| Book Review: Lessons from a Pinoy pilgrim |
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| Posted by Administrator | |
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This review was originally published at the Manila Bulletin http://www.mb.com.ph/issues/2007/07/13/OPED2007071397698.html As I reflect on the lives of these compatriots of mine in one of the most progressive cities in the whole of Europe, my thoughts go to a recently published book by one of the most accomplished marketing executives of Philippine business, Manuel de Leon. The book entitled Pinoy Pilgrim has been extensively reviewed in some of the leading newspapers of the Philippines. I will focus on the last chapter of the book which is entitled Lessons from My Pilgrimage. Manoling comes from a family with fifteen children. His parents were not rich and had to struggle to support the large brood. At the age of sixteen, Manoling had to stop schooling after high school and went as one of the first overseas workers to Guam to help in the upkeep of the large family. As he said in the Foreword to the book, "every time I read stories of our heroic Pinoy OFWs, I sympathize with them because I too was one of them. At age 16, I left my family to earn dollars working in Guam. I did this off and on until I retired some forty years later. Like the millions of OFWs all over the globe, I am a Pinoy Pilgrim, searching the world for opportunities to give my family a good life. My long OFW experience taught me that working abroad makes us rich in many ways we never imagined, and that there is a purpose to all our sacrifices to give our children a better future." Many of the Filipinos I have met in Barcelona are like Manoling. They do not come from the poorest of the poor. In fact, some of them are better off than Manoling when he left for Guam. Unlike Manoling, they went much beyond high school, earning college degrees. But like Manoling, they came from large or extended families whom they wanted to help financially by working abroad. A good number of them want to emulate Manoling by going home to the Philippines some day and use their skills and experiences to contribute to the economic progress of the Philippines. In a society where there is much talk about how to find happiness in life, these OFWs are among the happiest creatures around. Their non-Filipino friends and co-workers never fail to notice how cheerful they always are. In my conversations with these OFWs, I never detect any victim or martyr complex. They are happy precisely because they are doing things, some of them quite difficult, for their loved ones. The lessons that Manoling shares with his readers are actually already visible in the lives of many of my OFW friends in Barcelona. The first lesson is enjoy life: Make it a pilgrimage with friends. The pilgrimage is to heaven. But it is fully enjoyed if one makes it with his friends. As Manoling says, "and if your best and closest friends are those in your family: Your father and mother, brothers and sisters and their children, and your wife and children and grandchildren, then each day of your life will be like heaven." My OFW friends of Barcelona couldn’t agree more with Manoling. The second lesson is be happy: look at the bright side. I don’t think I was an exceptional Filipino when people used to refer to me as the "prophet of boom." The Filipinos I know in Barcelona are all prophets of boom. They always see what Manoling saw: "Every glass was always half full, not half empty, so we always looked at how we could fill it up. Sadness, we learned, is a state of the mind. It’s only mental, all in the brain, so we learned to control it and turn around any situation, even if we are submerged in the deepest quagmire one can ever imagine." Third lesson: sleep well: clear up your conscience. For the majority of Filipinos, who are Catholics, this starts with going to the Sacrament of Confession. In addition, as Manoling says, set right the demands of justice. Get involved in projects for helping the poor. In your projects, involve as many of the Filipino overseas workers you can. Manoling made a prediction: "If there is someone who wants to change the country in the fastest possible way, he or she has to appeal to these overseas workers. These are the Pinoys who love our country the most and who want our country to succeed." The challenge is to put together the millions of Pinoy pilgrims and to start a social revolution. Fourth lesson: Feel good: be open to other cultures. Without any exaggeration, the Filipinos in Barcelona are the quickest among all the immigrants to adapt to the culture they find in their host country. They even outdo the Latin Americans. I explain this by the fact that in the Philippines, we live in a multi-ethnic and multicultural society. Many of us are multi-lingual. Thus, it is easier for us to be open to other cultures. As Manoling rightly muses, "The Pinoy is great because he has a universal soul, the result of seven thousand islands being crisscrossed and settled by Moslem Indonesians and Malays from the south, Christian Spaniards and Americans from the east, and the Buddhist Chinese from the north and west. We have a hodgepodge of cultures where people learned to co-exist in provinces scattered over three hundred thousand square kilometers of water, solid and rocks, mountains, volcanoes and forests." The fifth lesson is to see the good that exists in most of our people. We tend to sell ourselves short. Manoling’s advice: "We need to sell our country and our people to ourselves before we can convince the world that we are good. We must realize that we are a land of many talents, and many beautiful natural resources, yet we do not talk about ourselves well." We need not belabor the obvious: the corrupt politicians, the inadequate infrastructures and the lack of discipline of some of our leaders and their followers. We should often talk about our strengths. Finally, Manoling ends with an insight inspired by the famous author, Hillaire Belloc. He sees the Filipino pilgrim in Europe and elsewhere helping to rechristianize or Christianize societies. He clarified that Belloc offered proof that the Roman Empire never "fell", as some historians claimed, but was transformed by Christians into what became Europe. From Europe, the Christian religion reached other parts of the world: America, Asia, and Africa. The vision of Manoling is actually being realized in Barcelona and other leading European and North American cities. There are Catholic parishes in Barcelona that are predominantly animated by the Filipinos immigrants. They are the ones who normally fill the churches on Sundays. They are the organizers of parish apostolic activities, especially in relation to the education of children. As I saw with my own eyes, they even introduce Filipino religious traditions like pilgrimages, processions, Sto. Nino and Our Lady of Perpetual Help novenas, and many other pious customs. The book Pinoy Pilgrim is a celebration of the greatness and uniqueness of the Filipino overseas worker. I highly recommend it to all those who want to capitalize on these human resources of the Philippines. As Manoling ends his book, "The Pinoy is great and unique because he can serve without being a slave. He can be happy in the world because he looks beyond it and he can enjoy life because everyone can be a friend. Our greatness lies in our ability to freely serve with joy." The book is available at Totus Book Store on Connecticut Avenue, Greenhills, Tel. 723-4326. For comments, my e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 July 2007 ) |
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