What is Filipino?

 

 

A friend I met during the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre last June 28 shared with me an interesting story about this Canadian whom he invited to the same event last year. After watching with quite subdued interest the song-and-dance routines of young Filipino talents on stage, and of course, the highlight of the event, the Santacruzan, a parade of beauty queens from across the ages (from Miss Little Philippines to Miss Philippines to Mrs. Philippines), his Canadian friend asked him: So, what is Filipino here?

 

Naturally my friend was surprised for he didn’t have an appropriate response to his friend’s question. This Canadian interloper, if we can call him that for being a stranger to our so-called traditional festivals, thought he would have a front-seat lesson in understanding our culture. To his amazement, he was clueless and didn’t have a faint idea of what he was watching. True enough, it had the atmosphere of an extravaganza, but emptied of the variety of cultures and ethnicities of similar festivals he had watched and participated in before, either here in Toronto or during his travels abroad.

Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show, Metro Toronto Convention Centre, 2014.

Even the food didn’t appeal to him as very inviting. He even heard people complaining about how expensive the food was. He thought of the Mexican migas he ate while visiting the town of Tepito in Mexico. Migas was a simple dish of garlic soup thickened with sliced day-old bolillos, left-over bread baked in a stone oven, and flavoured with pork shanks, ham bones, epazote (an herb native to southern Mexico), oregano and different types of chilies. A raw egg is usually added to each plate when served. It has become a very popular dish in fondas around downtown Mexico City. As simple as the migas is, it reminded him of Mexican culture, of the succulent food and other dishes Mexicans like to eat, which he was looking to sample during the Pinoy Fiesta.

 

My friend thought of the pondahan that we have back home, but the food there would not be as great compared to what his Canadian friend had experienced in Mexico. All he could offer his friend was a taste of Max’s Chicken, but even this fried bird was not an authentic Filipino dish.

 

If this was the best the organizers of the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show could offer as some glimpse into Philippine culture but enough to leave a lasting imprint of our DNA, then the Philippine Canadian Charitable Foundation (PCCF) is on the wrong side of history. The PCCF, led by the first Filipino senator in the Canadian parliament and his self-promoting and public attention-starved wife, is indeed a sad example of a community organization that will never help Filipinos in Canada break the glass barrier. Not even as a vehicle for promoting Filipino unity as their own festival was conceived to rival the original Mabuhay Festival, yet another example of a poorly-conceived effort to promote Filipino culture in the diaspora.

 

Year after year, the PCCF and other like Filipino community organizations stage their annual festivals right after the celebration of Philippine Independence Day. One would think such festivals would enrich and promote Filipino culture, customs and traditions so that non-Filipinos here in Canada would appreciate our rich heritage. But every year their template for celebration of our culture has not changed. It is the same, old, and worn out variety shows which most of us have grown accustomed to from the old days of vaudeville or “bodabil” entertainment in the Philippines since the coming of the Americans.

 

The formula for these so-called community leaders is simple: invite a few entertainment personalities from back home, introduce some up-and-coming young local talents, and hold a beauty pageant show. Then gather some local businesses to exhibit their products and services in booths that will generate revenues for the organizers. Finally, invite some friendly federal members of parliament and local elected officials to drop by and endorse the celebration and don’t forget to ask them to exhort the dependable and hospitable character of Filipinos, which will guarantee them some votes during elections.

 

Somewhat lost in the din of the Pinoy Fiesta last Saturday was an exhibit of T’boli arts and crafts, like bead-based jewellery, handcrafted ladies’ bags and purses, and indigenous musical instruments such as the wood two-stringed lute called hegelung. A local arts collective in Toronto invited some members of the T’boli indigenous tribe from Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, to showcase their handiwork, the reason why they were participating in the fiesta. We were told that they also performed their native musical instruments during one of their engagements which we missed. The aesthetic beauty of the T’boli people reflected well in their arts, crafts and music. At least to us, the rowdier and more popular Santacruzan parade that went by the T’boli booth failed to quiet it down.  

T'boli arts and crafts. Click link http://vimeo.com/5784881 to view "Preserving
culture, the T'boli people."

The T’boli booth was Pinoy Fiesta’s saving grace, that in the hubbub of the festivities and despite being relegated to a very inconspicuous spot in the Metro Toronto Convention hall, it stood out as an interesting facet of the Philippines’ ancestral roots which are currently being destroyed by the market economy and foreign mining companies. They do not represent today’s image and culture of lowland Filipinos but their continuing struggle to live by their ancestral lands and indigenous culture only shows how much our native traditions have survived the inroads of time and progress.

 

This is not to suggest that we should only showcase our past. But there is something in our connection to the past that makes the present more interesting. Our historical links to our ancestral traditions make our culture more alluring not just because they are exotic to the eyes, but more so because they bring our distant past to the present, that we have our native traditions and customs even before we were colonized by the West.

This is why the celebration of our home country’s Independence Day and other so-called fiestas lacks any meaningful substance or content which our children who were born and raised abroad and non-Filipinos can understand and appreciate. Filipinos here in Toronto or most probably elsewhere in the diaspora, lack a sense of history. There is so much in our past that we should celebrate and share with the rest of the world, yet we insist on exhibiting the shallowness of our progress as a people, in rehashing the tricks of a former colonizer to keep its conquered masses in complete obeisance. Yes, still quick to gawp in the pomp and circumstance of parading beauty queens and their ladies-in-waiting. That we could only find delight in what we have become—skin-deep and no deeper—this to us seems to be the final destination in our collective journey.

 

As a people, we tend to give less importance to our past and a minor role for history in our lives as a community. Every race, or nation for that matter, is a work in progress. We would not be where we are now if not for our cultural past.

 

We have many remarkable achievements, but only individually. Our fashion designers and models are on demand, just as our song-and dance-talents, musicians and artists have been competing with the best in the business. The same goes with our athletes, our boxing champions of the world. Our children can also compete with the best students in foreign schools of higher learning.

 

Yet, as a society, we continue to lag behind. The leaders we select to run our government are some of the most inept and corrupt in the world. There is little empowerment that our chosen leaders allow the common masses, that the people in general are not harnessed in the shaping and making of public policies and programs. It is the elite that continue to determine the progress of our society, and in all probability, only what is good for them becomes the full yardstick of public and private intentions.

 

We carry this kind of mentality when we live overseas. The people we entrust to lead our communities are the mirror image of leaders at home. What is good for this few people is good for everybody, so it seems.

 

If the objective of the Pinoy Fiesta & Trade Show and other like Filipino festivals is to ensure the self-promotion of their leaders and in providing them a venue to grab the mike and hug the stage in order to satisfy their insatiable desire for attention, then probably the fault is also in our community for allowing them the opportunity. It’s also just a waste of time and newspaper space that one Filipino so-called journalist in the community devotes so much of his energy in mudslinging and destroying the personalities behind these festivals, rather than criticizing their celebrations for lack of content and historical and cultural relevance to our collective identity as Filipinos.

 

The next time your Canadian friends ask you what or where is the Filipino in our fiestas and other celebrations, tell them that the Filipino has been lost on the way here. Filipinos abroad are a lost soul, wandering in their new surroundings without a sense of history and oblivious of their origins.

Trouble in the diaspora

 

 

A malicious and hideous blog that goes by the title of Blood Stained Singapore has become the bane of the Filipino diaspora in the prosperous and sovereign city-state and island nation in Southeast Asia.

 

Catching fire in blogger traffic, the sensationalist post has been viewed 529,301 times and shared in social media platforms. The original blog post dated May 24 encourages Singaporeans to show displeasure and intolerance for Filipinos. For a while it has appeared to be taken down, but was republished on Monday, June 16.

A sharp rise in the foreign population of Singapore has ratcheted up racial
tensions. Photo by Reuters/Edgar Su.

The aforementioned Singapore blogger has proposed a five-point guide for Singaporeans to show they do not tolerate the presence of Filipinos whom he has described as having infested the island nation. Here are the five ways the blogger recommended showing displeasure to Filipinos:

 

1. When you encounter a Pinoy waiter/waitress or customer service officer, reject and ask for a replacement by telling this: “Could you kindly ask a Singaporean staff to speak to me? Your standard of English – there is much left to be desired.” If the idiot continues rambling on, tell him/her with a smile: “Your English sucks, capisce? Get the fuck out of my uncaring face and find me someone else, pronto.”

 

2. When the Peenoise become rowdy or do not deserve basic social decorum, a little “nudge” in the right direction won’t harm. Just make it look accidental. Pump your fist in victory later when they are out of your sight. We understand sometimes they just don’t get it, so a little more force must be employed. Like what this unsung hero did: “This morning at Bishan Circle Line MRT I pushed a Pinoy out of the train before door closes.”

 

3. When dining at Jollibee or any other Filipino themed restaurant, toss food into your mouth, chew thoroughly, and then spit it out. Bite another morsel and repeat. Do this till your plate is a masterpiece of regurgitated nastiness. Ask for the bill (pay in cash), scribble “Pinoy food fucking tastes like shit” on the receipt and remember to leave that piece of paper behind.

 

4. Never render help when Filipinos are involved in serious traffic accidents. Do not call the ambulance. But you have our permission to take photographs so they can be tweeted later with the caption: Hopefully another Pinoy has breathed his last on the little red dot. RIP.NOT.

 

5. Pray for a flood of biblical proportions to descend upon Orchard Road on 8 June (Filipinos have cancelled a parade to celebrate Philippine Independence Day because of public order and safety concerns). Go to the nearest church and pray. Pray hard for divine intervention aloud. Make sure God (and the Pinoy sitting next to you on the same bench) hears every word.

 

6. The Singapore blogger added #6 to his anti-Filipino guide as a bonus point. If you see a Pinoy cashier at NTUC, Cold Storage or Giant, throw a can of Baygon into your shopping before approaching him/her to make payment. When the cashier picks up the insecticide spray ready to do a barcode scan, ask him/her wryly: “Is this effective against Filipinos? Sorry, I meant cockroaches.”

 

On its face, the blog appears very juvenile and immature. It has created a groundswell of infuriated comments on the web from both Filipinos and Singaporeans alike. It also caught the attention of civil society organizations in Singapore which put out a statement condemning racist and xenophobic rhetoric and behaviour in Singapore that threatens the human rights of all (especially migrants) and the health of political discourse.

 

On the other hand, the blog could just be a troll which in Internet slang is someone who posts inflammatory statements with the intent to upset and provoke readers into an emotional response. The goal of the troll is to draw blog traffic towards his or her site, which the Singapore blogger has obviously achieved in attracting more than half a million viewers.

 

But not to Marc Titus Cebreros, chief of the Philippines’ Human Rights Information and Communication Division, who considers the Singaporean blog as “a black and white case of hate speech and hate mongering that deserves to be condemned and penalized.” Rightfully so, because such hate speech and mongering is penalized in many jurisdictions in the world today. Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also condemned the “thuggish behavior” of people who harassed the organizers of the Philippine Independence Day celebration, calling them a “disgrace to Singapore.”

Orchard Road in Singapore where Filipinos originally planned to celebrate
Philippine Independence Day last June 8 but was cancelled due to public order
and safety concerns. Photo by Komar/Shutterstock.com

Reading through the long thread of comments by Filipinos on the Internet about the Singaporean blog has surprisingly revealed a treasure trove of interesting and intelligent opinions, dealing with issues that range from the pleasant and innocuous behaviour of the Filipino diaspora to the various arguments on why so many Filipinos are leaving the country to work abroad. The exchange of opinions is both lively and enlightening, so unlike the social and political forum on the web I have joined which is largely peppered (pardon my lack of sense of humour) with trite and hollow postings by members who are supposedly adept in political and social issues.

 

Going back to the Singaporean’s xenophobic blog, this irrational fear of foreigners and their unwarranted bashing appear on the rise almost everywhere in the world. Sometimes the familiar chant of “USA, USA, USA” that we hear during sporting events strikes a diaphanous sense of superiority, a triumphal exclamation of exceptionalism, especially when we hear it in non-sporting occasions. But most of the time, this unwelcoming attitude to foreigners is unjustified.

 

For instance, most of the criticisms leveled against foreign migrant labour are unfounded. In Canada and other advanced economies including Singapore, this underclass of labour is generally seen as taking jobs away from the host country’s citizens. These are mostly menial and low-paying jobs that citizens usually prefer not to take and employers are willing to let others like migrants do for them at lower wages. Overseas Filipino workers are by and large overqualified for these jobs but are prepared to be underemployed rather than remain idle and jobless at home.

 

Thus, in Singapore, most of the Filipinos working there are domestic helpers, health care assistants, in sales and retail and other service industries. These are highly qualified workers by virtue of their education and training, but could not be absorbed by the local Philippine economy because of lack of employment opportunities.

 

So when Filipinos are hired to work overseas, they are being brought in to take on low-paying jobs that are not at par with their skills and training credentials. Thus, they form an underclass that is not only underpaid, but also deprived of government protections and generally without the opportunity of a pathway to permanent residence and citizenship.

 

When the Singaporean blogger claims of “Filipino infestation” of his island nation, he is either in denial or ignorant of the benefits of Filipino cheap labour to Singapore as a whole. And when he asks his fellow Singaporeans to follow his five-point anti-Filipino guide, he goes beyond xenophobia and commits the most disgraceful act of inhumanity against Filipinos.

 

In Western Europe particularly, xenophobia against new immigrants from Eastern Europe, Islamic countries and African nations is far more serious that these newcomers are regarded as an existential threat to their dominant culture. They sanitize their nativist resentment against everything foreign with irrational arguments against immigration, and sometimes stir up extreme patriotism on the pretext of national self-defence.

According to a Hong Kong local government think-tank, even Hong Kong is now afflicted with xenophobia directed against Chinese mainlanders, which it describes as an alarming trend towards narrow nativism in recent years. It cited various reasons for the conflicts between Hongkongers and mainlanders, some bend on the ridiculous — such as traders snapping up baby formula, causing a shortage for local mothers. Or some mainlanders talking loudly, behaving in a disorderly and impolite manner, or refusing to queue up, which overseas Filipinos have also been criticized for.

 

The Singaporean blogger’s attempt to demonize Filipinos does not add to a robust political dialogue and the promotion of the values of equality and universal human rights. Civil society organizations in Singapore have spoken and they have identified that the key to addressing the economic frustrations of many Singaporeans is to amend the economic policies and structures that cause Singapore’s worsening inequality and marginalization. They are correct in saying that these inequitable policies were not instituted by migrants and will not automatically disappear if the migrant population decreases.

 

Blood Stained Singapore, the blog, does not enrich this political conversation. Rather, it diminishes the humanity of Filipinos, and Singaporeans as well.