1 DEPICTION OF FILIPINOS’ NEGATIVE TRAITS IN F. COLENDRINO’S WHY WOMEN WASH DISHES Bebelyn S. Alinsonorin alinsonorin1109@gmail.com College of Arts and Sciences Cebu Normal University Cebu City, Philippines Abstract “Habits are hard to break, and many people who have them are not even aware they possess them. We encounter them everywhere. We read them on the social media, in the comments left by Filipinos on a timely and popular post on Facebook, on a blog, or on a news website.” (Abello, 1) The focus of the study is to investigate the following: a) Filipinos’ Negative Traits depicted in the plot structure b) Filipinos’ Negative Traits represented by the characters in the play and, c) The Filipinos’ Ineffective Traits in responding to conflicts as shown in the play’s conflict. The play of F. Colendrino, ‘Why Women Wash Dishes’, is the main reference of the study. Other sources are online articles and other online-related readings that serve as supplemental sources of information about the Filipinos’ negative and ineffective traits that, at some point, becomes one of the many factors that hinder success. This qualitative research is supported by the two theories in literature, the Formalist theory and the Mimetic theory in literature. As proven in the above data shows it is proven that F. Colendrino’s Why Women Wash Dishes contains the Filipinos’ negative and ineffective traits in the presentation of the plot structure, characters’ roles, and conflict of the play. Keywords: Filomena Colendrino, Why Women Wash the Dishes, Filipinos’ Negative Traits I. Introduction “Habits are hard to break, and many people who have them are not even aware they possess them. We encounter them everywhere. We read them on the social media, in the comments left by Filipinos on a timely and popular post on Facebook, on a blog, or on a news website.” (Abello, 1) Humor, in all its forms and intentions, binds Filipinos together, making an experience into an event that can be shared by all. Among the Filipinos, when they laugh at something that is unique to them, their laughter becomes an assertion of their unity as a people. Apart from smiling more often, Filipinos also laugh a lot. They make fun almost all the time; they make jokes whether they are among strangers or friends, in school or at work, or even about their personal lives or politics. Humor is always present in various fields – arts, entertainment, politics and literature. As one of the Filipinos, F. Colendrino uses humor which is innate in the Filipino spirit to subtly present her serious intention by the play’s portrayal of some negative and often ineffective traits of the Filipinos. Mimesis, which is translated from the Greek term as ‘imitation’, describes the relationship between artworks and reality: art is a copy of the real. Mimesis describes things, such as artworks, as well as actions, and even impersonation.