Articles, essays, and talks of Rey Lugtu

(Published in Business Mirror under the Mirror Image column, October 20, 2009) All of us, in one way or another, have been affected by the super-typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. But in the televised news reports that I’ve watched, it never failed to amaze me that Filipinos could still laugh and smile while being interviewed by news reporters in front of their wrecked homes. Even American soldiers on a rescue mission seemed to be wondering why affected Filipinos were all smiling, giving them “high-fives,” amid the catastrophe. If you think about it, there is a truism in the proverbial mababaw ang kaligayahan (literally translated “shallow happiness” or “easy to please”). To many of us Filipinos, happiness is watching Wowowee and reveling in the antics of Willie Revillame and his bevy of curvaceous dancers. Happiness is patiently lining up in a lotto outlet, waiting for one’s turn to get hold of a ticket to one’s dreams. Happiness is treating one’s family to a weekend lunch, spending a hard-ea