Taliabot na pud ang tingtugnaw ug buot ipasabot ani mag-antos na pud 
Kung adlawan pa ug majackpatan nga ang adlaw dili matakluban sa bagang gabun nindot kaayong mag-suroysuroy sa kaobasan duol sa among pinuy-anan o dili kaha didto sa karaan ug makasaysayang kastilyo sa bungtod sa Hambach, nga gitawag sa mga Aleman nga “Duyan” sa ilang demokrasya. Dinhi niadtong tuig 1832 nahitabo ang German version sa Rebulosyung Franses, nga maoy nahimung modelo sa tibuok kalibutan sa demokratiko, liberal, ug modernong panggamhanan.
Apan kung walay adlaw sama karon, na, magpuyo sa balay, ipaandar ang heater ug magsul-ob sa bagang sweater. Unya manghaplas ug body oil, cream, o lotion ba kaha, katulo o kaupat ka beses matag adlaw aron ang panit dili daling mouga ug kaspahon. Sa Pilipinas ang kaspa sa ulo lang, dinhi tibuok lawas kung dili ka magmatngon.
Aw, dili man pod hinuon tanang Pinoy nag-antos sama kanako sa panahon sa tingtugnaw. Pero wala pa ko’y Pinoy o Pinay nga nahimamat dinhi nga wala mangandoy nga mouli sa Pilipinas panahon sa Disyembre. Ug dili lang ni tungod kay Pasko man.
Niadtung miaging tuig gi-imbita ko sa usa ka grupo sa mga Pinay sa amihanang bahin sa Alemanya. Didto mas duol-duol sila sa North Pole mao nga mas tugnaw. Dugang pa ani, duol sila sa dagat, mao nga ang hangin didto dili lang tugnaw, gahaguryong pa.
“Naanad na man mi”, ingon pa sa usa ka Pilipina nga akong nahimamat didto, “pero sa sinugdanan pait kaayo”. Mag-upat pa ka tuig siya dinhi.
Maayo pa siya kay naanad na, ako intawon nag-antos pa. Siguro mas lig-on ug mas daling mopauyon-uyon ang atong mga kababayen-an?
Dunay mga banabana sisenta mil ka Pinoy dinhi sa Alemanya, kasagaran kanila Filipina nga naminyo ug Aleman. Magkita-kita mi usahay dinhi, sa simbahan, sa palengke, sa shopping centers.
Kasagaran kanila, tan-aw nako, kontento o dili kaha malipayon sa ilang panginabuhi dinhi. Bisan pa man sa lima ka milyon nga walay empleyo dinhi (halos usa sa matag napulo ka Aleman walay trabaho), hamugaway pa gihapon ang panimuyo dinhi; ang Alemanya ikatulo nga pinakadatu nga nasud sa tibuok kalibutan.
Ubay-ubay sa mga Pilipina, akong nasuta, nakaanhi dinhi kay ang ilang aya-an o igsuon ba kaha nga naminyo ug Aleman nangita dayon ug pwedeng makaminyo sa ilang paryenting nahibilin sa Pilipinas.
Kausa nakahimamat nako si Manfred, usa ka Aleman nga bana sa usa ka Pilipina dinhi, nga mao mismo ang nangunay ug pangita’g pamanhunon sa mga paryente sa iyang asawa sa Mindanao. Kada semana iyang ipapatik sa pamantalaan ang mga litrato sa mga Pilipina. Ang mga Aleman nga interesado mokontak sa iyaha ug moagi sa iyang screening. Pipila na pod ang iyang napaminyo.
“Kung duna man igo lang pambayad sa anunsyo”, matud pa niya. “Gihimo nako ni tungod ka’y nakita nako ang kalisod aning mga babayhana”.
Si Fina, ang iyang asawa, saksi mismo sa maong kawad-on. Kinamagulangan sa siyam ka mag-suon, labrador ang amahan, labandera ang inahan. Bisan sa kapit-os gipaiskwela sa kolehiyo aron sa mga igsoon puhon makatabang. Usa ka adlaw niana, gilugos sa usa ka trisikad driver, ug namabdos.
Nahugno ang damgo sa mga ginikanan. Si Fina, pinaangkan, nag-antos sa kaulaw. Intra si Manfred nga kaila sa iyaan ni Fina nga naminyo ug Aleman. Bulag sa asawa, sobra beinte ka tuig ang kamagulang. Apan sige lang, buotan man, arangan ug ang Gugma pwede man kuno’ng tun-an.
Sa ato pa, kung buot huna-hunaon unsa ra man kining pag-antus sa katugnaw kumpara sa atuang walay makaon?
Pagkaanugon kaayo sa atong “Edsa Rebolusyun” niadtong 1985. Sobra beinte na ka tuig ang milabay apan ang atong nasod nagpabiling kabus ug walay kaangayan.
Dili katingalahan nga daghan pa’ng mga Pilipina dinhing maningkamot nga ilang mga igsuon, ig-agaw o pag-umangkon makatilaw pod sa kinabuhing Aleman.
(photos courtesy of Enoi Acavado, Sydney Australia)
61 Kommentare:
sus, kalawom baya! it feels so tiring reading bisaya. lol! well, im used to reading ilonggo instead.
i have a question. suppossing you didnt marry a german, would you be aspiring to migrate from the philippines?
for me its a settled issue. i belong here. ive seen the world, or at least many parts of it, and had the chance to do so in the past, but i didnt act on it. the more i travelled the more i feel i dont have to migrate.
what's your view re determinants of migration? is it purely economic? or are there other reasons? my own view is economics is simply one of them. and hey, i enjoyed the cold environment of melbourne where at certain period of the year, people experienced four types of weather in a single day. haha!
how do you feel about this? are you ashamed? embarrassed?
Daw subo pamalandungon nga ipangita na lang og pamanhunon ang atong mga kaigsuonang mga Pilipina. Mura'g mga itoy na gipangitaan og mapuy-an. When I read stories like these, I don't know how to feel for those affected. I might not be happy of what had become of them, but I'm not one to ridicule them for choosing a life that's better than what they had here. But then again, that depends on whose point of view. And that is mine.
ha...ha... Dave! mao nga gibutangan na lang nako ug photos para dili ka masum-olan sa akong lalum nga cebuano text he...he...naanad naman gyud ka magtagalog ug magwiriswiris, no?
hmmm, i probably would be sitting in the congress right now, after serving up to the end my term limit as mayor of Valencia. No, kidding! he...he...he...
I can't give you scientific data on this but I got plenty of anecdotal evidences which tell me that a number of Filipinas are here because of poverty back home.
we also have that here in April. Come and visit us, Dave!
You are needed where you are now. There's no need for you to migrate.
I felt ashamed once and that was when I saw how some Filipinas here literaly lined up to show the pictures of their relatives of a German who just divorced his second Filipina wife. But then again who am I to judge them? (And yes this German got now his 3rd Filipina wife).
same here, danny! If only our politicians would take their election promises seriously...
yeah, i share your views there. not being judgmental. amen.
dili baya. im really ilonggo. hahah! my cebuano has always been lousy.
how i wish. i guess i should seek scholarships in europe. lol!
this is such a sad story. it's no wonder then that filipinos don't have a laudable reputation in germany. i know i might sound like another malu fernandez here, but obviously, if you had a graduate degree and have reached the higher rungs of the corporate ladder in the philippines, you wouldn't be angling for a german husband to rescue you from abject poverty.
all these things are a function of economic development. in history, countries in the lower rungs of eco dev experience this and it gets less and less of an issue as that country grows. that is why i always argue for policies promoting economic growth, and hopefully with equity. these days, you have the same issue in many other "third world" countries.
I can't say that, Pat. Filipinos are generally well-liked here. They are considered to be friendly (always smiling), kugihan, and good housewives (in my case, houseman, ha..ha..). Many Germans have still good memories of the highly efficient and competent Filipina nurses who came here in droves in the '70's (but most of them are gone now bec. nurses here are not as well-paid as in the US or UK). We also have Filipino professionals who certainly can compete with the Germans in their respective fields. But still from anecdotal evidences I gather in my 8 years here, many Filipinas were able to come because a relative actively look for a German husband to marry her to escape poverty back home.
I agree, Dave. Like what Bill Clinton said. "It's the economy, stupid!" There was a time when German women were angling American men after the end of the 2nd World War to escape the misery here caused by war. During this time German nannies were much in demand in the US because they were clean, cultured, and, well, white Europeans.
No, you don't sound like MF at all. What you said is a very logical assumption any student of sociology could arrive at after some observation. Btw, the same assumption can also be applied on the German side. Again it is difficult to generalize but I'd been to one area in Germany where the trend looks just like that. The German husbands there are farmers who couldn't anymore find German women who would still live and help in the farm so they opted to marry Filipinas who were just as happy to live in a -yes- difficult but still better life than the one they had back home.
Let me know, Dave! I want one too.hehe
You can get all the information you need from the Goethe Institut (German cultural embassy) in Manila. They are very accomodating there.
Filipinas have no bad reputation in Germany even if many of them are housewives of german citizens. Except for a few bad marriages (which happens in all societies), most have good functional family lives.
I know of many Filipinas who have degrees (many are post graduates) and are married to german citizens. One is a very close relative of mine. Many of them are working as professionals in Germany. Another close relative of mine is now the bread winner of the family since her husband had a serious accident and was forced to early retirement.
We have been doing that since time forgotten. In fact, some of us did the arguing in a much forceful way.
that's good to know. so not filipinas in germany are like the ones that jack met.
Indeed, if you read my blog again, I qualified my story with "ubay-ubay" and talked only about a certain place in Germany I visited. You may also see my answers to you and Dave down the thread on this point. And see the differentiation I elaborated, which is not quite different from Bong's.
this theme brought me back to that seminar we attended together in Munich in 1991. That was the last time I met you and the only time I saw you in Germany. Do you still remember the heated debate the Filipinas had then over Mail-Order Brides?
studying change is my continuing passion. and my perspective right now is that change should always be a process of historical and therefore incremental change. since each country has different historical circumstances, that process of change, its speed, would always be variable. the implication of this is that we may either continue struggling for that incremental reform or we simply get off the loop by going somewhere. if you cant change society, at least you can change your own personal history or circumstances abruptly by changing geographies. either way, its a noble option; as what i have been saying, its all about choice. whatever choice we take, i find that noble and true. either way, change cant just be forced on history.
there are people (mao, stalin, lenin, tito, pol pot, etc) who thought they could force change through sheer will power and the force of violence. the results vary but most of them are always cruel. that's why i always suspect people who thought they have the monopoly of vision for society. but im digressing too much here.
but you are right. some of us are doing it more forcefully and i actually admired those people who did if only for sheer courage. we writers are simply that, writers and ranters who actually cant afford to lift a pitchfork. hahahah!
mao did it the forceful way, too forceful infact for the 75 million chinese who died either through the barrel of the gun or the folly of his ill conceived policies (great leap forward, the cultural revolution). but china is changing now and its changing quite fast and its not because of mao's forceful method, but deng's incremental approach to change. but i you go to china these days, especially outside the big cities like beijing, you will see change are not that significant enough to lift millions out of poverty. and it seems change, seen from within really comes incrementally. and yet we are talking about a 10-11 percent growth rate here.
forgive me for jumping to conclusions but you never speak of the other side of the story (in your replies and in this blog). the ones who went to germany as professionals; the ones who had no sordid lives to escape from.
here it is, then, i copied verbatim down below in my thread.
ok i stand corrected
kein problem :-)
I have a confession to make: I never liked Mao. I really had to force myself to read his Five Golden Rays, among others, back then in college, since everyone was reading it.
that fascinates me too, and how I wish to read again Karl Marx's dialectical historical materialism. I still found his theories instructive more than ever esp. in this times of globalisation. But, alas, like always you can expect all those so-called "communists" back home- like many others elsewhere- to bungle it's interpretation, let alone "application".
ah, still romanticising dave?!
i like his power of will and hated his megalomania. the latest book on his is by jung chang.
i still use marx's theory on the progressive role of capitalism as a core point in my analysis re development and globalization. he is still relevant in that aspect. the rest are hogwash. i realized this when i joined that mindanao-wide study on the "mode of production" in the late 80s.
of course not. sheer courage is nothing without understanding. we had lots of those back home. sheer courage and passion without understanding. this is what is crippling pol movements here. most left movements here have become anti-intellectuals.
can you elaborate on this?
i got a death threat from an mindanao level cadre from communists for challenging her points in a discussion. she said" next time we meet, i wouldnt hesitate to put a bullet in your head once you raise that point again."
in general, friends here dont read anymore, dont analyze, just parrot lines. in my own analysis, the Left has become a force resisting change.
could you imagine KMU guys condemning and denigrating call center workers? i could go on and on.
or the role of imperialism, dave. It's interesting how conservatives are using Marx's jargon to explain the relevance of global capital and the need for a global power like the USA to maintain it's dominance. Think about Karl Rove with his famous "we are an empire now, we create our own reality".
marx is universal now. especially after the cold war. but when it comes to "imperialism," the us role in global affairs now has significantly weakened. give it 10 to 20 years, and it would be like any other great, but not dominant power. that's why i dont worry about it anymore. what i worry is what kind of power relations in the international realm would there be? the rise of china will exacerbate lots of friction and people are wondering what kind of china will emerge.
this is the worry here in europe, too. what kind of a dragon china will be?
that's pure fantasy! the fact is that everybody creates their own realities and the class of these realities is what makes globalization interesting and dangerous.
china is creating its own reality at the global scene. so is india. so is osama bin laden. and every actor, state actor, is reacting in a way that betrays the limits of what every power could do. globalization has democratized a lot of things: information, knowledge, as well as violence.
that's also fantasy. I create my own "reality" but you can't equate it's impact to the likes of Rove, for instance. China is now powerful but still America, for the moment, calls the shots. See how all those Indexes around the world follow NY's lead.
come on, jack. the US no longer calls the shots. its just one of the boys now. it has completely lost its soft power, making her military power useless. its stuck in iraq. its helpless vis a vis iran. etc.
and china is really altering lots of foreign policies around, including that of the phils. silicon-based technologies is partly the reason but globalization in generaly has weakened the US.
and of course, bin laden sets the tone of lots in the world now. and the world is just reacting. bin laden is just one of the growing non-state actors that's challenging the established order. we are in a world of flux. to use greenspan, a world of turbulence.
ah, dave, don't you notice? you are deflating the role of america in world affairs; and hyper-inflating OBL's on the other.
One probability is that China will try to export its own version of state dictatorship just like USA is trying to export its US style democracy.
Let us not forget that China is still a dictatorship of a single political party.
well, they're certainly doing a little bit of that in africa now, bong.
no one forgets that bong. esp. not the likes of us who "grew" up reading you know who's PSR!
no im not. bin laden is simply one example of the emergence of many state and non-state actors that are "creating reality" in the world. what im trying to say is that this world is just getting multipolar (for lack of any other term) in a new sense of the word.
in fairness, china is not doing that right now. it deals with countries purely on "business" relations. but its because its international relations is driven more by its energy security needs.
and this goes back to my old argument about having strong states and clearly defined national interests.
creating strong states is a bit tricky now because of the presence of various actors at the global scene. all states from the rich ones to the poor ones are weakening due to the rise of these actors. but the first thing to do under the context of the philippines is lessening the penetration of special interests on the state. how do you that? cut the nexus between politics/bureaucracy and wealth creation.
I just love your simple, clear-cut solutions. Now start it with our big landlords controlling congress.
weakening, yes, but not lack of trying to assert them. Of course, everybody needs to play multilateral now, but strong states know their bottom line and defend them come hell or high water in international rounds.
its not simple, jack. try this: http://davidllorito.blogspot.com/2007/03/want-to-address-corruption-cut-that.html
or this: http://davidllorito.blogspot.com/2005/12/wanted-statesmen-and-masochists-or-why.html
Bravo, Dave! Just read it and is, indeed, brilliant! If I could just add my one cent: one way is to strengthen political parties which in turn strengthen parliamentary democracy. In Europe, political parties are subsidized by the state, so it makes them less vulnerable to donations from private interests like in the US.
agree! amen to this!
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