Please stop cowering

This is to my fellow Filipinos, or to anyone living in third world countries,

Stop cowering.

I thought about it and I decided that this needed to be said. You can read it or ignore it. Personally, it's up to you.

I am frustrated beyond belief seeing this tiptoeing around the platform. The plagiarism check included in articles, proof of innocence as if that would somehow stop the bullying that others are doing.

I do not mean to judge you for what you are doing. No, I understand excatly where you are coming from which makes me more frustrated.

You know, a teacher from high school once asked us, "Bakit kaya tayong mga Filipino, nagmamadaling asikasuhin yung mga banyaga? Tipong sa sarili mong bansa mag-i-Ingles ka para maintindihan ka nila. Eh di ba kapag nagpunta ka sa ibang bansa, ikaw ang nag aaral ng lenggwahe para maintindihan mo sila?"

(Why is it that Filipinos are quick to attend to the whims of foreigners? Like we are in our own country but we speak English for foregmigners living here so they can understand us. Think about it, if you were to go to other countries, you will study the language of that country first so that you can understand what they say, right?)

Tell me. I know that one major excuse you can think of is that Filipinos are hospitable. Oh, how pretty the label they gave to us!

He asked us this in our Understanding the Culture, and Society in the Philippines. Do you want to know want he told us that day?

He told us that it is because Filipinos still see ourselves as the lesser race. This stems from our years of being colonized where we were taught that these colonizers are saving us, when in fact all they have really done is erase our own culture and history.

This stems from the fact that we see foreigners as the superior race. The people we should please so they can return the favor someday. Being hospitable is nice. But to use hospitability as an excuse to belittle one's self, to think of yourself lesser just because you are born Filipino and them born in some first world country is not its true essence.

If you do not believe me, think about when you saw some foreigners living here in the country. There are those who ride jeepneys with us, but when the jeepneys stopped in front of them they would ask the passengers in English, "Are there any seats left?" Expecting someone to answer them in English. Can you see the point I am trying to make?

These foreigners who live here have stayed for years but never once bothered to learn how to say "May pwesto pa ba? May bakante pa ba?" No. A simple sentence that they will use everyday is something they never bother to learn because there will always be a Filipino who will answer it back in English.

Is that a bad thing? It depends on how much you value your own culture. I cannot answer that for you as I am sure you can already glean what my answer will be.

This memory comes back to me full force when I see what is happening in this platform. There are users targeting us, Filipinos, in general. They label as all as spammers or plagiarists. They started witch hunts. Not fearing for the consequences. Instead of gathering evidence, reporting it quietly and then waiting for the investigation, they decided to humiliate everyone else for something they cannot help.

Questions I cannot help but ask

Why curse a whole bunch of Filipinos when you only encounter one plagiarist? Sure the admin said in noise.cash that there are a lot of spammers coming from this specific country, but are they even here on read.cash? Careful of pointing fingers, and trying to hide in righteous anger, because I can see your elitism and racism showing.

And why is it that the proven innocent is cowering when the one who made a wrongful accusation feels no guilt nor remorse?

I am genuinely curious. Since there is some blurred lines here than what i am used to in noise.cash. In noise.cash it is understood that when people try to report the same user as spam who was proven to not be one, the users who reported it face consequences.

So I want to know. What happens to people who publicly humiliated a writer who was proven innocent?

There is also this general warning to the users. It comes from the read.cash site itself.

Fair enough right? I am wondering if cursing someone so bad that they are traumatized counts as hate-filled as well as cursing a whole country and its people. I cannot report it because I am blocked by them, I only read it when I logged out. I do not want to make a new account just to report.

More questions, this time for you

If you know you are doing nothing wrong why do you fear people who have some vendetta against a certain race just because someone accused a bad apple then they suddenly think every apples are the same too? Why are you cowering? Why are you tiptoeing? Why are you afraid?

Plagiarism checker is good. That is even encouraged in academic writing since you would have to use various references.

But to run a plagiarism check to an article about your personal experience? Is not going a bit too much?

Sharing your experiences is supposed to be fun and helpful. Not this. Not a fearful experience. We are not supposed to be acting fearful because of someone else.

You wrote the article? Then prove it. The truth always comes out as is the case in a recent issue.

If you are doing something wrong then I understand why you feel afraid. But if you are not, do not cower. Do not bow down.

Why are you the ones who are afraid? Why are you afraid of people wrongfully accusing you?

In my opinion, they should be the ones who should be careful. Cautious of doing something so disgusting ever again such as starting a witchhunt for no other reason than they feel like it. Cautious of pointing fingers and doing public humiliation just because they can.

The admin proved time and time again that they are reliable even when they system sometimes are not. They do not just brand someone else as spam because someone reported it nor someone reported it. They check it, right? Or do you not trust this system you claim to love so much?

I know how traumatizing it is to be accused of plagiarism. I have experienced that when I was writing poetries. The larger you grow, the more people there will be who will try to look for flaws and reasons to bring you down. Just remember that the next time you feel your knees shake, you know you are innocent.

If you are doing nothing wrong, then let them report you and trust thhat the truth will always be leaning to your side. It might be hard to ignore those who scream, but remember that they scream because they are only heard that way. What if we are accused of being our own circle? They have theirs as well. Is it not the very reason why they made an article to publicly air their dirty laundry? Because they know that their readers will believe them, and will do some emotional fueled attacks to those they point at.

Remember that their supporters are frustrated of plagiarists and spammers. We are frustrated with spammers and plagiarists as well. This is a platform that we love and value too.

We have our duty to help the admin remove the bad apples. But it is not a user's duty to alienate a whole population just because of some leap of logic that does not even make sense.

Please stop cowering. I feel like crying everytime I see an article or comment or post about how they are now afraid to post because of this witch hunt.

Just because there are bad apples, does not mean everyone is the same. You know for yourself that you are not a spammer and plagiarist. So please continue being unbothered.

I did not make this because I am an attention seeker. I merely wrote this because I do not think I can handle seeing the people I have grown fond of become so scared of doing what they love because of what happened.

We are adults. We know how to think for ourselves. So please stop the tiptoeing when you are innocent.

Be more conscious of your articles if you use references, yes. Pay more attention to how you write, cool. That will make you a better writer. But make sure you do it out of your own willingness, not because you fear you will become the next target of the witch hunt.

This not an attack, insult nor trash-talk. This is me genuinely confused about how the platform I have come to love became like this.

Image source: https://read.cash/@Read.Cash/what-is-readcash-faq-7b0bfcfc

Special thanks to @OfficialGamboaLikeUs for reviewing this article. She also mentioned that my article reminded her of @kingofreview's article so I visited his account before publishing this.

Thank you for reading this article!