By Farah G. Decano

 

WHEN individuals lack sleep, they usually develop black rings around their eyes, sport dishevelled hair, wear unkempt clothes and are likely to be in a catatonic state. They chant unintelligible words and convey incoherent messages. They seem to be lost in their own meanderings and self-imposed purpose. They have no grasp of their surroundings.  They are like  zombies – the living dead.

No, this column will not be about the science of sleep but about the issue of wokeness. There seems to be a rising trend of anti-woke sentiments.  I wondered about this before.  What is wrong with the growing number of citizens becoming more aware of social issues?  What is wrong when advocates for inclusivity, diversity, and human rights are increasing?  What is wrong with being woke?

Some wokes in the Philippines have gone too far.  They readily absorb and believe foreign liberal ideas that mostly glorify individual freedoms.  The young wokes call these western foreign notions as reflective of development without really understanding the culture from which they sprout.  The immature wokes have gone extreme to the point that old ideas that are not aligned with their beliefs are easily condemned.  This behaviour betrays the very idea of  inclusivity and diversity.

Cancel culture abound in social media among the extremist keyboard militants.  They quickly condemn our own Filipino culture in order to give way to these allegedly novel viewpoints.  To the ignorant few wokes, anything modern or fresh is progressive while deep-rooted old notions are considered as retrogressive.

Remember Carlos Yulo who accused his own mother of theft on social media just right after he won two Olympic gold medals? Those who were appalled by Carlos Yulo were called  “boomers” by the so-called wokes.  They were also hasty to denounce our own cultural value of   “utang na loob” as merely a manipulative strategy of the old.  They failed to realize that “utang loob” is an offshoot of our world-admired tradition called, “pakikipagkapwa.” The fact that politicians and money lenders make use of “utang na loob” in a scheming way must not diminish the true meaning of the age-old practise.

The increasing acceptance of the members of the LGBTQIA has led to another demand: for English-speaking communities to adjust their grammar.  Pronouns are now dependent on individual preferences and not on the sex one is assigned at birth.  Understanding reports that observe this new rule can be very confusing. The plural  pronouns “they” and “them” can now refer to a singular noun.   People, who are bewildered by this usage and are hesitant, are rather branded as disrespectful or ignorant by the impatient woke.

The extreme liberals of the first world countries think that children can permanently choose their sex preference even before they become legally adults.  Will the pa-wokes in the Philippines also call me a Nazi if  I agreed with President Trump’s decision in removing this right of choice from the children?   My basis is science. The human brain becomes fully developed at  the  age of 25 years old.  This means that an individual’s personality and preferences are not fully defined before that age.  It is hard for children to decide on things that can permanently affect their lives without the benefit of undoing them.

The anti-teenage pregnancy bill of the most woke Senator Risa Hontiveros espouses comprehensive sex education which must follow international standards.  While I concur with the purpose, but the conformity with “international standards” phrase should be replaced with “age-appropriate” and “ sensitivity to culture.”

Again, not all new ideas from the liberal West must be accepted by Filipinos.  I consider myself woke, but I am not an extremist.

To be too woke is like a sleepless person. Like a Zombie – brain dead.

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