The 2004 CFA Philippine Culture Night
(March 2004, State Theatre, Ithaca, NY)
This photo was taken during the Cornell Filipino Association's (CFA) Philippine Culture Night, held at the historical State Theatre in Ithaca, NY during Spring Semester of the Academic Year 2003-2004. My friends and I at the CFA performed the "Malong Dance" that year. Of course, we had so much fun as we always had whenever we did something to introduce Filipino Culture in the Cornell campus and to the Ithaca community. I guess I'm just feeling a little bit nostalgic now... especially thinking about how proud we always have been (we always do) declaring our "Pinoy-ness" to the world. :) But when we think about the lamentable "rotten tomatoes" (a.k.a. filthy politicians) in our Filipino basket of incredibly awesome tropical fruits (a.k.a brilliant and talented Filipinos), we cringed at the thought! And yet, these very same "rotten tomatoes" take 30% of our hard-earned salary - in the form of income tax - mostly to lavish themselves (and their shameless and abusive kins) with undeserved wealth, and in creating second-rate, bureaucracy-padded services, and in building overpriced infrastructures where they could brandish their names to feed their bloated vanity. I really wish we could throw away these rotten tomatoes now - for once and for all!
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