"Third World Pa Rin."

Almost everything we want to know about everything can be accessed now via the Intenet. Students certainly have no excuse nowadays to claim they cannot know enough about their courses and subjects. But still I have yet to meet anyone with astonishing brilliance.

Entertainers we have awfully a lot here. And the obvious dearth of excellent scientists, experts, field specialists, creative writers and thinkers is the result of something corrupt in our educational system or perhaps, our present culture as a whole.

We heavily prefer singing, dancing, entertaining and playing money games to studying, learning, writing, appreciating and mastering the arts, humanities, history, literature, science and other disciplines. We somehow look quick towards where the moolah is. This is shamelessly shallow. (A tongue twister there.) And look where we have remained. In the dumps. Overtaken by other Asian nations. Third world pa rin.

The Singing of the Anthem

The law is the law. And there's a law on the proper way of singing the Philippine National Anthem. "The rendition of the National Anthem, whether played or sung, shall be in accordance with the musical arrangement and composition of Julian Felipe." Whether sung in the country or abroad, the Lupang Hinirang has to be given due respect. It is the song and not the singer. It is the law and artistic freedom
cannot cancel such law.

I personally want the anthem sung the way it should be sung. According to Ambeth Ocampo, 2002 chair of the National Historical Institute (NHI), the anthem, when played, “must carry a brisk martial tone and tempo.” Celebrity singers may defend their stylized singing by invoking their "artistic freedom". (I just hate it when the last lines are shrieked with almost a vein-popping passion.) But their personal renditions only brought attention to themselves and not to the flag and country as a whole.

The many vocal versions of our National Anthem may have somehow revealed that we don't yet have a true national identity as a people. We're not united and therefore, divided, or worse, broken.