( Filipino advertisement of white is beautiful)
This was back in 2009.
Morning 10AM
We had one of our fair classmate, Pamela (she had really pearly white skin) to act like a helpless girl while I and my classmates observe, she acted all desperate, hungry and starving so she asked for food from the vendors, the vendors quickly helped her and gave her something to eat, she also tried in kalendarias and same thing they gave her a meal, she also asked a trycle driver if he coud give her a ride to Quiapo church, but she had no money to pay him. The trycle driver oblidged and was eager to help.
That same day around 2pm;
We put make up on her to make her look darker, and went to the same street in Quiapo. We asked the same vendors, and kalenderia. They didn't even look at her this time and shrugged her off, Pamela (my classmate) went and try her luck to the tricycle drivers, she approached 3 tricycle drivers and none were eager to help, they didn't even look at her. Finally, a few minuets later the same driver that helped her at 10AM was there. She approach the trycle driver again, this time with a dark makeup on. The tricycle driver replied,.."Wala eh..kulang pa to pang boundery dun ka na lang".
Now what was going on here? We had the same person approaching them the same way different response. We finally approached the unknowing participants and interviewed them, here's what we found during the interview.
1. They didn't notice that it was the same person.
2. The white girl looked more honest, and nakak-awa
3. The girl with darker skin was annoying (altough the approach was almost exactly the same)
4. The darked skin girl looked poor
5, while the white skin girl was rich...
Why?
Here are the answers;
1. During Spanish/American rule, the Spaniards stooped down Filipinos specially ones dark skin tone, they called Filipinos monkeys because of their features., the ones that had a sprinkle of Spanish DNA (had fairer skin) were considered pretty. Most were aristocrats at that time.
Followed by another 50 years of American rule who were also white,
Having two white colonial master for almost 400 years determined what is beautiful today and what is not.
2. Social conditioning, bombardment of advertisements that says white is beautiful multiplied this effect (along with half mixed actors like Anne Curtis and others), What the ads really say; IF YOU DON'T HAVE WHITE SKIN YOUR UGLY,..and its very effective, go to your local grocery store and see how much whitening agents there is. Filipinos even go to extremes and have them inject themselves with Glutathione.
3. It's always greener in the other side of the fence- Most white American love that golden brown skin, a lot of Filipino want that super pinkish white skin.
Conclusively, Filipino's have only been free for about 66 years, that's 66 years!!!! That was the time Americans turned over the Government to Filipinos, and Philippines was an dependent state.
Although we Filipino's are free physically from Western white men rule, psychologically we are not. We still think made in US goods are better, we still think that white is beautiful, we discriminate our Aeta brothers for having dark skin and not having Western education,...and we still think the West is better than us.
That's the unfortunate truth =(