I got very upset recently when I Googled myself (admit it, you do it too!) and found that my food review of Spanish restaurant Tapella is being used as part of the content by a group of unscrupulous websites advertising Filipina Mail Order Brides.
First, I got angry because the article I worked on was just snatched up and posted without my permission, and then when I realized what the websites were about and that my article was sharing cyber space with demeaning and degrading sites, I went ballistic!
To quote, an article that was replicated in the websites says :
"We want to say the beauty of Philippine women who are beautiful and gentle, patient and respectful to the Philippine traditional custom; that is, they take a good care of their husband and children... A Philippine woman usually does not get divorced if she has an unfaithful husband because she always try to work it out to maintain her family and raise her children... they can cook delicious dinner and there are no guilt trips for going out with the guys after getting married."
They have since removed the post, probably because they got wind of my rant on my Facebook page, but they still have a doozy. And, I quote a lady named "Jenny Rogers", who writes in one grammatically-inept post on those websites:
"As you know that, Filipino women are too popular to the world today because of their physical and inner beauty. In other words, you are 'the man' of the house when living with a Filipino wife. Filipinas have qualities that cannot be found in Western girls. Can you imagine one situation? After a long working day, when you get home, you will see a beautiful wife who greets you at the door with smile, a ready dinner, and an organized house. Filipino wife is the solution."
This totally blew me away.
Wow, Filipinas are being marketed to be like dogs who eagerly await their master's return from work, with slippers in hand, and ready to fetch anything that is commanded to them. To those men who aspire to be 'the man of the house' as Ms. Rogers calls them, wake up and smell the Starbucks!
We are not pets. We are human beings; women who have dignity and are worthy of the respect that you losers, who probably have never even spoken to a real woman face-to-face and thus need greedy human smugglers to facilitate a relationship for you, will never be able to give -- because you don't have any dignity.
We are not items on a grocery shelf that you "shop" for. If you want to marry a Filipina, do not browse through websites that show women in various states of undress, and list down their vital statistics. The women on these sites are mostly respectable -- only desperate for a better situation in life, hence they are coerced into showing skin. Women in the Philippines, as in any other place in the world, want to meet someone decent and fall in love. Every woman deserves that.
And yes, most Filipinas can cook and clean -- but only because we want to, not because we have to do it for someone else. If you are looking for someone to follow your every command and forgive all your faults, GET A DOG.
Besides, those who are desperate enough to marry predators like you have only one thing in mind, and that's a Green Card.
So how's that for your fairytale ending?
