Why Filipinos will change the world

Irish man Mike Grogan gives us seven reasons why Filipinos will change the world in this handy pocketbook that I found at a bookstore in the international airport. A percentage of the proceeds from book sales will go to Gawad Kalinga, and the book is lovingly dedicated to “the Bagong Bayani, our overseas Filipinos, for the extraordinary sacrifice you have made in making this world a better place.”

Now, why would a foreigner write about the Filipino’s so-called strengths? Aren’t we, in an American writer’s infamous phrase, products of a “damaged culture,” as if there is no culture in the world that has remained unscathed by colonization, or globalization, or just plain, human stupidity and greed?

“I believe that for every one negative story written about the Philippines, there are 100 positive stories that don’t get talked about,” Grogan begins. He claims living here has made him “a better person” and he lists seven reasons why.

The first is “bayanihan,” complete with Cebuano translation (pagtinabangay) and sayings in Tagalog and Cebuano translated thus in English: “Many hands make the work light.”

He said this is shown in the way fare is paid by jeepney passengers. Someone from the end pays and his or her payment is passed on and on until it reaches the jeepney driver; and then the change goes through the same route again, reaching the passenger at the end. “If I were to ask a fellow passenger in my own country to give my money to the driver – either I would be told directly to ‘feck off’ (gentle Irish slang for ‘go away’)…”

Another instance is the solidarity shown when someone has died. This is the damayan system, “an outpouring of sympathy and compassion for the grieving relatives” expressed through donations of funds or services to help the family out in this difficult time.

The same spirit animates fiestas, weddings, and baptisms. How many times have I woken up in the middle of the night, in my childhood days in Basa Air Base, Pampanga, and heard relatives and neighbors peeling vegetables, felling a cow, slaughtering pigs and chickens, and cooking for a wedding or a birthday the next day?

The second reason is “madiskarte,” shown with this succinct saying: “When the blanket is too short, learn to make do.” The amazing adventures of the Filipinos never fail to earn the admiration of our foreigner.

“Walk down any street in the Philippines and you will be met with example after example of Filipino madiskarte. Ball bearings from cars made into wheels for carts, steel pails made into barbecue grills, old Nokia phones used as family radios. Converting something old into something practical and useful (even if it varies from the original design) is something that Filipinos excel at….”

This is shown most vividly in the lives of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). For the past 30 years, they have lived in different lands (they are found even in Greenland) and thrived in various cultures. I have met them in Macao, hotel workers speaking in fast and furious Cantonese telling the cab driver to bring me ASAP to the Taipa ferry bound for Hong Kong. 

When I was in Hanoi a fortnight ago, I went to an internet café and after many minutes, I finally found someone who spoke excellent English. When I asked him who taught him his English, his eyes glowed: “Are you a Filipino, too? Because my English tutor is a Filipino, and he is very patient with me.”

A Spanish friend of mine spent some of his loneliest days as a graduate student in London. Only the good cheer of his Filipino flat mates saved him from depression. “They are nurses and they are always happy. They hold down two jobs but when they come home, they still cook and share their adobo with me. It is something else.”

And when I was studying in New Jersey, I ate in a Vietnamese restaurant one terribly cold winter day. A blast of snow had just fallen. It was one of those days when I just wanted to pack my bags and come home. I sought refuge in the warmth of a Vietnamese restaurant, to savor its beef pho noodles. When the owner learnt I was a Filipino, she came to me and clasped my hands. She said that she and her family were refugees from Saigon in the 1970s and their decrepit, wooden boat landed in Palawan. But instead of being turned away, the way people from other countries did, the Filipinos fed them and gave them clothes, and later brought them to the Processing Center in Puerto Princesa City, where they were fed, housed, and taught English. They all got their travel documents to go to the United States after one year in Palawan.

I am writing this now, in the heat of a Malaysian summer, but I still remember Auntie Nguyen, talking to me with tears streaming down her lined face. “And because you come from a kind people, please do not pay for your pho noodles. And any time you want to come back, please do so again.”

Back home, Grogan believes that the Filipino can. “I believe that because of these passionate entrepreneurs, one day ‘Made in the Philippines’ will come to signify the same level of quality, romance, and respect as Made in France.’ He mentions as a case in point the Gawad Kalinga (GK) Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan, which is 90 minutes away from Manila.

He calls it a vision of what lies ahead. It is the first farm village university in the world, built both as a hub and eco-syst         em for new social businesses. It wants to replicate this best practice in 24 other provinces and train 500,000 social entrepreneurs in ten years. They will then represent a new generation of wealth creators who will provide jobs for millions of other Filipinos. “Through their spirit of diskarte, we will see a day where no Filipino will feel they have to leave their country because of economic pressures at home.”

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To be continued. “7 Reasons Why Filipinos Will Change the World” is published in partnership with Profiles and People Dynamics. It is available in National Bookstore, Fully Booked, and Amazon. Comments can be sent to [email protected]