Think First

If you still haven't heard of the recent Gloria Diaz scandal... here it is.



Of course most of us Cebuanos, me included, RAGED over this comment: "Kasi when you think about a Cebuana, can hardly speak English, and of course, Tagalog..."

And in a video here Ms. Gloria Diaz tries to defend her statement, saying that she never said Cebuanas couldn't speak English. "This is what I said," she said. That everyone should have the right to answer in the language they are most comfortable with. She shrugged away the issue joking about getting a Jejemon interpreter if you wanted to speak Jejemon.

Unlike comments posted everywhere belittling her accent, or calling her a liar and a whore, or showing evidence of how Cebuanos are widely renowned in the outsourcing and call center scene, this blog post is quite different.

I just want to tell her this: she should have thought of what she was going to say before actually saying it. She may or may not have meant it, but it was still offensive in the end. And since she did say it, instead of letting the issue trail off as a joke, she should really admit a mistake, whether it have been intentional or not. She didn't even admit that she said what she said, when video footage shows otherwise.

I'm a Cebuano who speaks Filipino better than the stereotypical Cebuano (yes, the stereotype is very humbling)... but we've never been bashed about our English before. I can probably ignore that kind of offensive statement, but her not admitting she said it is hard to bear.

I demand an apology.