Having kids with a Filipina

In this subreddit a lot of people often criticise the local culture or point out how dysfunctional a lot of things here are in the Philippines. I just realized recently after living here for about two years, that I have a hard time imagining my kids being half Filipino. Having a wonderful Filipina as a partner is okay. I get that. I totally understand that part. But imagining my kids being part of this culture here gives me second thoughts.

Most people you meet randomly here are super sweet and helpful and it's for sure one of the loveliest countries in the world. But I am an engineer and have a business in Europe. My values differ so much from the local culture here. Except the family values and warmth you get here, I can't find much else that I appreciate. Whenever I talk to academics in the Philippines here, they either start to talk bad about their own people pretty fast or have some sort of weird out-of-place inflated pride of their nation. But they never come up with reasonable explanations why the nation is great. The landscape sure, but what else. It's just great and that's really it.

I mean the whole country is basically some sort of nationalistic cult to keep foreign businesses out of the country, so that the local elite doesn't get competition and can continue to rule the country like a colony. While keeping the people poor and telling them it's all about protecting the Filipinos against bad foreigners who will steal all the precious Filipino resources and abuse the workforce for their own gains. While in fact that's what they are doing and international corporations could actually lift the standard to something better like they did in Malaysia.

I also can't become part of it to help improve the situation. I can't get citizenship. I can't open a business. I can't own land. Yes there are ways, exceptions and possibilities. But now go into your kitchen/bathroom and check where the products are being made in. Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia. Businessmen don't like the rules here, it's awful. International corporations that do business here just sell their stuff. Nobody produces here. The rules are as bad as it gets. And when rarely a foreign factory opens, Filipinos talk bad about it as they see it as taking advantage of cheap Filipino workforce/resources.

How do you guys handle this mentally? I mean it's a country I couldn't be proud of as it is now nor can I become part of it to help improve the country and whenever I need something done, I realize how dysfunctional the culture here is. What am I going to tell my half Filipino kid? Your mommy is from a country with thousands of beautiful islands. The landscape is so great? I lived here for two years and the people are so lost. Any half Filipino kid that grows up in the West will have a hard time not looking down on their own kind. (same as most upper class Filipinos struggle.)