Ok Lang
Author of the novel “Imelda’s Secret” peels back the bandage of our neglected Filipina comfort women to expose the wound that has never been properly dealt with, and whose blood and pus continue to ooze into the present.
Photo by Angie De Silva/Rappler
By Liza Gino (San Francisco Bay Area, California)
November 25, 2021
“OK LANG” is a prevalent term in the Philippines. OK’s beginnings can be traced back to Boston, Philadelphia, in 1939. It has since gone around the world and even to the moon. The term eventually made it to the Philippines. Now, together with the word “lang”, it has become a Philippine expression.
But what does it actually mean? Do we really mean it when we say everything is okay? Does the addition of the word “lang” change the meaning? And the more important question is, why is this term so endemic to the Filipinos?
To answer that, one should understand the Filipino psyche. What are their attitudes and aspirations? A better question would be, what is the level of their tolerance and resilience?
Why is that? Because you will not find a more accepting and forgiving group of people. You will hear them singing in the rain while traversing floodwaters. Sharing their limited food with visitors. They would do anything to appease their superiors, who may also be their oppressor in order to get acceptance, like a child wanting recognition—a typical colonized mentality.
It is no surprise that despite fighting for our freedom for over 600 years, we are still unconsciously under someone’s thumb. We are not free. We go about our days like Cinderella, working hard for her cruel step sisters while sleeping on the ground next to the ashes. So, ok lang. Go ahead, just step over us.
It is no surprise, then, when it comes to the subject matter of the Filipina “comfort women,” it takes on the “ok lang” attitude. Seven decades after World War II, these women still struggle. Although they have had enough and now stand defiantly for themselves, the rest of the population either turn a blind eye or shrug their shoulders and say, “So what am I supposed to do?”
For decades, these comfort women continue to struggle to fight their inner demons and their environment. As victims of the atrocities of war, their pain is real, and the battles continue primarily without the support of their family, community, and nation.
The “comfort women’s” brutal history began when young girls and women were abducted from their families, forced into sexual slavery, and stripped of their dignity. Forever emotionally scarred, the comfort women struggled with the trauma caused by the systemic barbaric subjugation.
“This atrocity of systematic abuse and human trafficking was not exclusive to the Philippines but also to over 30 countries, including China and Korea. Many of those countries have made giant strides in bringing about awareness, an acknowledgment of this war crime, demanded reparation, and an apology; with the support of their nation. But for the Philippines, economics and finances get in the way of this particular part of history that is not even part of our own written history.”
Many have lost faith in the system while a few continue to fight on. Then you hear another common expression: “Sanay na kami dyan.” (We are used to that.) Yet another surrender, another fait accompli. Always accepting that there is no other option but to submit, succumb.
For one bright and shining moment, our population finally rose together to say enough during the EDSA Revolution. Locked arms faced guns and armored trucks. We have hit bottom, and then it was time to rise and take matters into our own hands. We want our freedom! The time has come to revolt!
And then what? We returned to our placid ways. Seemingly unconcerned. C’est la vie demeanor settles in. Someone else can take the fight. Tomorrow is another day.
But tomorrow is now for these comfort women. We cannot wait for another seventy years for awareness, change, and validation. Many of them are in their late nineties. Just how much more time do they have?
Our resilience and tolerance are double-edged swords. And we know what swords can do - they can either wound the oppressed or fight the opressor. Albeit in our case - whether it’s the issues of comfort women from the very distant era of the Japanese occupation down to the disgustingly audacious historical revisionism of the Marcos regime’s atrocities - our forgetfulness as a nation numbs the pain of isolation, oppression, and fear like no other narcotic. The quiet resignation is masked with disinterest. When do we finally stand straight with pride instead of cowering all the time as subservient denizens? Do we just shrug our shoulders and say: “OK lang?”
To begin with, when did injustice ever become “OK”? And when did the disregard for the dark parts of our history become one of our many unaddressed issues relegated with a “lang”?
