Western culture was shoved in our throat- music, western books (you can still smell the scent of those hand me down in your mind), our very constitution, holidays, English as a second language, and most of all, democracy (?)- that it’s almost impossible to give them up.

We were forced-fed until we learn to enjoy its foreign taste wasn’t so bad at all in our pink native tongue. And little did we notice how it became a miracle pill to our very system, a drug we can’t live without.

The once who were forced to swallow became the lapping dogs, fawning and stooging for more of that Western sneaker bar, as if it’s the only way to salvation.

Until one day a strong jab from a “kamay na bakal” hit our gut and centuries old vomit spewed out of our system. It’s fetid smell and bitter taste still lingers at the corners of our mouth.

And then we were all mad at him, to that man who slapped us back from stupefaction, because he made us look at the hollowness of our very system. It was an ugly shit, and people would rather take that pill, live forever in a state of hangover than face the existence of an internal and existential black hole just waiting to devour us whole.

We are a drugged nation.

We are drugged by the western culture, by our imperial nurse who have taught us how to walk, and how to stumble, to fall that strategic fall without her direct involvement, until we instinctively crawl back to her. Because we think she’s the only one who can put us back.

We have a severe case of Oedipus complex to mother America. And until we learn how to vomit all that pill in our system, can we revive ourselves from centuries old imperial hangover.

For now, indeed, we are a drugged nation.

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