Try not to wince every time the exchange rate dips against the dollar. On the upside, it is good for the Philippine peso. If only the prices of commodities were going down … but NOT! Sigh … You map out the daily schedule from Day One to the end date and get all the advance information you need. Why? Because unlike in the US where information is like water available on tap, the flow of information in the Philippines, unless you are wired with a laptop and always in a place with wi-fi access, may be spotty and information, inaccessible. That’s a real bummer. A better way is to get a cellphone with local access and be good at texting. Filipinos are champion texters and they will leave you in the dust, if you aren’t. Even the magtataho owns a cellphone.
Why go to the Philippines when there are a lot of choices out there at far less cost? Ask any emigre. A trip to the native country is in a class by itself when it comes to travel choices. For many first generation expatriates, the Philippines holds a special place in one’s heart. It’s a place you’ve seen before but would like to look at again with fresh eyes—notwithstanding the negatives: the withering value of the dollar against most world currency, the seemingly endless spate of negative news, disconcerting tales of horrific traffic congestion, the heat, the pollution, extremes in poverty and wealth and vicious politics. Okay then, it’s not perfect but no place in the world is. Nonetheless, it’s still a special place. Period. No ifs and buts about it. Warts and all, there are a million and one reasons a Philippine trip is all worth it—particularly during Christmas.
With few exceptions, there can be no happier group of people come Christmastime than Filipinos. It’s a perplexing phenomenon that the world has taken notice of with somewhat of a jaundiced eye. Christmas begins in September and ends with a bang in January of the New Year, the longest season of merrymaking anywhere in the world. It is as commercial and profit-driven as anywhere else, with cavernous shopping malls and a slew of holiday activities that can give other international shopping malls a run for their money. Dining out in restaurants can have you wearing clothes 2 sizes bigger in no time at all, if you don’t watch it. There’s just something about the Philippines during Christmas. Despite crass commercialism, Christmas joy among the multitudes seems genuine. The churches still get filled to the rafters with the faithful, unlike some churches in Europe that are more like empty, tomblike museums than churches with just a handful in attendance. In a largely cynical, jaded world as we have today, JOY as pure, unfettered, unfeigned and childlike as all that, cutting across all social strata in a poor country, is a phenomenon as rare as the appearance of Halley’s comet.
Why do we come home? Part of the reason is the people—a complex combination of goodness and wickedness, of intelligence and ineptitude and of humility and pride. In the world stage, the Filipino has become the unofficial poster child of what an imported model worker is—and for good reason. Our best export is our overseas foreign workers, whose remittances, put together, from everywhere in the world, have been propping the Philippine economy, for decades now, in a big way. There are large numbers of OFWs that come home for Christmas just to be with their loved ones. The Filipino is an amazing worker. Whether we like it or not, the work we do has become our sense of worth. To be sure, we have our fair share of scumbags and scalawags whose shenanigans make us cringe and cower in collective shame. We have a disproportionate share of character flaws we laugh off self-deprecatingly with jokes we use in spades as we poke fun at ourselves. We don’t take ourselves too seriously and maybe it’s time we did, so the world will sit up, take notice and render to us the respect that we deserve. All told and for the most part, we are a God-loving and God-fearing mass of people—80 million plus strong with about 3 million Fil-Ams and several millions more scattered about the globe— who, in droves, contribute to the general good of humanity in an increasing number of places in the world in myriad capacities.
Edith Wharton was right when she said of travel, " … you find out how many good, kind people there are." This is true of a Philippine trip. With fresh eyes, you find out that your native land is worth coming home to again and again.
More importantly perhaps, a trip such as this forms part of a lifelong journey of self- discovery. This trip and others I have taken over the years in different other places, reveals to me those secret places about myself that I would not otherwise have known. I have brought back with me thousands of digital images as a future, foreseeable crutch to my memory, to help me remember over time. I have brought back spare change and worthless trinkets and a string of pearls from the Philippine deep, some burnay pottery and some Ilocano cotton blankets from Vigan. But the intangibles I’ve taken home with me are the best by far—shared experiences of grief, tears and laughter, rekindled friendships, a heartfelt appreciation of people I have met and will probably never meet again, a sense of genuine gratitude for life on both sides of the globe and above all, a deeper, newer and fresh understanding of our tiny, yet brilliant and beautiful place in the universe.
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( Published on July 9, 2009 in Asian Journal Las Vegas p.B4 )
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