KEVIN Sinclair (his column 'Filipina unfit for martyrdom', South China Morning Post, April 3) may have carefully studied and lucidly set out the facts behind the Flor Contemplacion case, but he missed one thing - the emotionalism of Filipinos who have long needed a focus for their anger and frustration.
The anger is aimed mainly at the fact that we are known as a nation of servants - the way the Chinese, in the early part of this century, were the world's coolies, cooks, launderers, and labourers who laid down the railway across the American continent.
The frustration is caused by Filipinos' inability to change a feudal system which has long kept the country mired in poverty.
The furore that has been raised is, as Mr Sinclair rightly points out, being used by our politicians for their own ends in this election year. And of course it has been whipped up further by the Manila media which - like the press everywhere - loves a sensationalistic story.
The Manila Chronicle, in a review of my latest book, Hong Kong Postscript, says it has put up a mirror to Filipinos - 'exposing ourselves - our petty-mindedness, lack of self-respect, opportunism, pigly greed, slavishness, indescribable stupidity, all of which (traits) the nation was born with'.
The reviewer labels the issue of migrant workers 'a national shame', which has been a cycle of 'regular betrayal . . .by every group of national leaders'.
