A Rhetorical Question on Self-Identity

It is still what you do that defines you, not what you were born to be or what you think you are. That is my belief.

In our HS email group, I posed the following after lazily toying around with it in my befuddled mind:

“Please allow me to ask a rhetorical question. This came to me after hearing many long-time expats declare that they will never forget their being Filipino regardless of their long absence from the old homeland.

Here goes.

Should one still consider oneself Filipino in spite of the fact that not only is one living outside of the old homeland, but also because one has no desire at all to return and live in the old homeland?

If the answer is positive, what could be the qualifications or reasons why one would think so?”

Now I had premised that it was a rhetorical question for two reasons. Because then it would not require any answers from those who may find it uneasy or queasy to be answering such a personal question. And secondly, because a rhetorical question is also a device used or proffered as proof of the negative.

And indeed, that possible confusion surfaced as gleaned from this second reply:

“A minor point but I thought a rhetorical question is one that doesn't require an answer. Perhaps rephrase the question. Or do you actually have more than one question? “

My retort to this then revealed my latent position of trying to prove the negative. That indeed, it is difficult to continue to consider oneself a Filipino when not only does one not live in the old homeland, but one has no desire at all to live in the old homeland in the foreseeable future.

But the first response did make a qualification on the last issue:

“As for me, I belong to the second group, no desire to return to live there--under the present conditions: political, sociological, health and safety. I also have my only extended family here. But I would love to return and live there under a different set of circumstances.”

Which qualification could be interpreted as tantamount to having no desire at all to return in his lifetime, since meaningful changes on the factors enumerated could not possibly occur within that time frame.

And I promptly replied:

“That's exactly what I want to find out. What expats mean when they make that statement. Of course, it has to be with things that can change. With ethnicity, there is nothing one can do to change that so that is out of the question. Loyalty could be one, but your actions would belie its veracity if you not only not live there but have no desire either to live there. Your old memories will be Filipino because you can't dismiss those. Love for the old homeland? But how expressed?”

The following came from two of my most astute classmates, who coincidentally are also both in the medical profession and incidentally were also both valedictorian and salutatorian in our HS graduating class:

“To answer your question,” when does one cease being a Filipino or whatever & become another “is when that person actually says so when asked - for whatever reason he /she may have at the time.

BTW, granting when viewed under the microscope your genes may not change per se, your environment, experiences, interactions etc may have affected your general being in such a way that the "gene" factor no longer carries much weight in the equation because different variables have ' diluted ' you.

Further, the point of metamorphosis, if you will, occurs when the resistance to such 'dilution' reaches critical mass & gives way to quiet surrender. How's that? You confused yet?”

“Your having dual citizenship is a practical matter that I myself am considering. It doesn't make you acquire a split personality or being ambivalent about it. Our genetic makeup is always Filipino and that cannot be changed by living abroad. By coming to the US, you have widened your perspective of the different types of cultures that in turn may have caused you to lose focus on your inner self. Listen to your heart and you will get your answer.”

“OK, then you and I are like Chameleons - we change colors depending on what the situation calls for- a practical adaptive mechanism of survival. It doesn't make a Chameleon any different from a Lizard. By way of historical comparison, think of the Japanese-Americans who were interned in California during WW11 because they were considered Japanese when actually their true allegiance was to America. Their true nature was still Japanese; or for that matter, the Japanese Senator from Hawaii who fought as an American soldier in Germany, or the Tuskegee Pilots who were branded as 2nd class citizens while fighting for America. They were Afro-Americans but still their nature and culture were still Blacks and yet their loyalty was as Americans as any Whites. Like I said, what you think you are comes from your inner self, not because of the dual citizenship. Hope these examples put your mind to rest.”

But I had decided to be stubborn and tenacious and thundered forth with this reply:

“One’s actions would not jibe with one’s protestations. Re genetics, I agree we can’t change those but many African Americans have ceased to consider themselves Africans, just Americans – and they do not live in Africa and have no desires to live there. So the question is at what point does one ceases being one and becomes another.”

What do you think?

Our Minority Status In Cagayan de Oro

It is sad to observe how our current situation is yet another grand display of the workings of our frail human nature. In the midst of tremendous human failures in our government, many considered good prayerful people of our community have decided to just sit back and be passive or worse, continue to throw support to a regime that ought to have been driven out so many years ago. Thus, amidst the wholesale chaos in our streets and thereabouts, things appear to be business as usual.

They come from all ranks. Successful businessmen who enjoy good patronage from both the people and government who believe that upsetting the applecart could only derail their successes. Or maybe they couldn’t care less.

School administrators and officials who have decided that what is important for them is that inside their hallowed halls and premises where they reign supreme, things are under control. Never mind what goes on outside their closed gates. Thus, traffic is usually atrocious in and around their vicinities. And yes, never mind that city governance is negatively impacting their abilities to operate their enterprises in the near future.

One could think that even the clergy from all denominations would rather preach religion passionately to their flocks but maintain a detached and silent attitude about the rest of the community which is being royally screwed by government.

And the rest of the politicians, of course, would rather protect their turf and make alliances for the next elections, however objectionable those partnerships may be. After all for most of them, political expediency is the end-all and be-all.

And we even have the highest executive of our land, if our reports are to be believed, who would rather that we the people make “as much noise” first so he can move. But in the midst of such glaring and blatant disregard of law and order, one would think that not necessary for him to proceed to do his appointed tasks.

And maybe a community so inured to lawlessness, pain, suffering, and inequity and has thus lost the grasp of or ability for change?

Thus, explains our minority status.

Cagayan River: River of All Return

Scores have written paeans about your beauty and grandeur,
While others focused on your awesome powers and nurturing qualities,
Like the plants and trees you make grow and thrive within your reach,
The many colorful fishes that find life and shelter in your bosoms.
But I will do no such thing.

People of old tried in their puny ways to tame your raging tantrums.
Still others tried to dare your isolating paths with bridges of many types.
Kids spent many warm summer afternoons refreshing in your cool waters.
People, from all walks, even desired union with your oneness and eternity.
Building houses in your banks, in the dried-up beds you once traversed in.
But I will do no such thing.

In open defiance of your jealous nature, people tempted their fates.
Usurping precious territory you need to follow an appointed task.
Dumped tons of garbage and debris and called that reclaimed land.
Fit to build their abodes, open season to heap more abuse on your person.
Elected servants conspired to lend credence and legality to such deeds.
But I will do no such thing.

In the pretense of good intentions many harvest your precious jewels.
Like the age-old growth that dot your watershed basins, and deep gullies.
Making empty promises about restoration and proper recompense.
Instead leaving you naked, shamed, ugly, and worst, angry and vengeful.
Anger and vengeance that knows no limits, nor capable of measure.
But I will do no such thing.

I instead whisper my culpable fear of your deadly quiet and simple ways.
I instead keep safe distance from your moods that defy easy detection.
Opting to behold your unrivaled beauty and grandeur beyond your reach.
For you are the jealous lover, born from the same cloth as your Creator.
Demanding the return of all your gifts from your unworthy recipients.
And you will be satisfied with no less.

The Seller/Buyer Conundrum

This week we went through two important transactions where we were the seller parties. I sold a Ford pick-up truck that was sitting in our garage for a good part of 5 years. We also signed papers to sell a rental property that we have had for almost 7 years. Again in both instances we all signed on the dotted lines that designated we were the sellers. Since we went through a barrage of documents to sign, in one instance I had automatically signed on the dotted lines intended for the buyer. I initially had paid no mind thinking I just needed to sign again under the dotted lines for the seller. But was summarily stopped by a staff member of the company, graciously informing me that he had to reprint the whole page because of strict company rules. So except for that little glitch, both transactions went quite smoothly. Until a few days later when I started thinking about it.

Why did I instinctively and reflexively sign on the dotted lines for the buyers? What caused that to be so? After much thought and reflection I came up with these observations, and a conclusion.

Because our personal callings in our lives were that of being employed, most of the transactions that we got into in our lives were that as buyer. We bought things and stuff. We bought clothes, houses, cars, etc. In most instances then where documents were presented and required for signature, we typically signed on the dotted lines for buyers. But don’t we sell our services to our employers? True, but we would rather think of our services as being exchanged for money and benefits. Of course, as employees there are instances where we do become sellers, like selling our old houses or cars to buy new ones. But comparatively speaking, we most likely are buyers in transactions. So by default when people like us sign papers, we instinctively go to the dotted lines for buyers.

But entrepreneurs are different. In many instances they are the sellers. They provide goods and services to be sold to third parties or consumers. They are the store owners, the factory operators, the company owners in their nice offices. In short, they are our employers.

In the scheme of things, are the differences quite marked? I am sure there are many similarities and differences, but here I focus on only one aspect of this distinction. The seller creates or produces some things or provides certain services that they hope people will have need for. They design and devise things to give them value and functionality which hopefully the users will be attracted to.

On the other hand, the buyer is in the position of choosing certain things that would be needed in his life. When he looks at a product for example, he is weighing how the product is going to serve his particular needs, and making judgments on how well the product and its features will perform for him.

The role of seller appears exciting and interesting, bringing to the fore our admirable qualities of ingenuity and resourcefulness so that we can bring out products that people can like. While sellers are also buyers since they are also consumers, it does appear enviable to be essentially a seller and secondarily as a buyer. Rather than simply be a buyer all our lives.

The reason being that a seller obviously is a provider, while a buyer is simply a user.

Is it then instinctively so also that at certain points in any one person’s life, there is the innate desire to be an entrepreneur, and thus be a provider, a seller?

Remembrances of My Late Mother

More than meriting title to being quiet and mum as a clam, my mother was truly a woman of very few words. She spoke little. Thus, I doubt I need spend time calculating the conversations we had had as adults. We had very few, and each one went like telegraphic exchanges between two frugal individuals.

In hindsight one can easily recall how those few incidents came about. And thus the task of retelling is that much easier. But they definitely created lasting impressions. How else to explain my very vivid recall.

In one visit and from out of the blue, she framed her conversation in one sentence. And it simply was a curt admonition to take care of my younger brother, and spoken in the vernacular. As was usual with me, it went in and was soon replaced with more urgent mundane matters. But during moments of lull, that statement would come back to occupy my wakefulness. Why the admonition and why me? The mind started racing looking for rationales and answers. As very young kids, all nine of us grew up in that old house along Del Mar and Victoria Sts. The house sat fully on exactly 100sq.m. of land, leaving nothing but the sidewalk to separate it from the two streets. And we counted on the kind graces and forbearance of two aunts who owned the two lots on the other two sides in allowing our little horde to use their free spaces for our purposes. One lot was initially vacant and the other occupied by a house of another aunt. The vacant lot was there to serve as our free space – for a while at least until a house was also built on it.

Nine precocious kids grew up in those cramped and eternally-shuttered quarters in the middle of a busy poblacion, two blocks away from the town plaza. As a small kid my younger brother had assigned quarters in one bedroom on the ground floor which space used to serve as my father’s law office. This he shared with another younger sister. And from all indications that served as some kind of sick bay since the two siblings took cadenced turns being treated with all sorts of ailments – wheezing coughs, fevers, urticaria or hives, bad colds, etc. So many nights one heard the unmistakable sounds of the ailments as one passed through that section of the house, with my mother serving as relentless and indefatigable Florence Nightingale to the siblings in distress. And this went on till early adolescent years.

That younger brother was the first to go a couple of years ago among the nine siblings. Was my mother gifted as prescient or armed with clairvoyant tendencies to qualify her to make such dire predictions? I doubt that. It most probably stemmed from maternal instincts honed from many years and countless instances of service to enable her to make prudent observation and judgment on the physical make-up of her sizable brood. After all, she exhibited the same personal dedication and selfless passion in taking care of all nine of us.

Years later after having married and living away from her, another short telegraphic dialogue transpired. She had received a letter from two distinguished Jesuits, very well respected locally, Frs. A. Cuna and J. Fuentes, regarding a Cursillo course participated in by her youngest offspring. She was being asked to write a confidential letter to be delivered to the above Jesuits. Imagine that!

What does she do? She calls for me and almost demandingly asked for me to write that letter. Why me? The year was 1972 and I was deep into raising my growing family and coping with the burdens of working in a busy bank. So naturally, I balked. No words from her followed, except that I was left holding the letter from the priests.

Without further instructions, and without any ideas suggested on what that letter would contain, I knew that she had expected to receive that letter before it was due. Rummaging through old files, I chanced upon these two letters stapled together. Suggesting without a doubt that the letter required of her was written and submitted on time, and penned by me.

Was she so sure that the ideas that I would put on paper would be the same ideas she had in mind and held in deep trust? I do not recall having to retype anything regarding this letter.

Maybe it was like this. How could revisions be necessary since I was simply being used by her as her instrument?

Thus, more like that most perfect model of a mother who said to the wine stewards at Cana: Just do what he tells you!

Addendum: March 21,2021

Born and educated in Cebu, from parents named Porferio Velez and Fernanda Osmena.

In her quiet, unassuming, and out of the public eye ways, she single-handedly took care of her 9 children, away from her comfort zone of home and caring relatives in Cebu. And lived to be almost 93 years while doggedly devoted to her appointed tasks as mother.

Without expressing noticeable complaints, or any visible expectations of earthly rewards, she lived quietly, and passed from here in the self-same manner.

No man could ask for more.

Still, we couldn’t say that she showered us with physical hugs, material abundance, or the like. Not even profuse displays of kind words and inspiring emotions. She simply kept her peace and remained introverted. As a matter of fact, her dutiful partner in rearing us kids was discipline and order as personified by the horsewhip that she kept handy but rarely used.

All things considered, she deserves all the possible effusive honors and privileges this noted day could bring or muster.

And we are reassured that she now enjoys that and more.

Added May 20, 2021

One of the very few times that our dear mother had the time and opportunity to fix herself up and dress for the occasion.

One fresh memory, one of very few from my childhood, I had with my mother was the one time I accompanied her to the movies. Why she took me? I have no idea. But she did.

She was in a hurry and had dressed up for the occasion. And she quickly hailed a tartanilla for the short trip from our house in Del Mar to the movie house in DVsoria. For those unfamiliar, the nearest movie house was only a block away. I recall that in her haste, she tore a hole in her dress from some metal part in the tartanilla's seat.

And I recall thinking something like "sayang" since she had put on a very nice fitting dress of white with some flower design.

I probably got my love for old movies from her. BTW, in local parlance maybe limited to our Neri clan, in expressing hesitance with facing up to visitors especially those unexpected and unannounced, or the public in general, this was the default excuse or even dismissal. "Dili ko kay bulinggit ko." Translated freely, it means that I cannot face you or the public because I am very dirty. Or euphemistically, that one is not "decent". But actually it signified that one was wearing one's house wear with face not made up. People did not go out of the house without the minimum accoutrements called for by their aged standards. A way of explanation re my mother dressing up even when going only to the movies, a block away.