A taxi driver told me that most of his Tagalog-speaking passengers who went to the Azkals-Mongolia football game were quite surprised to see a lot of taxis in Bacolod. This reminded me of a former officemate who told me that she was irritated when somebody from the head office asked her if there are taxis in Bacolod.
I feel both amused and irritated when some people show surprise upon seeing there are a lot of taxis in Bacolod City. Bacolod City is a highly urbanized city with a population of around 500,000 and you ask whether there are taxis in Bacolod? That only shows how little a person knows of the Philippine countryside and that doesn’t even require you to have visited the place to know. One friend commented that they probably think we swing from tree to tree wearing g-strings. I posted this observation on Facebook and I got flooded with comments from friends having a similar experience.
Without the intention of being ethnocentric, I think we have to educate some of our countrymen from Metro Manila on a lot of things. Besides, we probinsyanos have been at the receiving end of discrimination from them so many times that I believe it’s about time to free them from their ignorance.
Here’s our friendly advice to avoid making the same faux pas in the future:
- Travel outside of Metro Manila. Not only to Rizal, Cavite or Laguna but to the provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao. There are also a lot places in the Philippines which are probably cleaner and have a better quality of life than Metro Manila.
- When you do travel, please research as much as you can about the place you’re going to. Google is a friend so use it. It’s so ironic that you claim to have access to the latest technology yet you don’t know how to use Google to your advantage.
- Shed some of your haughtiness and treat us probinsyanos as your equal. We may speak Tagalog with an accent, but like you, there are a lot of us who are also civilized, educated, well-mannered and cultured.