A Nation Providing Service to the World: Who are the Filipinos?
The Philippines can be a difficult country and culture to understand. In a place where they do not communicate well or in a very direct way, it took me a long time to better understand what it means to be Filipino and to understand and moderate my directness to be accepted and to effectively live here with joy in my heart.
I know in America this country is not highly thought of, although most interactions with a Filipino is enjoyed by many. I wrote the following article to help others better understand this nation and perhaps their ways of seeking joy and to serve others as their pathway to happiness. I wrote this for the locals to embrace their dedication to service and that there is no longer a nation occupying this country, although the still try to take advantage of your peaceful ways.
The best analogy I can express most will understand and many can relate to. This is a place where they were raped by foreign people from foreign lands. Now imagine that this rape continued everyday for hundreds of years. How many of us could survive that and yet, for the locals, there is hope that one day the people of the world will come to understand these people and the hardship they had to endure.
A Nation Providing Service to the World: Who are the Filipinos?
The following is based on my observations of the Philippines and their people starting in 1995 and residing here permanently in 2013. This is a gross generalization of what it means to be a Filipino and although true for most, there are also many exceptions. To me this is also a story of a people that live a life of service to others and surviving centuries of trauma inflicted by other nations. It also is a promise of hope that we can all live in a kind and caring world.
Filipinos are extremely kind and nice people. To be confrontational with others is very, very rare. They tend to ignore or accept the shortcomings of others. The people are masters of adapting to their environment. No matter the situation or country in the world they find some way to fit in. They are also very creative and will come up with novel solutions to challenges they face. If something is broken and they do not have what it usually takes to fix it, they will improvise and find someway to get it to work.
They also seek to experience the best and most happy experience in any situation and if none can be found, to just move on knowing that goodness is just around the corner. They truly believe that a better or happy experience awaits them in the next minute, day, year, or decade.
For Filipinos the group/family is more important than self. Making life about one’s self is not acceptable, even though there is an awareness of self and the desire to have life be the way they want it for themselves. But family is more important and belonging to a family is assumed along with the responsibilities that go with it. The woman is the head of the family and what she says is law. If you are working and she tells one of her children to give so much money to the family or to help pay for the education of a sibling and other acts of service, they will comply. They will not always be happy with it. But…it is family and the rules of being a part of it.
Family is not always just being blood relative, but can be people they will call their extended family. Family also extends to any group or place you frequent. Your coworkers become your family and the boss is like a parent and you just comply with their orders without question. In the places I frequent and hang out – like coffee shops, restaurants, grocery stores, etc., I am treated like family. They are truly happy to see me and will ask about me if I have not been there in a while. And I have to admit it warms my heart knowing that I belong and am part of their family.
Filipinos take pride and love doing things for others. Most of us have experienced them as nurses, entertainers, caretakers, merchant marines, cruise ship workers, cast members at Disney World, call center workers, and so many more careers of being in service to others. The condo where I live is filled with locals providing security, maintenance of the building and even fixing things in my condo, housekeeping, landscaping, property management and more. They take pride in their jobs and a thank you, kind smile or acknowledgement, or just a hello is joyously received and appreciated. They truly are the service capital of the world. And if disrespected or ignored will continue to give you service with a smile.
To live here is filled with the experience of being wanted and accepted. It is very strange for a man that grew up in America but so loved by me. In America we are taught to be independent and responsible for self and so many of us have issues of wanting to belong.
Now there is a dark side to being Filipino, one born out of trauma yet to be healed. I will go into more detail about that later but it first is important to understand their cultural trauma.
Their trauma is the result of centuries of occupation by other countries. First through trade by the Indians, Malays, and Chinese and usually not under their terms but this was mild compared to the occupation by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. They conquered the Philippines, even naming it after their king, and then proceeded to try and erase their culture and heritage and replace it with Spanish and Catholic religious beliefs, among others. Next were the Americans starting in 1898 that treated the nation in serving their needs and taking what they saw as value including creating military bases and taking advantage of the kindness of the Filipino for their own needs and desires. Although they love Americans and want to have a life like we have, others resent the way they feel disrespected by America and looked down upon. Finally the most savage occupation was by the Japanese during world war II. This was a strategic location for southeast Asia and they demanded total obedience of the locals and to live by their societal orderly way. Filipinos are not a very procedural people. For example the concept of waiting in a line was not part of their everyday life. During the war, they were required to stand in lines to wait for their daily rice ration and if they did not stay in line were severely beaten and would receive nothing. It took over 55 years to see the usefulness of lines and even then, they really don’t like to stand in line. When I first visited here, you had to push and wiggle your way to the front. The women were exploited by the Japanese and many turned into comfort women for the local soldiers or sent back to provide sexual and maid services in Japan.
They had to learn how to accept and live under the rule of foreign powers and most of the attributes that I discussed above came from how they learned to survive occupation. They mainly decided to make the best out of a situation and although they did try to resist, a huge part of their effort failed. If you ever go to Rizal Park you will see a square surrounded by statues of all their local heroes. Almost all of them died fighting the occupiers and were executed for their resistance or fighting.
Life during the occupation by too many countries was demoralizing and very difficult. As a result, the culture of the Philippines has a belief that, Life is Hard. That is how life was under foreign rule and they had to adapt to survive it. Everything I will discuss about the dark side of being Filipino is a direct result of this belief. They make life hard because they have had no choice but to make that belief true. Later I will discuss a more hidden belief that is even more painful. A hard life is much better than this belief.
The hardest thing for a Filipino to do is to express themselves and to offer an opinion. They are never direct and will not tell you how they feel. What we may call telling a lie, the locals look at it as telling what they think you want to hear. They tend to be passive aggressive and if you wrong a Filipino they may get even and you will never know when, where, or the person that got even with you. It is typically referred to as stabbing you in the back.
They tend to live in the present and typically do not think of the future. Cause and effect is not usually done. As an example of this, when crossing a street they start to step in before they look. Motorcyclists will switch lanes and then look as they are in the middle of doing so. They will discard an empty cup or piece of paper by just dropping it where they are without even thinking about the trash they are creating and that someone will have to pick it up later, or not. Salaries are consumed even before they receive it. It is like breaking eggs for breakfast before the eggs arrive.
A Filipino will not be direct. They tend to tell you what they think you want to hear whether it is true or not because that is the polite way to be. They really do not like saying no and all I can tell you is that unless they say yes with no others words and with the lifting of the eyebrows, it usually is a no. For example if they respond “yes, that sounds interesting”, that is a no!
Although Filipinos would like to have a better life, they tend to focus on making the best of what they have and really don’t plan on how to create a better life or a country that functions better in serving the needs of the people.
If you ask something of a Filipino, especially at a business, and they are not allowed to do so. They will simply smile, say, yes, and then freeze. Because they are a very option oriented culture as opposed to a procedural one such as Japan. They are taught procedures for their jobs such as in customer service, restaurant wait staff, and many more. For example if you are trained as a french fry cook and that is your only job, then you can only do that task. If the front counter were overloaded with people but no one was ordering fries, you would not help out but wait for a fry order to come. They don’t like having to always follow the procedure but will eventually be fired if they do not.
There are many other cultural aspects of the dark side of this culture but I think this is more than enough to make the point. That from forced compliance from occupying countries is very painful and causes feelings of helplessness and hopelessness.
The deepest pain of these people is a feeling of being violated. First through trade and then by occupation and forced compliance. It must be similar to a a woman bring raped by a bigger and stronger man and no matter how hard you fight and resist the outcome is all too certain. Comply or be beaten or even killed into submission. The anger that they have is so repressed for fear that if it got out they surely would die or be seriously hurt. And yet if you ask them if they are angry about all the violations they experienced for decades, they will say yes and the anger can be seen on their face ever so briefly until it is replaced with the pacified look of compliance.
It saddens my heart and angers me that none of the perpetrators have ever apologized for the pain they inflicted. And yet the conquering and violations still continue. For example, even though the Chinese are occupying the Philippine sea against international law, they do so with the aim of domination in their immediate sphere of influence and more importantly the natural resources contained there which is untouched and vast in value. And much of the world looks down upon the Filipinos as if they are an inferior people and a terrible place to live. It is anything but!
In reality the Philippines is much like other Southeast Asian countries such as Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and so on. Yes there are areas where there is a lot of waste and trash and areas of street people and the poor, very poor. And in each of these countries there are big cities and beautiful urban areas. The countryside is lush green and beautiful with lots of rice fields. They have gorgeous beaches and small uninhabited islands to explore. If you look up Amanpulo Resort you would see a world class resort where many celebrities and the rich visit.
Their core belief and identity is that they are a people held in permanent bondage and you must comply or else die. They view themselves as victims of the abuse and torture by invading countries and must comply or die. My teacher, Carl Buchheit, taught me that once we learn how to survive our trauma that is the experience we continue to experience because it is known and survivable. Anything else, although may be desired, is not known to be survivable and so then, not available.
If you want to connect with the heart of a Filipino all you have to do is give them an acknowledgement of how much you appreciate their service and that it made a big difference for you. It will only help them heal their feelings of being looked down upon and ignored.
I firmly believe that our greatest pains helps us define and create our unique greatness and think that without the continued pain, or so we believe, we would not be able to continue to be great. In order to transform our life we first have to accept and say OK to our creation and from there we can choose to just create more of our greatness and are no longer required to experience the pain. In other words we can live in a world where we keep what works for us and focus and what works even better. We created the pain and our way of surviving it, so that no matter how much we want to get rid of the pain, it will just persist until we just say “OK, I created this”. You then no longer have to endure and re-experience the trauma over and over again. From here you can start to live a life of continuing to experience what works and then get it to work even better.
So, how does the Philippines move beyond this continuing trauma or for that matter how do we all do so. How do we allow ourselves to have Experience that we desire, and yet unattainable until the trauma is healed?
It isn’t so much about healing but more of an acknowledgement of the reality we decided to create. Everything we’ve experienced, yes EVERYTHING, and in each and every moment our chosen reality is constantly reflected back to you. So, you can look inside or outside, and you can know your chosen reality and experience. For me, ultimately it came down that I created the reality of my personal version of trauma and I also chose much of what I love about myself in response to it. Without the original pain, or is that sin, I would not be the person I am now. As a result I was able to say OK to ALL OF IT. I think that, at an unconscious level, we think that if the pain we learned to survive stops somehow, it will not let me be as happy, accepting, and capable of the part of us we love being.
To my fellow Filipinos, your ability to kind, caring, acceptance of others, fun loving, and a joy to share your life with is unmatched on this planet. Even if it was born out of the rape of this country, it made you the service providers and entertainers of the world and a model of how life will be when we can learn to accept each other exactly as we are and find joy in just being part of one big family, that family we call all the people on this Earth. It is truly OK and, once realized in every cell of your body, will give you the choice to become the people you have always wanted to be – loving, caring, funny, accepting, and a people that warmly accepted me and anyone that chooses so, into their lives.
My teacher once taught me that we are living in a dimension where, as a planet, we are determining whether we will become a planet of takers or one of givers. When the Philippines transforms and chooses they no longer need to be violated to truly be a nation of service they will demonstrate what it will be like to be a planet of givers.
Or do we become a land of takers and follow the American way to make life about the individual, freedom, and to take what is rightfully yours. There is a positive aspect of the American way and that is to take responsibility for the life you create and it is all up to you to make of it what you can. We tend to focus on making our lives better for ourselves. The dark side is that it tends to become insatiable and leads to wanting more and more, but until what.
This country has helped me to become a kinder, nicer, and more importantly a much happier person, and I live my day by trying my best to give away my joy and happiness to those that I encounter in my daily interactions with others.
Thank you Philippines for showing me my way!
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