Happy Birthday, Pinas!
Tomorrow is the 108th Independence Day of my beloved Philippines. Tomorrow solidifies my pride in knowing just how lucky I think I am to belong to my race, to have my culture and to call myself Filipino.
I have said this probably far too many times before but I don't think I would have enjoyed my life the way I had should I have grown up elsewhere. Philippine living is just so different. No other country in the world values family and religion as much as we do. We are the largest Catholic Nation in Asia and will never hear of the sending our grandparents to retirement homes. This is one of the very few countries where women never ever had gender baised issues. Whenever I hear of stories about women being inferior in country so and so, I smile and thank the Lord for giving me a country that has always embraced, nurtured and taken pride in their women. I have never felt I was ever secondary to men. I have never felt like I wasn't good enough and never have I felt judged, prejudiced or what-not because of my gender. We have had a lot of uprisings against our governments but we have always bounced right back on our feet. We have had a myriad of mistakes as a nation but we have always chosen to get up and learn from our past. We are a country hungry to prove our worth to the world and for the longest time we have been battling to reestablish our identity and no matter what other people may say, our biggest contribution to the world is, was and remains to be how good and solid our hearts are as a people and as a country.
I can babble on and on about my overflowing love and pride in being Pinoy but I think the best thing I can do is focus on making my life better so that one day, I can truly make my Philippines proud of me, the way it has always made me proud of it.
*Pinas is a shorter version of Pilipinas, the Filipino equivalent of Philippines and Pinoy is a shortened word to call Filipinos*
I have said this probably far too many times before but I don't think I would have enjoyed my life the way I had should I have grown up elsewhere. Philippine living is just so different. No other country in the world values family and religion as much as we do. We are the largest Catholic Nation in Asia and will never hear of the sending our grandparents to retirement homes. This is one of the very few countries where women never ever had gender baised issues. Whenever I hear of stories about women being inferior in country so and so, I smile and thank the Lord for giving me a country that has always embraced, nurtured and taken pride in their women. I have never felt I was ever secondary to men. I have never felt like I wasn't good enough and never have I felt judged, prejudiced or what-not because of my gender. We have had a lot of uprisings against our governments but we have always bounced right back on our feet. We have had a myriad of mistakes as a nation but we have always chosen to get up and learn from our past. We are a country hungry to prove our worth to the world and for the longest time we have been battling to reestablish our identity and no matter what other people may say, our biggest contribution to the world is, was and remains to be how good and solid our hearts are as a people and as a country.
I can babble on and on about my overflowing love and pride in being Pinoy but I think the best thing I can do is focus on making my life better so that one day, I can truly make my Philippines proud of me, the way it has always made me proud of it.
*Pinas is a shorter version of Pilipinas, the Filipino equivalent of Philippines and Pinoy is a shortened word to call Filipinos*
1 Comments:
Thanks for this great post on the Philippines! :-) Makes me proud too....and even though I've never lived there, my mother has made sure I also know certain values: That women are equal to men, and respect for the elder people...
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