call wasn't connected! That was P28 and there was no number to call to complain!
If this happens in Japan, they'll reimburse you no matter how small. But here, you just have to accept that the phone booths eat coins and they can never be perfect!
