A recently published “Love Letter to Filipinos” (PDI Opinion page, Feb. 18, 2013) must have lifted the spirit and filled the heart of every Filipino reader with joy—with good reason. We are a people much given to self-denigration. Heaven knows we could use a well-deserved pat on the back, almost as much as we occasionally do deserve a well-placed kick in the butt!
My nephew, Kyle Gozo, a young, classy art director, set up his own shop with a partner last year. He’s a Fil-American, the Tom Cruise kind who finished his Advertising course at Columbia University in Chicago.
My husband and I are planning to work overseas, for higher wages of course. But we have two kids, aged 4 and 2, who I think are too young to be left without our personal guidance. My husband is unaware of my uncertainties because this will only start a quarrel.
I know this old kundiman by heart. Inay Aurea sang “Babalik Ka Rin” often. When I was a little boy, she would take me along to the house of her cousin after hearing Mass on Sundays. Tia Naty owned one of three pianos in town. She would play the piano and Inay Aurea would sing “Babalik Ka Rin” with a lot of feeling. Inay Aurea knew what loneliness was all about.
As an avid reader of your column in the Sunday Lifestyle of the Inquirer, I am amazed at how contradictory a society the Philippines is. I am a resident foreigner in this country, and it perturbs me how rife the level of denial and hypocrisy is. Case in point, your latest column, entitled “Amazed at illicit relationships among OFWs.”
My then husband and I just moved to our new home, a modest two-bedroom affair with a small garden and garage that could barely fit our 8-year-old sedan.
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