The weather and Pinoy(Filipino) mentality

Hello again all.

Recently as some of you may know, there has been some srtong weather here in Philippines. Mainly in Manila which is 600 kilometers away from Cebu, where I am. See here :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8276347.stm

Here, its gets a little windy, a little bit of rain, and a little cold, which is very unusual in Cebu. Not so cold as to wear a coat, but cold enough that you may consider wearing a t-shirt, for warmth, rather than for hiding your man boobs in polite company.

But I was watching the Filipino news on TV. Its in Tagalog, so I can get the gist of whats going on, but I needed Cheryl to translate some items for me.

So, here are 2 examples of Filipino mentality.

Firstly,

They said they had to open the dam, as it was about to burst, as it was overflowing, which resulted in flash flooding many shanty towns & inhabitants who were living below the dam.

Now, Im not a dam expert, but from what I know of them, and have seen, they are designed to over flow harmlessy over the top of the dam in times of flood.

But consider this, many rich people had homes which were flooded, the people below the dam were poor. Hmmmm!

I speculate the following conversation....

Mayor: Hi, dam manager, I order you to open the dam gates, as my house is nearly flooded.
Dam Manager: But Sir, that will destroy many homes, and kill lots of people
Mayor: Yea, maybe, but what about my LCD TV !! NOW OPEN THE GATES !!
Dam Manager: Yes sir !

Thousands lose their home, but many LCD TV's are saved !!

Secondly,

They interviewed a resident in a different location, who was very unhappy.

He stood in front of a free aid pallet, sent by the government, which had large sacks of rich on it and said....

"This rice is wet, what good is it sending us wet rice. We are hungry. This rice is only good enough to feed my pigs. Send us some dry rice, there are people starving here! "

Has anybody spotted it???

Anyone ??

At that point, I rolled around laughing. Cheryl said, "whats so funny".

My response was, he has lots of pigs, but rather than killing them and feeding his hungry neighbours, he's going on TV complaining the the government efforts are rubbish, as the rice is wet!

I just couldnt believe it when I heard it!

Ya gotta love this country !!

Seriously though, I dont mean it in a derogatory way. Its observation of what actually goes on here!