Nothing could be more touching than the discovery that the Philippines has friends in far-off places.

 

Kohima is one of those places. It is a hill city that is the capital of Nagaland State, a remote mountain state in northeast India that borders Myanmar.

 

An hour after arriving in Kohima, my host gave me an invitation, urging that I attend a choral concert by the Nagaland Conservatory.

 

At the concert hall, the backdrop behind the stage announcing that the event was to raise funds to assist typhoon victims of the Philippines was a touching surprise.

 

Even more touching was that the choir sang two Philippine folk songs in its repertoire.

 

Another unknown link  between  Filipinos and the Naga people is that our Cordillera tribes share the same cultural origins with the Naga tribes.

 

Nagaland State was Christianized at the turn of the last century by American Baptists who in recent years have become missionaries to the Philippines. They brought back to Nagaland the parol, now hanging in  fronts of shops, signboards, churches, homes.

 

The Philippines is a fortunate nation to have friends all over the globe who have compassion for her earthquake and typhoon victims. Who would have ever thought that in distant Kohima in the Nagaland State of India there was such compassion and solidarity for the Philippines?

 

Thank you, our dear friends in Nagaland.