Inside a PAL Dammam/Manila flight: I asked the stewardess (err, flight attendant) for a glass of orange juice. I stammered when I said that trying to speak my best English. She just looked at me and gave me water. I said: orange juice, miss. She looked at me and grudgingly gave me an OJ.


Inside the Ninoy Aquino Intl Airport: I was on queue when I heard this Filipino airport attendant berating one lady OFW -- in English -- because her baggage are beyond the normal weight. The guy even silently muttered: How stupid can you get?, within my hearing. My blood literally boiled and I said: Yabang mo naman...The attendant left hurriedly.


Inside the Singapore Airport: I was seated in the waiting area (for the Economy ticket holders) and I tried to strike up a conversation with a fellow OFW.

Where are you from?
London.
And you?
Saudi.
Aaah.
(Silence).

I noticed that he didn't like to converse and so I just stayed silent. (Hey, look. I was bored. I would even talk to the chairs if they would only talk back, you know?). Had I told him I came from Amman instead of Dammam, would he talk to me?


In Saudi, current time: I have a friend whose friends are named: Chaka (gay lingo for ugly), Negra (foreign word for black), Bulag (tagalog for blind), Brenda (short for brain damage), Kapmuk (shortened word for makapal ang mukha or thick-faced), etc.

I hope not to call the above four situations as discrimination, but I think -- blatantly and indirectly -- they are.

Was it because we, Filipinos, are inherently prejudicial especially to our own kabayans? I tend to believe that that a tiny pigment of Malou Fernandez is inside all of us. Because we view others as different from us (based on look, race, religion, color, national origin, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, etc), we regard them as lowly and if given a chance, berate them (mostly subtle-ly and indirect).

Is being prejudiced normal? Psychologically-speaking (whatever it means), because the world is a confusing place, the only way we put things into order is to categorize them. We tend to generalize our views based on what we think is right rather than on facts. Additionally, studies indicate that the higher a person's self-esteem is, the more prejudicial he is while those people with low self-esteem tend to use discrimination as a way to separate themselves from groups they don't want and grow closer to groups they do.

Simply put, we discriminate because we lack knowledge and information. (Hurrah! I just found the bottom line of why we discriminate others: ignorance. Er, sorry. I just found out that William Hazlitt, an English writer, said that).

Hence, as espoused by http://www.areyouhivprejudiced.org/, we should always ask ourselves these five questions before we form a negative opinion about others:

‘Is this true?’
‘Do I have all the facts?’
‘Am I over generalizing?’
‘Am I focusing on one or two negative aspects instead of considering the whole picture?’
‘Am I labeling this group or person unfairly?’

Maybe, just maybe, we will be a bit tolerant of others and not be as discriminating as we are now.
Maybe, just maybe, those Filipina flight attendants would serve us orange juice with a genuine smile (look, I paid my ticket fare and I deserve a good service).

Maybe, just maybe, we will converse with the next kabayan we get to sit with on the plane (I said converse, not chat).

As Voltaire said: We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.

God commanded us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Hard to do but I believe it's do-able.