Serendipity
By Joanne Marie Combong–Pijuan

The Pinoy Diaspora

I was just talking to my brother who is based in the U.S., and I was updating him of what's been happening in the country lately. After my 30-minute litany of how pathetic this country has become what with the almost hopeless political and economic scenario, my brother simply said, “So, what are you waiting for?” Meaning, it's time for me to pack my bags, leave, go back to America, and seek “greener pastures”.

It's true, what am I waiting for? I completely agree with my brother. Not all of us have the capacity or the opportunity to go abroad, but if given the chance, I surmise that only a few would opt to stay in this country. My sentiments were further strengthened when I serendipitously came across a speech by Patricia Evangelista. Evangelista is the 19 year old UP Mass Communications student who won the International Public Speaking competition in London conducted by the English Speaking Union [ESU] a few months back. She beat 59 other student contestants from 37 countries, with her five-minute talk on the theme, “A Borderless World.”

I would like to share with you her speech because of its message. I couldn't resist sharing this with you because almost all of us at one point have thought (and are probably still thinking and planning) of packing our bags and leaving this country in search of a better life. It is true. We are now living in a “borderless world”. And, “leaving sometimes isn't a matter of choice. It's coming back that is.”

'Borderless world does not preclude the idea of a home'

WHEN I was little, I wanted what many Filipino children all over the country wanted. I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed and white.

I thought -- if I just wished hard enough and was good enough, I'd wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window and freckles across my nose!

More than four centuries under western domination can do that to you. I have 16 cousins. In a couple of years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have gone abroad in search of "greener pastures." It's not an anomaly; it's a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight million Filipinos are scattered around the world.

There are those who disapprove of Filipinos who choose to leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction of someone who was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier with each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a land that has perpetually fought for the freedom to be itself. Our heroes offered their lives in the struggle against the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans. To pack up and deny that identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice.

Or is it? I don't think so. Not anymore.

True, there is no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what was once the other side of the world is now a 12-hour plane ride away. But this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim to be purely from where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent, my father is a quarter Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino -- a hybrid of sorts resulting from a combination of cultures.

Each square mile anywhere in the world is made up of people of different ethnicities, with national identities and individual personalities. Because of this, each square mile is already a microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot that is England is the world, so is my neighborhood back home.

Seen this way, the Filipino Diaspora, or any sort of dispersal of populations, is not as ominous as so many claim. It must be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that is still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years of dictatorship. But we shall make it, given more time. Especially now, when we have thousands of eager young minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills. They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all.

A borderless world presents a bigger opportunity, yet one that is not so much abandonment but an extension of identity. Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses who support the United Kingdom's National Health Service. We are the quarter-of-a-million seafarers manning most of the world's commercial ships. We are your software engineers in Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your doctors and caregivers in North America, and, your musical artists in London's West End.

Nationalism isn't bound by time or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still remain essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and cultures. We are, indeed, in a borderless world!

Leaving sometimes isn't a matter of choice. It's coming back that is. The Hobbits of the shire traveled all over Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the word. We call people like these balikbayans or the "returnees" -- those who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good fortune.

In a few years, I may take advantage of whatever opportunities that come my way. But I will come home. A borderless world doesn't preclude the idea of a home. I'm a Filipino, and I'll always be one. It isn't about geography; it isn't about boundaries. It's about giving back to the country that shaped me.

And that's going to be more important to me than seeing snow outside my window on a bright Christmas morning.