Edessa is a theater and artist, as well as a culture and sense of history enthusiast, based in Switzerland. She is a member of Kamalaysayan Writers and Speakers and wrote this piece for the Kamalaysayan website in March 1997.

.............Profoundly. That's how I feel my sense of nationality. I have had a deep sense of being Filipino, and this feeling was further enhanced when I started travelling to other countries. In the milieu of multi-culturalism and global diversity, I discovered that there are so many opportunities to express one's pride in being Filipino. 
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.............In the physical sense, I became very much aware of my brown skin, more appropriately called kayumanggi, my dark hair and eyes, my slight build -- in contrast to the white woman's image which so many of our countrymen for the past century have admired. 
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.............The challenge is to enhance these physical characteristics of the Filipina with ideas inspired by our ancestors and history (much like the way African women proudly wear indigenous materials and coil their hair in magnificent braids, enhancing skin color and the uniqueness of their culture). We have yet to develop such fashion in clothing that is uniquely Filipino and yet is practical (the way blue jeans are super-practical) and easily popular. Meanwhile, we can start with accessories that are culturally inspired. 
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.............In the spiiritual sense, I discovered that the foundation of my spirituality is rooted in our history. By reading more of the lives and works of our heroes, I am able to formulate a set of values to live by that are uniquely Filipino. 
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.............My sense of romance is inspired by the exploits of our heroes. From our indigenous ancestors, I am able to rejuvenate my belief in a Creator (Bathala). The Creator fulfills the vacuum in my soul more profoundly than the Catholic Church has been able to do. This belief is combined with learnings from Rizal's own religious faith as contained in his writings, a faith that is anchored on God's presence manifested through the mysteries of life and nature, not through the rituals of the church. 
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.............In the intellectual sense, I try to learn more from Filipino studies, analysees of things, inventions and discoveries. For example, in trying to understand the dynamic of culture vis-a-vis progress, I took towards Sikolohiyang Pilipino as a scientific body of thought rather than jumping immediately towards Western psychology for answers. I look for Filipino innovations and stories of discoveries to derive inspiration from. The Filipino has been "the First" in so many things, and many of our ideas have been stolen and appropriated by the west. 
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.............In terms of my writing, I am currently trying to write more in Tagalog, starting with translations of my own works in English. English is a language I have been more comfortable as a result of my neo-colonial education. Later, mastery of the language became very useful for international writing. Nevertherless, it is important to raise my level of comfort and expertise in writing in Tagalog and perhaps other Filipino languages. In reading, however, I have always maintained a healthy balance of English and Filipino materials and authors. 
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.............As a student of language (I am currently studying German), I appreciate fully the importance of language as the embodiment of our identity, as a people, and in a personal way. In my own personal experience, Tagalog is the cradle of my childhood memories, the identity of my parents and families, the joys and pains of life's experiences. How can I remember my childhood in German? I will have to undego an intense and tedious process of translation to be able to express stories of my childhood in another language. 
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.............In terms of literature, theater and the arts, while I always enjoyed works from around the globe, I have been discovering more and more the excitement and innovation of Filipino works. I believe that we are one of the best pioneers of experimental theater. Our literary works are of world caliber. 
Our visual arts is competitive worldwide as well. I believe that there is no one more global than the Filipino, for in him is infused the following unique and unparalleled mix: western experiences resulting from colonialism, revolutionary experiences that gave rise to a very Filipino meaning of liberation, and in modern times, the diapora of Filipino immigrants and migrant workers to all parts of the earth. 
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.............If we can only break free from the bonds of feudal values and thoughts, and a feudal sense of morality that chain our intellect, then we can give full play to the Filipino's ability to be an excellent participant in the global stage. 
It is sad to note, and this is supported by many studies particularly by the Social Weather Station, that many Filipinos are still at a loss about how to regard their nationality. While most Filipinos would still say that they are proud to be Filipino, this is still a shaky pronouncement. 
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.............Being Filipino is not just in the mind, "hindi lamang sa diwa o puso." It is also manifested in action, in putting the values and examples of our heroes at work. For example, "pakikipagkapwa" -- how do we practice this value? Do we throw our garbage in the empty lot next door in order to keep our own frontyard clean, and to hell with everyone else? Do we care for the children on the streets, do we participate in programs that assist the less fortunate? Do we rise up in indignation when another Filipina worker is killed abroad? When we travel, do we talk to other Filipinos, especially those who are in trouble, or do we isolate ourselves from them? 
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.............Perhaps what we lack is a constant dose of reminders of how great the Filipino was, is, and can be. More Filipinos need to discover our greatness as a nation by tracing and embracing our collective roots. 

[Rudy is a Filipino publisher and sense of history enthusiast based in Oxnard, California, USA.  He is a member of Kamalaysayan Writers and Speakers. The following is excerpted from the piece he wrote for Kamalaysayan website in 1996. ]
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.............There was a time when I flew from Zambia, Africa to Kenya. My Philippine passport, along with my wife's and children's, was expiring. Aside from South Africa's, Nairobi in Kenya had the only other Philippine Consular office in the continent where one could renew passports. Fearing loss of passports through the mail and wanting to see Nairobi, I took the two hour flight to renew them personally. At that time, I had been away from the Philippines almost three years. I had not seen the Filipino flag that long. 
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.............In Nairobi, from where the bus dropped me, I still had to walk almost six blocks towards the Philippine consular office. As I approached, I glimpsed at a flag fluttering high against a backdrop of unclouded sun gleamed sky. As I drew nearer, the flag became more recognizable. Flapping aginst the wind, its red, white and blue surged into my heart. Its yellow sun and three stars popped nostalgia that enveloped my entire being. I tried hard to contain the tears that welled within me. After being away from the Philippines; missing my parents, friends, everything Filipino - here I was approaching the very symbol of where my innermost soul came from. And for a brief moment when I finally reached it, I touched the pole that held the flag and staring up, I seemed to hear the flapping flag telling me "you're home, I am here to protect you." I had to wipe my tears before I entered the consular building. 
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.............Years later, I had to take my oath to become a citizen of the United States of America. When it came to the part of the oath where its says I will not recognize any other more flags except the United States of America's, where I have to forget all my loyalties to the country of my origin when made to choose in favor of the United States of America, a lump swelled within my throat. In that capsuled moment, the flag when I was in Nairobi " surged into my mind, the million times I sang the Philippine anthem while the Filipino flag was being raised flashed, making my chest heavy. I felt I was a hypocrite with my right hand raised taking the oath of American citizenship. 
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.............Feeling guilty, I tried to find justifications. America had been and is being good to me. The Philippines was unable to completely provide what I and my family needed. That is why we had to uproot ourselves for Africa, entrenching ourselves in a strange land to suffer nostalgia away from our clans and the Philippines we call home. That is why we had to grab the earliest opportunity that smiled on us - to become immigrants and eventually citizens of the United States, still very much a land of milk of honey - even at the expense of changing loyalties to the flag of the United States of America. 

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[Ding Reyes, a quadri-media practritioner, founded the Kamalaysayan in 1991 and wrote a syndicated column for Kamalaysayan Media Service, Philippine News Agency and SunStar News Service in 1994-97 This was one of his earliest column items. The illustration comes from Kamalaysayan Grafix.] 
..................It  has been a generally-unchallenged expression of dismay over our self-image as a people: "Hay, naku! Ganyan talaga ang Pinoy!" (Filipinos are really like that!) The specifics would move us to laugh heartily on the outside, and to weep bitterly on the inside.
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.................This writer once described the present-day Filipino as "increasingly cynical of his neighbor and even of himself, increasingly vulnerable to the temptations of systemic corruption and injustice and pushed to be always on the alert for the easiest shortcuts often at the expense of his peers. ..................
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..................Underneath the crackling laughter of ever-ready Filipino humor now hides a tormented social psyche, with numbness and confusion about the past, tears for the present and subdued agony, manifesting as fatalism, over bleak prospects of the future."
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..................What tends to make us resign to this sort of national identity is precisely that "numbness and confusion" about our past. And let us now include another painful word: ignorance.
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..................That last word would invite indignant refutation from many. But if we dare them now to recall for us the historical event that they know to be farthest back in time, chances are they'd tell us who supposedly discovered the Philippines. That is ancient?
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..................Of course it would be wrong for anyone to say that we know absolutely nothing about "pre-Spanish Philippines" (term not coming from our own point of view). After all, we did study in class about "waves of migration," the datus, the aliping namamahay and saguiguilid, the baranggays and the
so-called "trials-by-ordeal."
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..................But how much do we know about the lives of our ancestors during the time of "Philippines 1000"? How were they during the time of Christ? Believe it or not, they were already here that early, in fact, much earlier. At the time Jesus Christ was being crucified, our ancestors already had the renowned Banaue rice terraces and the Manunggul Jar (3,500 years old by now), which proved their belief in the afterlife. 
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..................In a chapter he wrote for the book Philippine Progress Prior to 1898, which he co-authored with Conrado Benitez, Austin Craig cited passages in Chinese history, including chronicles covering the Chou dynasty (B.C. 722), describing active interaction between the Asian mainland and what later came to be called the Philippine archipelago.
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..................Rizal, in his "The Indolence of the Filipinos," asserted that "the Filipinos have not always been what they are," and cited as witnesses to this point "all the historians of the first years" after Magellan's expedition. Wrote he: 
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.................."Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Malayan Filipinos carried on an active trade, not only among themselves but also with all the neighboring count ries. A Chinese manuscript of the 13th Century, translated by Dr. Hirth, which we will take up at another time, speaks of China's relations with the islands, relations purely commercial, which mention is made of the activity and honesty of the traders of Luzon, who took the Chinese products and distributed them throughout all the islands, traveling for nine months, and then returned to pay religiously even for the merchandise that the Chinamen did not remember having given them."
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..................Now there is an important realization to be had with the help of any one-foot ruler. If we take the Chou dynasty chronicles of B.C. 722 as the hypothetical starting point, and 1994 as the end, we have had at least 2766 years of written history, or about "230 years per inch" on the ruler. It was only in the last 473 years, or roughly a mere one-sixth of this entire time span, that we have been under Spanish and American spheres of influence and domination. 
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..................Looking at a one-foot ruler, therefore, we can say that we are relatively familiar with only its last two-inch segment, from the "10" marking to the end. We know next to nothing about almost the entire length (ten inches) of that ruler.

..................And the little we know, from Rizal, Craig and the others, is not anything that describes the "notorious Pinoy" that we now tend, with resignation, to identify ourselves with. On the contrary, we do have reason to be proud of our ancestry and heritage, if we could only diminish our collective ignorance and disinterest in our own lifestory as the people of these islands.
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..................Instead of exclaiming, "Talagang ganyan ang Piloy!", let us just lament that "Nagkaganyan ang Pinoy!" and start moving to undo the damage.

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