I was interpreting recently for a client who was making a claim for injuries suffered from a car accident. At the end of the session, the lawyer representing my client commented that some of the words I used sounded Spanish. I explained to her that one out of every three words in Tagalog has roots in Spanish.
The lawyer has Hispanic origins. If she happened to be of Chinese ancestry she would probably have noticed some words that sounded like Chinese. For indeed, Tagalog or Filipino is made up of different languages.
Historically, our ancestors were Malay-Indonesian, but Hindus and Arabs had also reached our shores. The early Spanish colonists noted that Chinese vessels were bartering goods in our islands. The three hundred and thirty three years of Spanish colonization had tremendous influence in our language. Later on the Americans took over and used English as the medium of instruction in our schools. The Japanese, more or less had some influence, too, during their few years of invasion in the Second World War.
At present, Filipinos in urban areas of the Philippines and those outside the country speak a certain dialect called Taglish, a combination of Tagalog and English. We conjugate English words in Tagalog. For example: nag-bake ako ng cake.
When Tagalog was designated as the Filipino national language, it was not intended to keep it pure. The Institute in Filipino National Language was formed to develop the national language with inclusion from the other major Filipino languages as well as from foreign languages.
Language is not the only aspect of our culture that has been influenced by other cultures. Our food which we claim as Filipino has very strong Chinese and Spanish influences. Our pancit and lumpia are of Chinese origin, although we have made alterations that make them our own. Most of our meat dishes like apritada, sarsiyado, putsero, adobo, mitsado and many more, are of Spanish origin.
The same is true with our native costumes. The Filipino barong Tagalog is similar to the Chinese camisa de chino. The women’s Filipino dress has its origins from the voluminous European gowns of the earlier centuries. Even the Maria Clara costume is of European origin. The native costumes we see worn in Muslim dances can be traced from our ancestors of Malay-Indonesian descent.
The Philippines is the only country in Asia wherein the majority of the people are Catholics. Religion is a part of our heritage which the Spanish colonists left us an indelible mark of their influence. With it are some not so desirable customs which developed into practices that most Filipinos value and are still observed until today,
Kissing the hands of elders as a sign of respect and love started with the same custom of kissing the hand of priests, which at the time was a gesture of recognition of authority. The landlord-tenant relationship wherein the landowner controlled even personal and political decisions of tenants had their beginnings during the colonial times in the Philippines, and have continued until the present times when the rich and powerful in whom the poor depend for livelihood control the politics, the economy and even at times, the law, in the Philippines.
Philippine geography has created regions in the country that have developed some cultural values that make each group of people distinct from others. The southern part, Mindanao had never been truly colonized by Spain and has remained predominantly Muslim in religion.. This is a part of the Philippines that has continuously threatened to separate from the country. In the north, commonly called the Ilocos Region, the soil is relatively poor. People in this part of the country work very hard and have learned to be very frugal in order to survive. It is a common disparaging remark when someone comments to another, “Para kang Ilokano” which means the person is stingy.
Filipinos outside the Philippines came from different parts of the country, both urban and rural and therefore may have differences in values. But they have one characteristic in common- they all love education. Some parents from rural areas sell their farmlands and get into debt to send their children to school. This is a very strong part of Filipino heritage. Filipinos in Canada are one of the most highly educated groups of immigrants.
It is through education that most of us Filipinos were able to rise from poverty and enjoy a better way of life than most of our countrymen. It is education that opened our eyes to better opportunities that we can take for us and for our children. It is education that made us capable of trying our luck abroad even in jobs, that are below our line of training and experiences, so that we may earn a decent way of living and send money to our relatives who are very much in need of support.
Isn’t this the unending circle of the Filipino heritage that we brought with us and sort of direct our lives in another land? We live together with people from other parts of the world utilizing our Filipino heritage in adjusting to life with a different climate, different rules, a variety of languages, religions, music, art and other aspects of life different from what we are used to.
And in general, most of us have succeeded in making a comfortable way of life for us and our children. We continue to help relatives in the Philippines and have ably presented ourselves in our communities, making them sample our food and present our songs and dances in our native costumes. We are proud of our Filipino heritage which we claim as our own, together with those that we got from other cultures.
There is one aspect of the Filipino that is being pointed out. Our resiliency that we inherited from our ancestors in acquiring aspects of other cultures and making them part of our own, has helped us in adjusting to whatever situation we find ourselves in the course of our lives.*****