Bon jour, Paris!

Diary of a Mad Doctor

Ako Ay Pilipino

By Fiameta R. Vargas, MD

December 31, 2007

It's always an ordeal to make a trip home to the Philippines. The 14-hour trans-Pacific flight and another 4 hours in the air if you're coming from the US East coast is interminable. I booked with United Airlines, which flies over the North Pole to Hongkong or Japan which cuts the air time one hour, but it has a stopover in Chicago O'hare and that's a hassle. On US airlines the flight crew is abrupt and curt, bordering on the rude, so I now prefer flying on the Asian airlines, including Philippine airlines, where the crew, service, and food are much better. I have no problem with seat space as I can get comfortable easily and can sleep like a baby on the journey, so paying premium price for first class or business class is not my thing. That may be worth the price however on certain flights especially during the holidays, where there are just too many crying babies on board. I don't know why I'm making the trip again after just 10 months.

In February I was home for a 2-week golfing trip, then this December home again for the UPCM homecoming, for my class '67 Ruby Jubilee. This visit felt different for me. Having that 2-day period relaxing in my friend's Antique beach, with nothing planned to do except to sit by the sea and watch the waves come to shore, I was thinking with a melancholy mood, what's there for me now to come home to? Since mama died, there is no reason to go home to Naga, and outside of the Jubilee activities, there was no other purpose for me to be home. Except for my friend Lynn, who drops everything to make my visits full with things to do, I suddenly realized, I have no real business to be in the Philippines and I don't feel at home anymore and there is nothing special about it for me which I cannot get to easier in other parts of the world.

At the Sofitel Philippine Plaza, where the reunion activities for my University of the Philippines College of Medicine homecoming was held, the ambience was international eclectic. It looked and functioned just like any tourist hotel in major cities across the globe.

Golf in the Philippines is like golf anywhere else in the world, with added irritation and without historical significance for the game. Others have raved about the Philippine caddies, mostly the men golfers as the caddies are exclusively women. I find them a distraction in the game, and not really helpful as they are not true caddies who are knowledgeable about the course and the game and can analyze your skill to be able to make helpful game suggestions, but they merely serve as assistants who hand you your club, clean your ball, sweep the bunkers, carry your clubs, hold an umbrella over you, and fetch whatever you need, drinks, etc. As a group they try to ingratiate for tips or tell sad life stories to enlist your sympathy for more tips. The men fall for it. That's what distinguishes Philippine golf, plus having to go through the annoyance of being treated like an interloper since these courses are supposedly private courses for use by members only. However the golf tourists are admitted as paying guests, but not accorded the respect and solicitousness given to guests.

The courses have no regard for prompt tee times, for the pace of play, and they make such a big to do about non-cash transactions (since in a membership course, members do not use cash but charge to their accounts all purchases) with tedious and self-important procedures for temporary issue of credit slips. At Boracay, advertised as an island paradise destination, getting there remains an iffy proposition. Our flight had to return to Manila after hovering over Kalibo unsuccessfully waiting for the clouds to dissipate so the airplane can land. We had to book another flight in a smaller aircraft so we can land in the smaller Caticlan airport, beneath the clouds which interfered with visibility access to Kalibo airport.

Since we were billeted at the newest plush resort in Boracay, Discovery Shores, which at over $300 per day, we were spared the hassle of negotiating a price for the banca crossing from Caticlan to the island, and having to find transportation from the airport to the banca launch area. Instead we were met at the airport by a hotel van, our luggage taken care of, then we transferred to a sleek covered boat with a hostess for the 20-minute crossing, then whisked to our hotel destination in an air-conditioned van, greeted at the hotel with a mint drink, led directly to our room and registration accomplished in our room, which has glass ,chrome, granite and wood finish and contemporary furnished with a floating bed and with fresh fruits and flowers, our luggage followed without a hitch, then we sat down for a foot bath and massage, and at night our beds were turned in and ice and fresh pandan drink and leche flan served for bedtime snack. The rate included a full breakfast buffet. We were there for a wedding, staged romantically on the beach with a gazebo festooned with garlands of pink roses, and fireworks in the nighttime sky.

The beach is sugar fine and white and the sky clear and blue, but I'm not sure about the freshness of the aquamarine sea. I have known visitors who came home with red eyes from the sewage contaminated waters . Our hotel location is a bit removed from the crowded Boracay beach, where beach vendors accost you with various offers of trinkets, boat rides, massages,hair braiding, pedicures, etc. Unless you're a golfer there's only shopping at D'Mall as an alternate activity. Fresh seafood chosen from the market and cooked to your specification is always a winner. I am told that to have a true island experience and for spectacular diving and snorkeling, one must go to Palawan. So I'm thinking if I return to the Philippines I will be a tourist and see the Philippines from Batanes to Jolo. Perhaps I can discover the land with a new sensibility and also discover who I am.

Am I Filipino? Who is the Filipino?

I feel different, I think different, and I act different from those I know who never left the Philippines. I became an adult in the USA, and I have become an American citizen, yet I don't feel I'm American and certainly I'm not treated as an American in the US or in any part of the world. Am I a different breed then as a Filipino-American? My Filipino friends say, yes, it's a great idea to tour the Philippines, but don't go to Batanes, there's nothing to see there, it's a very poor province, and don't go to Jolo, that's where the Muslims are. You must visit Vigan, it has all the preserved historic houses and old churches. I am from Bicol, and frankly I have no idea about the Visayas and the rest of the country. I went to Manila to study medicine in the University of the Philippines, and that's all I did. I left for the USA after college graduation, also with very little knowledge about my destination except for what's portrayed in Hollywood movies and the fantasy of the American dream.

I must have been an ostrich with my head buried in the sand when I was growing up in the Philippines. The 2 days spent in my friend's private Antique beach was an eye-opener. Antique is one of the provinces of Panay Island of western Visayas, where Boracay is a barangay in the province of Aklan, and Capiz and Iloilo completes the 4 provinces comprising the island. Outside of Iloilo in Miagao, we stopped by to view the restored baroque church built by the Augustinian order in 1786, and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In Kalibo in Aklan, they have the Philippine tourism marketed festival of Ati-atihan, associated with the Christ child, Santo Nino, and the indigenous Ati tribe warriors, a very colorful Mardi Gras type of street revelry.

There are similar festivals all across the region, like the Salakayan in Miagao, and Dinagyang in Iloilo. My childhood memories of the Philippines during the holidays is similarly religious-inspired, the misa de gallo, dawn masses 9 days before Christmas, acccompanied with a festive atmosphere of food stalls in the church yard selling puto bumbong and other delicacies and the pastores de belen, caroling in homes after Christmas to commemmorate the visit of the shepherds to the manger, and the feast of the 3 Kings on the 12th day of christmas, january 6, where, on the eve children hang their stockings at the window for the 3 magi to fill with gifts and goodies.

The Spanish derived religiosity of the Filipinos is pervasive. I was taken aback by a public mass held at the airport and similarly at the shopping malls. In the US, when I organized a public festival commemmorating 100 years of Filipino-American migration, I was not given permission to hold a public mass as part of the festival since it was being held in a public space. In the US, Filipinos continue this religious traditions according to the region they come from, such as the Penafrancia fluvial procession of the Bicolanos, the Santo Nino celebrations, and others.

While lounging in my friend's Antique beach compound I received an education about how different dialects are derived to explain why contiguous regions not divided by any natural barrier such as mountains or sea speak very different dialects. In Panay it is the oral tradition that back in pre-Hispanic times datus from Borneo came to the island and occupied different sections of the island and brought the language in toto. The language did not evolve there but from another land. The Malay influence in the language can be observed in the various dialects. It would be interesting to research if this tradition is historically supported by similar accounts in Borneo.

In the Mindanao and Visayas region where the Spaniards made first landfall in Magellan's time, the Spanish influence is added with the Chabacano dialect particularly intriguing. I was also educated about the social heirarchy in these regions, with the elite converging in IloIlo, as the elite class consisted of Spanish descended Filipinos, many continue to speak Spanish, and the wealth concentrated among them, as being originally Spanish, the group had exclusive access to resources and privileges in colonial days. Filipinos it appear continue to regard these families with awe, curiosity, and adulation reserved for movie stars and royalty.

I came from the poor barrio of Pasacao in Naga City, Camarines Sur in the Bicol region, and we only had one Spanish family who sprung from there, yes, the wealthiest in the town, but small fry compared to the Iloilo barons, and since the demise of the patriarch, the fortune had been dissipated by the heirs. To be like a Spaniard in looks, in privilege, in association, in upbringing, in education, in manner, and in pedigree is the ultimate pride for the Filipino it seems. Who is the Filipino mother who did not inspect the color of her baby's skin at birth and the shape of its nose, to see if it looks like a Spaniard, fair and aquiline, and beamed with pride? To associate with mestizos, to speak Spanish, and be accepted is a mark of belonging. Even the bastard children of Spanish descended liasons carry this aura.

We speak of colonial mentality, and how this keeps Filipinos in the bottom of progress and national pride among its Asian neighbors. I am so aware of this thinking and feel I must be always alert to its negative and oppressive forces. It saps creative energy. It shares dynamics with slavery, with traumatized, terrorized or victimized groups. Many are now familiar with the Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological phenomenon used to describe the sympathetic and bonding behaviour of hostages to their captors. Colonial mentality is the societal expression of this bonding behaviour.

The elements are satisfied by the characteristics of Spanish imperialism in the Philippines. The captor is realisticialy all powerful and there is little hope for resistance, survival of the captive is dependent on the little kindnesses and benevolence of the captor, the captive is isolated from other influences by preventing the natives from learning the captor's language, there is suppression of indigenous ways by the introduction of Catholicism, and over time, the captives begin to adopt the captor's ways as the better way since it is equated with survival, and seeing their own ways and own characteristics as inferior. This ultimately extends along racial and genetic lines as the supreme way of identifying or being like the captor.

In the Philippines this is even more pronounced in the ever increasing preoccupation with achieving caucasian characteristics by the proliferation of skin lightening products and cosmetic surgery. It is unfortunate that unlike our Asian neighbors, who have achieved national and cultural identity before being subjugated by foreign powers, the Philippines was a disparate land of unorganized small tribes, with none dominating to imbue the archipelago with a unified kingdom.

We were not a nation nor a culture. We were a collection of regional tribes, to which we identified our allegiance even to this day. Hence we see ourselves more clearly as Ilocanos, Tagalogs, Bicolanos, Visayan, etc., rather than as Filipinos. We compete with each other, and undermine each other as part of this tribal upmanship.The Spaniards put us under one rule and made us a nation, and as a nation we adopted the colonial identity which we carry to this day. We are still trying to be like a Spaniard, the Filipino is still the Indio, and the Filipino-American?

He is living the American dream, Hollywood style, all show, no substance, for he exists still as an outsider and his color and ethnic looks in white racist America continue to remind him that he is different in an inferior kind of way. Many individuals of course have crossed the threshold among his friends and those who know him, but until that happens, the Filipino-American is judged in America and around the developed world by the color of his skin and by the height of his nose.