My online friend Jaiden lives in and is from the Philippines. She has dealt with a lot of trauma and abusive parents, it seems, and also seems to have been bullied. I have heard from many people, especially those who have been to the Philippines, that it’s great. The country is pretty and the people are nice.
However, Jaiden says it’s quite the contrary. I am taking into consideration her trauma and another comment that she herself could be lying and actually the bully or someone with okay parents. We don’t know. But anyway, she says that it’s a very racist, neo-Nazi country filled with murderers.
I’ll start out by saying that there are many good and charitable people in the Philippines. Some of the best people I’ve known live there. But there is a LOT of poverty and that breeds some of the worst things in society. Having spent a few years in western part of Luzon island, there are enough bad people around that it’s not hard to imagine a Filipino finding themselves in a situation where they are locally surrounded by very horrible things–murder, trafficking, etc. In the bigger cities, everyone knows that part of town where you don’t go after dark.