It is a challenge to reshape the Filipina image. It is a laborious task that every Filipina should clearly define to oneself. One has to identify her own culture, values, morals and view point about immensely overwhelming things good and bad around her such as media, the beautiful opportunities outside the country, poverty in her own country, lack of education, detrimental experiences that she escapes from, ambitions, etc. The image a Filipina depicts is an image of what her mind dictates. It should be based on free will. It should be that with much freedom and responsibility. A Filipina is much better than a woman who sells herself for some foreign man in exchange of comfort and wealth. She is a thousand times better than a wife who follows whatever is the dictate of her husband. She is a woman who should stand on her own with soundness of moral character and integrity and with the values that she learned from her forefathers. Above all, she should be a woman who has an independent mind, a firm and tough decision about how to run her life right and a woman who is strong in spirit. It is high time every Filipina comes out of the shell and prove to the world that we are on for a greater challenge- the challenge to reshape our dark image, magnify our true and beautiful color and quit to feign embracing the culture and life of some women that we can never be like.Here is a poem from Trinidad Tarrosa- Subido
Muted Cry
They took away the language of my blood,
Giving me one “more widely understood”,
Ah, could I speak the language of my blood,
I, too, would free the poetry in me,
These words I speak are out of pitch with ME!
That other voice? . . . Cease longing to be free!
Forever shalt thou cry, a muted god:
“Could I but speak the language of my blood!”
Let every Filipina bring out that beautiful voice within her without fear and hesitation and let the cry be replaced with laughter and pride of ones own roots and beginnings.
