Welcome to the Philippines
September 21, 2022
MANILA, PH — THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MARTIAL LAW
I made it! Thirty-plus hours, two planes, one overnight layover in Incheon, and one Kakao Friends plushie purchase later, I arrived in Manila on September 20th! I was blessed to already know folks in the city through previous jobs, remote language lessons, and a lot of cold emails that led to more cold emails, which resulted in so many warm welcomes. Multiple people even greeted me by saying, "Welcome home."
A couple days in, a Fulbright staff member asked what surprised me most so far. I told them I was totally floored by the National Capitol Region's (NCR) -- high rise buildings, malls, traffic, and general urban sprawl. The tourism industry would have us think that the country is entirely beaches, nipa huts, and a million jeepneys, and despite the accuracy of the last line item, I wasn't quite prepared to enter a metropolis that vaguely reminded me of Seoul (in some ways), but was nothing like New York, LA, or San Francisco.
The number of Western brands that proliferated the malls came in close second. Back in the U.S., Filipino friends told me to bring pasalubong (loosely translated to "souvenirs") of snacks, clothes, makeup etc for folks in the Philippines. I thought that was due to availability, but after perusing the malls, I'm realizing that though present, many Western imports just aren't affordable for families here. (I'm also realizing that the best pasalubong is probably food, though a nice purse is appreciated, too.)
Don't worry, I didn't spend all my time in malls (though I did visit them as needed to utilize free bathrooms and bask in aircon). My first full day in the country was September 21, 2022, the 50th anniversary of President Ferdinand Marcos Sr's proclamation of Martial Law.*
Rallies to recall the tragedies of the era are held every year, but the semicentennial also fell during with the first year of a second Marcos administration (Bongbong, Ferdinand's son). I stopped by the IBON Foundation**, a decades-old NGO started in response to government corruption, American-Philippine economic relations, and state violence during and after the Martial Law period. IBON had put together a small exhibit of their bulletins, educational resources, and news articles, and one of their staff told me about a rally at University of the Philippines Diliman later that afternoon.
When I arrived in Quezon City, I recognized UP Diliman's center of campus, the Oblation, from Filipino films I'd watched. I joined up with one of many groups of demonstrators waiting down the street. Dressed in all black with signs reading "Never Forget" and "Never Again to Martial Law," this org was specifically challenging poor living and labor conditions that force workers abroad, and naming the dangers that Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) experience while away. I decided to tag along with them knowing I'm the child of an OFW -- that my birth was the symptom of my mother's own struggles. Had I stopped by the sea of red around the corner amassing outside one of many Jollibees, I would have met Anakbayan***, the Filipino youth organization whose many U.S. chapters have marched in support of queer liberation, in solidarity with Black lives, and called for U.S. support against Duterte's 2020 Anti-Terror Bill. By far the largest group, Anakbayan marched by, followed by youth groups I recognized from their U.S.-based counterparts. As we took up the rear, I pondered cross-cultural/global efforts, thoughts I'm continuing to nurse.
My stay in Manila was extended due to Super Typhoon Karding (aka Noru), which reached Category Five. The whole country felt on high alert, farmers lost entire crops, and riverside barangays experienced extensive flooding. In the following week, I returned to UP Diliman several more times to help out with relief efforts by a student union. Undergraduate student organizers shared their perspectives on the country's political and economic landscape with me. As we sat undercover from the rain, folding clothes and organizing toothpaste, soap, and coffee packets, they told me about their courses (Creative Writing, Communications, Linguistic Anthropology, to name a few), and asked about my film projects and experience growing up in the United States.
In 2012, I briefly considered applying to study abroad in the Philippines through UP's Creative Writing program. Would I have found myself under that same structure, next to the same mural of a poem named "Pasista," lamenting the power of both fascism and complacency? Hard to say. But my adoptive family was concerned I would want to move "home" permanently, and more importantly, I needed to solidify ten years of Spanish language lessons, so I went to a different former Spanish colony (Argentina), and told myself I'd have time for my homeland in the future. Ten years later, I wonder if I would have felt the tight grip of consumerism and class struggle in the nation as acutely as I do now.
(Read this post in my NatGeo Field Notes!)
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FOOTNOTES:
*Or at least the date on the page. Historian Ambeth R. Ocampo wrote about an important clarifying note regarding the actual signing here: https://opinion.inquirer.net/156814/history-its-complicated
**IBON Foundation: https://www.ibon.org/
***Anakbayan Philippines: https://twitter.com/anakbayan_ph