Philippines: Dangerous, yet Comforting

Debbie Lozare in Ang Pinoy Stories

Jan 14, 2020 • 3 min Read

When an outsider looks in on our “dangerous life” in a developing country, it looks like one huge mess. And I agree. It could be that. The daily grind is chaos. You have never seen gridlock like the ones in Metro Manila, where you spend three to four hours in rush hour traffic. An idiotic bureaucrat said, “At least our traffic is not fatal” and millions of Filipinos pounced on him, and he had to apologize.

The traffic mess is the least of our worries. There’s China encroaching in our backyard, the constant threat of terrorism, policemen who are also criminals, corrupt politicians, and the uncertainty of earthquake, typhoons and natural disasters. The Philippines sits on what is called the pacific Ring of Fire, and we are visited by no less than 20 big storms annually that may cause storm surges like Haiyan did.

Seismic experts predict that a big one will strike anytime soon, as we are in 400th year mark of a major earthquake. For the first time in modern times, the Philippines had an earth shake drill, and all the worst case scenarios of a massive earthquake were configured. When the drill occurred, I was in my car on the way to work, and had to stop at an intersection, while cops, firefighters and earthquake volunteers simulated a 7.2 intensity strike.

Because of our naturally dangerous reality, we Filipinos are world-renowned for being survivors in any situation. Many Filipino workers and expatriates live in hostile countries, and work in exceedingly harsh conditions and relatively not many perish.

We are magnificent natural seamen, and in Europe crews of big container ships, cruise ships, oil exploration ships, and other maritime vessels—including naval and commercial ships—are Filipinos. We never get seasick—haha!—thanks to being people living in an archipelago.

We are also huge in celebrating life. We have countless festivals all over our islands, where everyone would put on colorful costumes of their regions and dance in the streets, celebrating a great harvest or the blooming of flowers, or a productive birthing of livestock.

We love to eat and drink—the biggest beer drinkers are Filipinos! Our cuisine, being a mix of western and Asian influences, is rich and robust and delicious.

We are romantics, and no lover has complained about the healthy level of lust and passion of a Filipino woman or man. This is because we are by nature nurturing and caring, and we live to do for others. Hospitality is ingrained in our culture. Sharing of bounty is common, and where there is lack of substance, we make up for it by tripling laughter and wearing genuine smiles. It is not easy to put a Filipino down, except perhaps with a stray unkind word, and then we break quite easily. That is because we never mean any harm, and expect none.

Filipinos love to travel, to Europe or the Americas, to other places in the Pacific. And then, we miss home, the mess, the horrible traffic in Manila and the dangerous life we seem to thrive in. We long to see our mountains, our beaches, caves, lagoons, pockets of paradise everywhere, the corals and fish in our seas, the rich soil that yields food and sustenance for our daily bread. When we have all these, we accept the dangers that come with it. This lawless chaos we live in, is the life handed to us, and rather than be sad about it, we are grateful, living one day at a time with a joyful attitude, and a hope that tomorrow will be another sunny day. And if, when we awake the sun is hiding and instead we have a rainy day, we just say, “There will be great harvest this year, the heavens are favoring our field with rain.”