My mom and I were talking yesterday when suddenly, she said something that I have never heard of before:

“Pinabugbog ni Imelda yung Beatles nung andun sila sa Pilipinas,”
[Translate: Imelda (Marcos) had the Beatles beaten up while the group was in the Philippines.]

And boy, was I shocked to say the least!

My brother came in and joined in the conversation. He agreed and said that one of his high school teachers told them about it. The Beatles were beaten up by some of Imelda Marcos’ thugs at the airport, on their way out of the country during their 1966 visit.

Imelda Marcos had the Beatles beaten up at the airport? Why haven’t I ever heard of this before?

So I did a bit of research and ended up with this brilliant page that features a transcript straight from the fab four’s recollection of their traumatic Philippine visit. This was taken from The Beatles Anthology documentaries.

To those who, like me, are quite shocked by this, I recommend that you read the entire webpage to be enlightened. Their ordeal has some eerie resemblance to the last few events in the movie, The Last King of Scotland.

The story in a nutshell [according to their Wikipedia page, at least]:

In July 1966, when The Beatles toured the Philippines, they unintentionally snubbed the nation’s first lady, Imelda Marcos, who had expected the group to attend a breakfast reception at the Presidential Palace.[69] When presented with the invitation, Brian Epstein politely declined on behalf of the group, as it had never been the group’s policy to accept such “official” invitations.[70] The group soon found that the Marcos regime was unaccustomed to accepting “no” for an answer. After the ‘snub’ was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles’ police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Mal Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd.[71] Once the group boarded the plane, Epstein and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, “Tell my wife that I love her.”[72] Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed back on the plane.[73]

I guess that dictators’ wives are really spoiled rotten like that. The fact that she even had the nerve to maltreat the Beatles like that and give the country a bad name just shows how God-like and superior she thinks she is. To be able to tell everyone that “Hey, I beat up the Beatles! Get it? Get it? *roflmao*” would be a big ego-booster, I guess. She is, after all, the dictator’s wife.

Don’t you just love to hate Imelda?

And oh, look, they’ve made fun of her! XD

To my Filipino friends: Am I living under a rock this entire time? Have you guys heard of this before?

Author’s note: My blog, my rules. I value freedom of speech, but for Pete’s sake, STAY ON TOPIC. Off-topic and verbally abusive comments have been rejected, and trolls have been banned. Now about the blog entry… Read first and understand the original entry before proclaiming your love for me. Come on, we’re civil people around here.
UPDATE 06-28-2009: Commenting has now been disabled.

I have noticed during these past few days that traffic to my blog has exponentially increased due to the fact that people who were searching for “The Awful Truth About Filipinos” on Google have landed on one of my many personal blog entries.

This has kept me wondering: what the hell is this “awful truth about Filipinos”? It definitely sounds like a title of some book, a documentary, or some nasty e-mail chain letter.

My last guess came in close. Upon further investigation, I found out that some ignorant outdated dude posted the deleted Slashdot comment that reproduced the infamous Art Bell e-mail chain letter hoax on this forum [notice the date that the forum member posted this outdated 2001 message].

The aforementioned essay rant called “The Awful Truth About Filipinos” was originally attributed to popular American radio personality, Art Bell. According to Wikipedia [because I'm too lazy to summarize stuff for you]:

The Philippine Daily Inquirer printed a letter found on a web page purportedly from Bell that made derogatory statements about Filipinos. This letter was subsequently demonstrated to be a hoax perpetrated upon Bell, who in fact had a publicly loving relationship with his Filipina wife and his previous wife Ramona who was also Filipina, and who often spoke openly about his admiration for the Filipino people on his radio show. Subsequently, the Philippine Daily Inquirer printed a retraction and apologized for printing the statement upon their verification of the hoax. This fraudulent act upon Bell still periodically results in serious threats to Bell when this material surfaces from time to time.

Please, just stop. Haven’t you even read Bob Ong‘s essay regarding this? I am sick and tired of reading these types of articles and forum posts.

I hate the fact that Filipinos keep talking about how awful our country is. Please stop the hate and negativity.

 
I hate the fact that the most insecure strangers that I come across online are most of the time Filipinos. [i.e. They always start threads that go along the lines of "What Do You Think Of Filipinos?". God, why are you all so insecure?!]

 
I hate the fact that Filipinos try to bring down their fellow Filipinos [see crab mentality].

 
I hate the fact that a lot of Filipinos are so ignorant—many believe that “buying foreign products will kill our economy” or “speaking English is unpatriotic”.

 
Be open-minded.

 
We are living in a global economy, a global society–a global world where “nationalism isn’t bound by time or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still remain essentially who they are,” as Patricia Evangelista has said in her award-winning speech.

 
I’ll end this by quoting more of Patricia’s words for those idiots who accuse me of being a traitor to my beloved country:

“Leaving sometimes isn’t a matter of choice. It’s coming back that is. The Hobbits of the shire traveled all over Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the word. We call people like these balikbayans or the ‘returnees’ — those who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good fortune.

 
“…I may take advantage of whatever opportunities come my way. But I will come home. A borderless world doesn’t preclude the idea of a home. I’m a Filipino, and I’ll always be one. It isn’t about just geography; it isn’t about boundaries. It’s about giving back to the country that shaped me.”

Narrow-minded fools.