Allen Gaborro
What It Means To Be a Filipino American
Natural law says that you can only be one or the other,
you cannot have it both ways.
But the world has changed so much from the time when
everything was either/or. Nothing is that simple anymore.
Some of us like to think we are hybrids, hybrids of two cultures,
gallant hearts venerating America and the Philippines.
This is easier to explain and accept.
Truth is, many of us look askance at our Filipinoness, while gazing
directly at Pax Americana. We cannot help it. It is our colonial predilection.
But history is not cast in iron; it is more of a rite of passage fueling the
rolling palpitations of a people, a heritage, a culture endeavoring to deliver
and protect its unique identity.
In the face of history’s assertion to infallibility, right and honorable Filipinos,
regardless of where they are situated on this globe, know where hence they came.
We may have learned our craft in America, but we inherited our soul from a
collection of countless isles connected by deep, untranslatable waters and by
variations of the time-honored themes of loyalty and kinship.
The idea is not to cut our American experience down to size, but to impart strength
and authority to what makes us Filipino.
I love America, I love the Philippines. I love my heritages on both sides of the Pacific.
That is what it means to be Filipino American.
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An Encomium to the Gipper
Goodbye Ronnie. If nothing else, you were lively, funny, determined, and most of all,
positive.
Now that you have embarked on your delicate journey into the afterlife from this dreadful
existence, we must give credit where credit is due.
You made Americans feel that the glass was always half-filled during a time when many
of them didn’t believe there was even a glass at all. I’ll give you that.
You brought excitement, charisma, and charm to the presidency. You brought Hollywood
to Washington, and set in motion a marriage of glitz, glamour, and power that the world
wouldn’t soon forget.
But you also tripled America’s debt, supported brutal dictators, made deals with
kidnappers, lied in Iran-Contra, inflated your role in the fall of Communism, and let
Nancy run part of the show through the astrological whims of the constellations up high.
What was truly bewildering for Filipinos was that you claimed to be a champion of
freedom and an enemy of repression, while you danced ebulliently with Imelda Marcos
and said that her husband was an sponsor of “liberty, democracy, justice, equality.”
You asserted that your friend Marcos was a bulwark against a growing communist threat
in the Philippines. That’s why you had to support him, hell or highwater, murder or
corruption, truth or lies.
But there were many within your administration trying to get it through to your thick
head that Marcos and his criminal policies were the greatest recruitment resource that the
Filipino Communists could ever have imagined. Jose Maria Sison and his comrades were
forever grateful to Marcos for expanding their ever-swelling ranks.
When the Great Dictator was certain of being cashiered by his people, like an obsessed
lover you still wouldn’t let go. It was the Filipino people themselves who forced you to
accept reality.
Ronnie, please accept my humble eulogy. I took into consideration the good with the bad,
the morality with the duplicity, the practical with the ideological. After all is said and
done, you have my undying respect. But like your daughter Patti, I can’t find it in myself
to stand by you. I hope you understand.
Wherever you are now, I’m sure you deserve it. You worked hard for it. Savor it as much
as you can. And if you see Ferdie, say hi to him for me.
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