A netizen compiled several posts by Filipino scholars abroad who posted about their own ‘dumpster-diving’ stories as her response to DSWD Asec. Lorraine Badoy calling Vice President Robredo as “Uncle Sam’s basurera.”
Ivy Lisa F. Mendoza slammed the tirades against Robredo, which were directed towards her being a mother and for using second-hand furniture to furnish her daughter’s flat.
[ads2]
This was in response to Badoy’s June 27 blog post, “Uncle Sam’s Basurera,”where she slammed Robredo for revealing that “she picks on the garbage of Americans – colonial masters of recent times – pains me to my deepest, darkest depths.”
“It is such a striking metaphor for what our country has been to America–garbage–and such a striking metaphor to what Leni Robredo is: Uncle Sam’s garbage collector,” Badoy said.
“And until the unprecedented happened and a Filipino President said to them, “Fuck you, America.” and backed it up with powerful action, all we knew to do was bow down to the great god, USA,” she added.
Badoy also hit Robredo’s move for “disgracing” her office.
[ads1]
““Oh look at this beat up sofa with American boogers on them. What a find! Yey!” She thinks nothing of disgracing the Office of the Vice President of Republic of the Philippines. And she thinks nothing of shaming the Filipino people. Masunod lang kung ano mang bulok na agenda meron sha. Kabwisit talaga,” she said.
She compared President Rodrigo Duterte’s and Robredo’s attitude towards America, too.
“Duterte errs on the side of Sovereignty (“Fuck you, America.”) while Leni errs on the side of Servitude. (“Kleng, kleng, basura kayo jannnn!”),” she said.
Badoy also advised Robredo to “give that basura act a rest.”
But for Mendoza, she pointed out how some Pinoy scholars “fondly” recalled how much they relied on second-hand stuff while studying abroad.
“Yet, here posted are accounts by some Filipino scholars who took up post-grad studies abroad and how they fondly look back at those times they relied on hand-me-downs, actually a much-loved, even bohemian, tradition in the academe abroad,” she wrote.
“This is obviously scraping the barrel for the ‘turds who are even appointed government officials (ang daming oras nung taga DSWD kahit ang daming dapat asikasuhin sa Marawi!) Said na said na talaga ang mga utak nila, kawawa naman. Hindi bale nang “basurera”, huwag lang maging basura ang bibig at ugali tulad nila,” she added.
She posted Toym Leon Imao, a renowned painter and sculptor who went to Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore for his graduate studies and now a lecturer at UP, said that “re-purposing garbage” is “common practice” in American college towns.
“It’s common practice, and it doesn’t diminish my status as an individual. I have survived 4 years of studying and artmaking in a far away land by re-using and transforming “junk,” Imao said. “Yes, I am also a “basurero” – I dumpsterdrive, and make do with what the street corners, and the recycling bins have to offer. Real garbage are those who trash these pragmatic and frugal acts.”
And we’ve covered what Antonio La Viña, former dean of the Ateneo School of Government, said about how Aika Robredo, the Vice President’s daughter, using “old stuff” is “doing the time honoured tradition of furnishing her place in Cambridge the cheapest way possible.”
Bloomberg TV Philippines presenter Quintin Jose Pastrana shared through his three “waste not, want not” posts how, as a graduate student, “foraging for discarded furniture was the norm.”
“No taxpayers’ money, no ill-gotten wealth, pure common sense,” he said.
[ads3]
