What was the "shoe" of your Generation?

We take shoes for granted. But what most don’t realize is that shoes have always been there throughout history - in the most significant moments of our country’s history, from the absence of shoes in pre-colonial Philippine society, to the change of that society upon the arrival of the shoe-clad Spanish colonizers who labeled our barefooted forefathers “uncivilized” indios.

Shoes or footwear have inspired early artists, musicians and poets, that’s why our music, poems and folklore are riddled with reference to the lowly “bakya”, “tsinelas” and “sapatos”. In time, shoes have subliminally become an instrument for labeling and separating people in our society according to their economic class, social status and even differing ideologies. The “bakya” for example is now used to label individuals of low cultural taste and social status. The “tsinelas” have for a time been used to categorize the “aktibista”. I remember when I was in elementary school you will not be part of the “in” group if you don’t sport “Sperry” topsiders and later on “blah-blah” shoes. Then in high school, it was black “stick-out-flap” Reeboks that makes you part of the “barkada”. Come to think of it, if you look at pictures and statues of Rizal and Bonifacio, you will notice that Rizal always wears his European shoes and Bonifacio, the plebian, is almost always portrayed barefoot...well, except for the statue in Tutuban of course.

Today, the shoes we wear not only project our personality and our beliefs, it also unjustly brands and labels us the way we discriminately use it to unjustly label others as well. It is really ironic how shoes, in a way have symbolized both the Filipino’s fight for a national identity and the loss of it. This was why I made a documentary about it before, and is why I am doing this web log now.

So I ask you…what was the shoe of your generation?