ANother DiscrimiNation

I like Desperate Housewives. I have seen the first season in 1 sitting, one whole weekend- starting friday night til sunday evening, I got engrossed with the series that the only break was to get water , grab some fruits or cookies or go to pee, but the second season took me awhile to watched and have not even finished it yet, I lost the momentum and haven't seen the series since...

Last night while watching the news from TFC, I learned about the remark of Teri Hatcher's character in a scene with a doctor in the recent episode ; “Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Because I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines."

Contextually, it does sound annoying and belittling. I can imagine the outraged of the many filipinoes in the United States by such remarks. Majority of Filipinoes all over the world have been good in their profession, they have showed credibility in everything they do, and that's the spring board of their outburst I guess. We can't blame anyone-- Emotion dwells and sets in.

There might have been inconsistencies from the different aspect of our society - government, education, health, political and social arena. We have so many things to prove, scam and corruption to protest, education system to improve etc etc, but never the less- we deserve the same amount of respect from any society there is... maybe it be the 1st world!

I believe that issues like this have triggered the filipinoes and posted a bigger challenge to the entire nation. Once, Oxford Dictionary equated the word Filipina to a Domestic Helper...A brown bisquit from Spain has a brand name FILIPINO. Gone should be the days that we called 'aliping sagigilid'...

And yet proving to the world that the Philippines are home of sensible people that recognized such insult and won't allow such malign use of the name of country for such a thing like that, can even be an understatement for some.

ABC was asked to do a public apology and released a brief statement and they don't have any plans of releasing a lengthier statement. But personally, I guess it would be hard to ask for more, but as a Filipino and a nation,sure, we deserve more than this:

"The producers of ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the brief reference in the season premiere. There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines. As leaders in broadcast diversity, we are committed to presenting sensitive and respectful images of all communities featured in our programs."