By Rhea Catada

Written in 2021, in the middle of a pandemic lockdown and under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, whose particular brand of macho, misogynistic politics was cheered on by far too many Filipino men. This angry blog has a very specific target: a particular kind of educated, privileged, straight Filipino masculinity, steeped in performative intellectualism, misogyny, homophobia, class contempt, and generational machismo. 

No one wears his ignorance as proudly as the Filipino man. You can easily spot him in a crowd, aping his white colonizers. With his forced American twang, he will let everyone hear about his pro tip on how that chick half his age should be banged. He will also let everyone have a taste of his “good-natured” sense of humor. Good-natured means making fun of the poor, the gays, the dark-skinned, the disabled, or the people from indigenous minorities. He thinks his humor is top tier “I was once compared to [insert name of white American comedian] once,” he will brag.

This Filipino man is proud of his university, even if it’s been 10 or 20 years since he graduated. Not that there’s anything wrong with being proud of your school, but he uses his top-university degree to reaffirm his narcissistic narrative. He wants to be seen as someone with superior intellect, even if he’s neither well-read nor well-informed. If he does appear like he’s well-read and well-informed, it is through the perspective of misogynistic, homophobic, and racist white male authors and talking heads. His “educated” ignorance meant he will never see the ridiculousness of being a brown man namedropping white evangelical male “thought leaders” or his idol Jordan Peterson.

This Filipino man won’t let you forget he’s educated by looking down on the poor and “uneducated” folks. “These idiots keep voting for incompetent government officials,” he complains. Yet, he will support and vote for his university or fraternity bros, regardless if they’re plunderers, murderers, molesters, or rapists. Chances are, this Filipino man doesn’t personally know these politicians, but he thinks this university/fraternity proximity will somehow benefit him. Yes, he will preach about how hard work is the key to becoming rich, and that poor people are just lazy. But deep down he knows that you can’t get anywhere without the right connections or without generational wealth.

This Filipino man is an older millennial/Gen Xer and he believes his generation is the toughest and manliest. “The problem with the younger generation, ” he would declare, “is they complain too much about every little thing, instead of toughening up like us.” With “toughening up and not complaining” he means being ok with physical and emotional abuse during childhood or being ok with a toxic work or family environment. With “toughening up and not complaining” he means sitting idly as he watches the world burn – thousands killed because of armed violence perpetrated by the state; thousands more dying because of the state’s mishandling of the pandemic. “Toughening up and not complaining” is really just the Filipino man’s bro lingo for “I’m too comfortable with my privilege that I couldn’t care less about others who are suffering” or “I’m too much of a coward (despite my claims of being a tough man) to take a stand and raise my voice.”

This older millennial/Gen X Filipino man will also complain about the younger generation’s obsession with TikTok, and with social media in general. “This younger generation is so vain, everyone wants to be an influencer,” he would scoff, yet his Facebook wall looks and reads like a public diary of a professional self-promoter. Aside from his pictures showing off his expensive gadget or his foray into “manly” activities (mixed martial arts, weight-lifting, electric guitar-playing, etc), his Facebook is littered with stories of his daily adventures and misadventures. Very common are his stories with sexual undertones, with zero concern on the difference between flirting and sexual harassment, consensual or non-consensual. And then he will write a long Facebook post about how the #MeToo movement has made the world unsafe for men these days. Already in his late 30s/early 40s, he’s still too blissfully ignorant to realize that the world has always been unsafe for women, especially because of men like him.

(To be continued)

With special thanks to majority of all the Filipino men I’ve ever known in my life for giving me the inspiration and material to write this.