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Filipinos Through Filipino Eyes: A Reminder From My Nephew

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By: Bob Boyer

 

My nephew Ted has been visiting his Filipina sweetheart Clara near Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao for about three years now. He makes the journey from Wisconsin to Mindanao twice a year. They are working on getting Clara a visa to come to the U.S. to marry Ted here but so far have not been successful. His most recent visit was this past February.

Ted and I have exchanged emails about his experiences on several of these visits. I always find his adventures and his reflections about them both interesting and insightful. This has been particularly true of the two emails I’ve received after this most recent visit. His first one was in response to my asking him what changes he had noticed since President Duterte had taken office. Ted was basically positive. He was impressed that for the first time he didn’t have to fight off people trying to ‘help’ him with his luggage and take him to a taxi-driver of their choice rather than his. The airport environment was much improved upon arrival and departure.

Ted posed my question about Duterte to Clara when he arrived in her small town outside of Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao. Clara worked as an OFW for six or seven years, I believe. She has a college degree in Education but makes more money as a maid, at home or abroad. She told Ted that the streets of their town are much safer and quieter than they used to be, before Duterte.

As readers of this column may remember I like to follow the old song and “accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.” I had written a couple of quite negative columns about Mr. Duterte and actually welcomed the opportunity to share Ted’s and Clara’s observations. Unfortunately, when I got to the point of writing that article, several very critical articles appeared in the “New York Times (NYT).” I compromised and included the positives from Ted and Clara to balance the negatives in the NYT, largely about the extra-judicial or vigilante killings in the Drug War being waged by Duterte. I also included the one positive piece from the NYT about Duterte’s support for access to birth-control methods for the poor.

The compromise didn’t quite reach a balance, however, since I was also hearing lots of criticism of Duterte from Filipino Facebook Friends in Manila. The article ended up being more on the “Downside” than the “Upside.” I shared a copy of the article with Ted. He replied almost immediately with a polite, detailed analysis of my article. I much appreciated his analysis. It reminded me about viewing situations from different perspectives, specifically from the poor as well as from the more economically privileged.

Ted pointed out that he “guessed” that most of my Facebook Friends were among the “elites” (his term) rather than the poor. He was correct, though many of those “elites” had come from poor backgrounds. Still, they had gotten a hand up, which many others didn’t. Also they would, at least in broad economic terms, be more middle-class than upper-class. Still I felt a little sheepish when Ted reminded me that, “most of the people in the country are very poor.”

His observations set me to thinking about how I had actually learned precisely that lesson from the same “elite” friends he was speaking about. I had learned it from a Filipina artist friend who sat in on a class I taught on an NVM Gonzalez short story, “The Bread of Salt,” in which a young boy felt snubbed at a birthday party for girl of an aristocratic (Ilustrado) family. After class my friend said, “You don’t seem to realize that that young boy would be considered very middle class in the Philippines, not poor.” Her comment had stayed with me for years, helping me to view Filipinos through Filipino eyes. In fact I have a small painting of hers in my office that does the same thing. The entire background is a large Philippine flag hanging down lengthwise like a drapery. The large golden sun is at the top, but it doesn’t seem to reach the young boy selling newspapers or the young girl selling chains of sampaguita flowers depicted below. They and their wares are etched with ink strokes that suggest dirt or soot. I had seen many such on Sundays outside of Church, but more often on dangerous Manila streets. NVM Gonzalez’s snubbed young boy would look like an Ilustrado to them.

Thanks for the reminder, Nephew, to see Filipinos through Filipino eyes. I had many such lessons from my friends while in the Philippines. I will share more of these in future. Contact Bob Boyer at www.snc.edu or www.anamericaninmanila.com.

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