Last week, I wrote about the significance of the number of ships that are currently anchored off Manila Bay and how the Philippines can become a maritime power hub in a post pandemic world. As I have mentioned, being the second-largest source of merchant marines that man the world’s fleet of ships can serve as a good reason for our “pivot” to make the Philippines a marine transport hub this side of the globe. Hence, it would do well if our government provides the infrastructural as well as institutional support to make this happen. This week, I would like to pay tribute to that indomitable spirit of the Filipino; the same spirit that makes us leave the comfort of our motherland to find better opportunities for ourselves and our families and endure the hardships that go along with it.
It may seem that travel and adventure is in our DNA. All over the globe, in almost all corners, and whatever the climate is, you would find a Filipino, if not a community of Filipinos in some shape or form. You have that Filipino nurse in most hospitals in the western hemisphere; the crew in the oil fields in the Middle East, the Pinay singer that belts the perfect Whitney Houston song with her Filipino band in almost all hotels worldwide, which are most likely staffed by some Filipinos as well. But this is not just a recent phenomenon. The Filipino diaspora has been there as early as centuries ago. Filipinos were even ahead of the colonial settlers of the Americas as crewmembers of the Spanish galleons of the Manila- Acapulco galleon trade route, jumping ship and eventually establishing “Manila,” the early settlement close to what is now New Orleans. Or the “Alaskeros,” the Filipino migrants who arrived in Alaska to work in their fishing boats some two centuries ago, and the “Manongs” who worked in the many plantations in California and Hawaii.
For most of our brother Filipinos, past and present, they go abroad because life here in our motherland has been generally difficult. There is that inherent need to find better life and provision for our families that makes us endure long bouts of loneliness, low pay, and maltreatment. But such is true as well with other nationalities. The many Chinatowns in the world, the Little Indias and Koreatowns attest to their ancestors’ journey to seek a better way of life. Maybe what sets us Filipinos apart is our ability to adapt and eventually “melt” into our environment. Rather than cloister ourselves in our communities where we try to relive our former lives in the motherland, we open ourselves to the stimuli of the new world, albeit sometimes losing our identity in the process. One good reason why there is no enduring Filipino town or Little Manila in any of the places where we have ventured. But Filipinization does creep in these adapted communities and for some reason, it comes out with a better blend for the good of both cultures. We see this in its subtle results—intermarriages as well as the Filipino contribution to the many cultures we find ourselves in.
Indeed, we Filipinos venture, survive and adapt. The stoppage brought about by the pandemic is only temporary. Our overseas Filipino workers brothers and sisters will go back to their adopted shores as soon as they will be allowed to do so and resume bringing in the needed dollars and other foreign currencies that keep together the bodies and souls of their families, not to mention their role in keeping our economy afloat. But it may be good that in this pause of their journeys, they’re back in our shores. All of us who benefited from their hard work should show our gratitude to them. And what better testament to show them these than the homes they leave behind; the communities and the whole country are in good condition and that their efforts have not gone to waste. It is a challenge for all of us collectively as a country that we must always yearn to meet.
Thomas “Tim” Orbos was formerly with the DOTr and the MMDA. He is an alumnus of the McCourt School of Public Policy of Georgetown University and the MIT Sloan School of Management. He can be reached via e-mail at thomas_orbos@sloan.mit.edu