Experiences make you realize. Believing makes you value. Marikenya

My family, my friends, and I, are still in awe and in great trauma from what we experienced from Ondoy and his wrath. There are so many stories, mostly, unpleasant ones. But now that all my family and friends are safe from the flood, I wanted to focus on the lessons I learned from the calamity that stunned the whole Metro Manila.

Realizations from the Water:

I had the opportunity to interview Secretary Ace Durano during the “Take me to the Philippines Campaign” in Singapore. In the video below, he greets everyone and also visitors to the Philippines. The campaign focuses not only on the young MTV generation, but also on the global traveler and culture connoisseur.

Listen to his video

Having a mom and being one myself gives me special insight into what typical Filipino moms are like. I don’t know how they really are in other countries, but Filipino moms in general are:

1. Very loving but strict.
We like to pamper and fuss over our children. But this doesn’t mean we spoil them. We let them express themselves yet we rein them in when they go beyond the boundaries of respect and decency.

2. Self-sacrificing.
We put our children’s needs before our own. We don’t look on it as a sacrifice, merely a matter of course.

3. Very generous.
We will give as much as we can without asking anything in return.

4. Genuinely fond of children.
Some mothers of other cultures feel that their responsiblity ends when they have seen their children grow up. With us Filipinos, the lola (if physically able) will volunteer to take care of her grandchildren without being asked and will never grumble about it.

5. Always there for their children.
It doesn’t matter that you’re married with children of your own. You’ll always be my baby and I’ll always look out for your well-being.

I chanced upon this Review of MARISOL (2009)—a film directed by Hella Wenders; cinematography by Merle Jothe; produced by Barbara Mutschler and Florian Gerstenberg ; German Film and Television School, Berlin, Germany.

by E. San Juan, Jr.,
Fellow, W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University

We live in the era of the global commons, but very few have actually met their neighbors—except as subalterns: household maids, hotel service-workers, nannies, most likely college-educated women from the Philippines. The ubiquitous phenomenon of Filipina domestics and overseas contract workers (almost ten million), known also as Overseas Filipino workers (OFW), has become a tedious and soporific topic for cynics and skeptics. Scholars have categorized them as modern indentured servants of the global ecumene. If you mention that at least five OFW cadavers/coffins arrive everyday at the Manila International Airport, a big yawn greets you: “So what else is new?” Those still awake may prod: “Why? How did this happen?”

Like millions around the world devastated by global capitalism’s meltdown, the lives of migrant Filipinas/as have become redundant or disposable. This began in the 1970s. The Marcos dictatorship, supported chiefly by the United States and the IMF-World Bank, institutionalized the export of “warm bodies” to the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. In the neoliberal global market, the nationality label “Filipino” quickly became equivalent to “servant” or “maid” in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and elsewhere. After 9/11, the terrorist Abu Sayyaf in the southern Philippines may have eclipsed the OFWs. But with the continual brutalization of Filipinas in Okinawa, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the “Nicole” scandal (“Nicole” is the Filipina raped by an American soldier subsequently convicted but “kidnapped” by the US Embassy while his case is on appeal), with hundreds in jail or awaiting execution, their plight will continue to haunt the conscience of “the pillars of society.” It may even disturb the sleep of State functionaries whose salaries depend on OFW remittances.

Continue reading at THE FILIPINA FEMALE GAZE: A review of MARISOL, a film by Hella Wenders