1 1 Building the Imagined Nation … for… with … of … the Diaspora (B-I-N-D) by Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona Executive Director Commission on Filipinos Overseas 4 th Conference of the U.S. Knights of Rizal September 2, 2012 – 6:00 pm, Grand Ballroom Ala Moana Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii TALKING POINTS I – A Confession on My Mis-Education II – In Search of Relevance III – The Overseas Filipino & Balikbayan Connection IV – Sharing an Exciting Commitment V -- Building the Inclusive-Imagined Nation Distinguished Guests and Friends – Old and New: Coming face-to-face with die-hard off-shore Rizalistas and addressing you at the tail- end of an incisive exchange of reflections on his legacy, I am left with two thought-provoking questions to rationalize my presence among you tonight: What is my own take on Dr. Jose Rizal? Indeed -- What is our stake? I -- A Confession on My Early Mis-Education It may amuse some of you, and perhaps, appall most, if not all of you, to know that as a convent school undergraduate of the 60s, I come from an era when there was yet no mandatory Rizal course. And, the classics Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo were kept under lock and key by our Belgian nun cum librarian!
Transcript
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Building the Imagined Nation … for… with … of … the
Diaspora (B-I-N-D)
by
Undersecretary Mary Grace Ampil-Tirona
Executive Director Commission on Filipinos Overseas 4th Conference of the U.S. Knights of Rizal September 2, 2012 – 6:00 pm, Grand Ballroom Ala Moana Hotel, Honolulu, Hawaii
TALKING POINTS I – A Confession on My Mis-Education II – In Search of Relevance III – The Overseas Filipino & Balikbayan Connection IV – Sharing an Exciting Commitment V -- Building the Inclusive-Imagined Nation
Distinguished Guests and Friends – Old and New: Coming face-to-face with die-hard off-shore Rizalistas and addressing you at the tail-end of an incisive exchange of reflections on his legacy, I am left with two thought-provoking questions to rationalize my presence among you tonight:
What is my own take on Dr. Jose Rizal? Indeed -- What is our stake?
I -- A Confession on My Early Mis-Education
It may amuse some of you, and perhaps, appall most, if not all of you, to know that as a convent school undergraduate of the 60s, I come from an era when there was yet no mandatory Rizal course. And, the classics Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo were kept under lock and key by our Belgian nun cum librarian!
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Not raised to emulate his heroism and live out the values articulated in his works -- so why is someone like me addressing the most knowledgeable and dedicated Rizalista audience like you? II -- In Search of Relevance To redeem myself, let me hastily add that Rizaliana eventually became interesting and meaningful references in my own adult explorations. Such contact points were truly an exercise in search of his relevance to myself and to the many others who might have failed to find meaning in this great man’s life and works.
Thus, as you may know, the privileged few among us in Manila have been refreshed every now and then by the creative and innovative adaptations penned, directed, produced, and sponsored by knowledgeable individuals and concerned groups. These include the likes of Leon Ma. Guerrero and his classic Rizal biography -- The First Filipino; the production of the Noli as a musicale by Tanghalang Pilipino based on the libretto of national artist Bienvenido Lumbera; the Philippine Educational Theater Association’s staging of Ang Batang Si Rizal (which they would like to reproduce in film); the excellent portrayal of Rizal on the silver screen by handsome actors like Cesar Montano and Albert Martinez; and the presentation of Ibarra at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
As a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, I recall doing a paper that compared Rizal and Mahatma Ghandi for a course on Asian Political Thought. It was a vain attempt to fill in a glaring gap in the roster of thinkers and reformists from Asia whose works we dissected – from Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru to Sun Yat Sen and Mao Tse Tung. For me, it was imperative to surface Jose Rizal, explain the force of his ideas and bring him into the consciousness of my learned professor and peers.
At the Ateneo de Manila University, where Rizal is a venerable alumnus and extolled
to his 151st year, I once dug into the archives to put together a graduation giveaway which focused on his schooling at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila. And subsequently, to add to their bragging rights, I commissioned the reproduction of the wooden statue of the Sacred Heart that Rizal carved out of batikuling wood into a limited edition of gilded bronze replicas akin to the Oscar. To-date, these have been given only to distinguished univerity awardees. Such efforts were much to the satisfaction of the university and alumni community, especially my immediate boss, Rizal’s nephew Fr. Jose Cruz, SJ., then Ateneo president.
In my further desire to popularize Rizal, using a “down from the monument”
approach as it were, I had playfully referred to him as “JR” in my history classes to enable my bourgeois students to relate to him. At that time, “JR” of the TV series “Dallas” seemed to have been more widely recalled by their generation. And having treated our national hero in a more folksy manner, when the now famous (infamous?) Rizal demythologizer and author of the book -- Rizal Without the Overcoat -- Ambeth Ocampo (my former student) was still in the college, his contemporaries who were fans of the super heroes, i.e., the Avengers, the X-men and their ilk, submitted a poster to me depicting Batman’s move to rescue Rizal at Bagumbayan field. In retrospect, I now regret returning the group’s masterpiece which
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merited an “A” for originality. Otherwise, I could have uploaded it on the pop culture websites widely accessed by today’s young netizens. On a more serious vein, it was Rizal’s Sobre la Indolencia de los Filipinos and his annotations on Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas, and The Philippines a Century Hence that subsequently inspired me to pursue a dissertation track that similarly questioned the continuing underdevelopment of Philippine business and industry. And as a latter-day feminist in the 80s and a Commissioner for Women in the 90s, quite naturally, one treasured his Letter to the Women of Malolos to validate our own raison d’etre in the struggle against Filipino machismo. III -- The Overseas Filipino and Balikbayan Connection Notwithstanding all these meanderings into the life and works of Jose Rizal -- until the Knights of Rizal invitation showed up on my email -- it never crossed my mind to take a second look at him from another vantage point: as an Overseas Filipino and Balikbayan. Admittedly, to explore the significance of this coincidental parallelism between most of you and Jose Rizal became a challenge.
As a visionary, Rizal created a template of a 20th century Filipino nation unshackled from the chains of abusive colonizers. But he never expected that the successor generations of the 6 million Filipinos of his time would reach 95 million by the 21st century. And, that some 10% of that population would be like him -- Overseas Filipinos and occasional or permanent Balikbayans! Little did he imagine that we would now be found in some 220 destinations worldwide.
Based on the 2010 stock estimates of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, we have
close to 9.5 million Filipinos overseas: 47% or 4.42 million are permanent migrants, 45% or 4.32 million are contract workers and 8% or .71 thousand are irregular or undocumented migrants.
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Source : CFO (2010)
Every year, we register an average of 70-80,000 emigres, while the Department of
Labor cited a deployment of some 1.6 million contract workers last year.
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To get the Philippines removed from the United States’ Tier 2 Watchlist of countries identified as sources or conduits of trafficked victims, we set up our 1343 Action-Hotline against human trafficking in March 2011. Accessible 24/7 worldwide and online, to-date, we have received some 12,435 calls of which, unfortunately only around 171 are actual cases worked on by the members of the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT). From these, some 114 victims have been repatriated and 59 cases involved labor and sexual exploitation, organ sales and mail-order bride schemes. Many are either willing victims or simply do not have the wherewithal to bravely point to their recruiters. Why so? Because, more often than not, the “enemy is within” –- mothers, sisters and other relatives, friends and neighbors, even colluding government entities. Worse, thanks or no thanks to digital technology, they are now recruited by syndicates via the internet! Due to sexual, labor, drug, and child trafficking activities, we find our victims in China, South Korea, Nepal, Malaysia, all the way to the Middle East and Europe.
The data I have cited do not even cover the “revolving door” temporary migrants or our OFWs, who also contribute to the productivity of their host countries just like you. But unlike you, some of them live in much depraved conditions as victims of abuse, violence and unfair labor practices, languish in jails accused of being drug mules, or simply return to the Philippines in coffins.
For those who have not just plotted the travels of Rizal, but also his much bruited-
about “loves” -- it may be of interest to add that our data on registered marriage migrants from 1989-2009 totaled 372,718. An average of 20,000 per annum head primarily for traditional “havens” like the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, Germany, UK. Many have partnered with South Koreans, Taiwanese, and now, even with Norwegians and Swedes as well.
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I have given these figures to dramatize the changing landscape of Philippine society
in sharp contrast to Rizal’s milieu. But, it is just as important to point out that while he has contributed his life and his works to pave our way to freedom, we also know that our Overseas Filipinos are doing no less today.
YOU -- are the reason that the Philippine economy has remained afloat with a $20
billion dollar remittance inflow in 2011 which is reportedly larger than our FDIs or Foreign Direct Investments. In mid-2012, it even grew by 5% compared to last year’s figures. This infusion is even more remarkable considering the economic crises facing the developed world where they competitively live and work.
To put it in macrocosmic terms – in diaspora philanthropic activities alone, over the
last 20 years, YOU have accounted for some P2.54 billion pesos worth of donations. In a country of limited government resources, especially for social services to millions of Filipinos living under the poverty line and, as you very well know, predictably visited by devastating typhoons year on year -- YOUR medical missions, classroom building and waterwell projects, scholarships, books, as well as livelihood and disaster relief assistance –- are all heaven-sent! Our valuation of health-related infusions constituted 83% or P2.11 billion pesos, and benefited 14.8 million individuals in 81 provinces.
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Zeroing in on the state of Hawaii in microcosmic terms -– while the overall infusion
from Filipino-Americans through our LINKAPIL or Lingkod sa Kapwa Pilipino program
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amounted to P2.19 billion pesos or 88.5% of the overall diaspora donations worldwide , ours was a P38.5 million pesos, 12-year relationship sustained by your endless meetings, beauty contests, hard selling of tickets, sponsorship solicitations, and budget pinching. These figures do not even take into account those of you who direct your efforts to your preferred hometown beneficiaries through other channels, but they suffice to tell us that, as Carlos Bulosan famously said: “The Philippines is in the heart!” of the Filipino diaspora.
HAWAII (USA) DONATIONS THRU CFO-LINKAPIL (1998-2012)
DONOR PROJECT BENEFICIARY/
LOCATION YEAR PHP
Aloha Medical Mission Equipment, Medical Mission, Supplies
Congress of Visayan Organization (COVO)/Hawaii International Relief Organization (HIRO)
Calamity Relief Assistance
Benguet, Southern Leyte
2006 2010
1,260,000.00
Rotary Club of Honolulu c/o PhilConGen Honolulu
Housing Southern Leyte 2007 1,920,000.00
Feed the Hungry, Inc./Hawaii International Relief
Water well, Livelihood
Southern Leyte 2007 2009
796,302.10
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Organization (HIRO) Mr. Don Alvarez Scholarship Cebu 2008 4,139.60 Feed the Hungry, Inc./Kona Visayan Club of Hawaii
Classroom, Calamity Relief
Laguna, Cebu, Quezon City
2009 2010
879,000.00
The Filipino Community Center, Inc./State Senator Clarence Nishihara/Congress of Visayan Organizations (COVO)/ Hawaii International Relief Organizations (HIRO)
Feed the Hungry, Inc./Hawaii International Relief Organization (HIRO)/Bicol Association of Hawaii
Classroom Catanduanes 2008 400,000.00
Hawaii International Relief Organization (HIRO)
Livelihood Benguet 2010 168,000.00
TOTAL DONATIONS
P38,540,294.18
SOURCE: COMMISSION ON FILIPINOS OVERSEAS
What is the bottom line? Jose Rizal would have been pleasantly surprised to know
that the much maligned “foreign aid” denounced by latter-day xenophobic critics has now been Filipinized too!
As fellow travellers of Rizal, albeit in different time zones, you have immersed
yourselves in the developed world. Like him -- for a decade. Others far longer -- half a century. And your forebears -- even more than a century. You have learned new ways of doing and thinking, unlearned bad habits and picked up good ones. There are those who constitute the ambivalent crowd -- with a burning desire to someday be assimilated into your host countries, while at the same time retaining romantic attachments to and nurturing lofty aspirations for the homeland. Wishing that a developed Philippines could instill a sense of pride in one’s ethnicity.
Many of you, like Rizal, have longed to return, perhaps for a while, and some others,
permanently. Like him, to retire and be reintegrated into the motherland, with a program of engagement utilizing skills, resources, experiences, and perspectives acquired abroad. But unlike him -- whose longings and aspirations for a beloved country were unceremoniously estopped by a death he did not deserve -- you are faced with better options than Rizal.
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A good number of our Filipino diaspora have returned or are contemplating to someday return -- to live, do more good and play out that wish not just to have fun but to engage ‘heads-up’ in successful Philippine human and economic development. IV – Sharing an Exciting Commitment Having seen how torch-bearers such as the century-old Knights of Rizal continue to survive and seek for alternative ways to turn his vision into reality -- there can be no better partner to champion sustainable initiatives to build a Filipino nation, one that is appreciative and proud of our cultural heritage.
What then are the imperatives in the 21st century that call for the engagement of our diaspora Knights of Rizal, especially for the benefit of our overseas Filipino youth? THEY who are at risk. THEY who are of the second, third and fourth generations who stand to lose their sense of identity in the face of assimilation and acculturation. THEY who have experienced shame, deny their ethnicity through sheer ignorance, and suffer identity crises in the face of racial discrimination in a multi-cultural environment.
Fortunately, i have come before you armed with an enabling legislation -– Republic Act 10066 or the National Cultural Heritage Law of 2009. Section XII prescribes that the National Commission for Culture & the Arts -- the Philippine government’s lead agency for the preservation and promotion of the nation’s historical and cultural heritage –- should establish a “Sentro Rizal” in countries with large overseas Filipino communities. These satellite cultural entities are envisioned to serve as repositories of Filipiniana materials, staging grounds for cultural activities, vehicles for generating diaspora appreciation for Philippine language, history, arts and culture, and conduits for instilling a sense of pride in our heritage.
The Commission on Filipinos Overseas, whose own mission is to promote the
interests of overseas Filipinos and their descendants under Batas Pambansa Bilang #79, we are likewise mandated to strengthen the cultural ties and ensure the connectivity especially of our overseas Filipino youth to the motherland. We are also tasked to liaise with other government agencies on behalf of the diaspora. In the implementing rules and regulations of RA10066, the CFO has been designated as a partner agency in the Sentro Rizal project.
To operationalize this heritage appreciation program, we are in search of venues and
partners whose own organizational thrusts reflect not only the spirit and intent of the law, but whose own vision and mission mirror that of our national hero, after whom these centers will be named.
You may be surprised to know that I have often been asked what may be
misconstrued as an irreverent question: Why Rizal? Why not Bonifacio, Aguinaldo, Luna, or del Pilar? My succinct reply: Why not? And proceed to recite a litany of justifications that he is:
An exemplar of the Overseas Filipino and Balikbayan; A temporary migrant enriched by learning, experience and exposure abroad; A distinctive returnee armed with a development-oriented reintegration plan;
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A visionary who imagined and stirred a nation into being; A role model of what is desirable in Filipino youth because when Rizal died
prematurely at age 35, he exhibited the following qualities:
Proven filial devotion Scholarly Observant Reflective Cultured Creative/artistic Idealistic Patriotic Global in outlook Nationalist in sentiment Developmental in orientation
To update you – let me share what we have begun. Under the Commission’s flagship program that we have branded as “D2D” or
“Diaspora to Development” -– we have put in place, among other thrusts, foundation activities to bridge the gap in culture appreciation for our overseas Filipinos, especially our successor generations. For them, we have also conceptualized supplementary programs to help build Youth Leaders in the Diaspora (or YouLeaD) and concomitantly designed a unique Lakbay-Aral or Lakbay-Lahi immersion expeditions for our “blended youth” to open doors of engagement and alternative job options in development fields in the Philippines or elsewhere that have been occasioned by globalization. We are cognizant of the fact that we now have an emergent transnational generation of Chinoys, FilAms, Japinos, Arapinos, Kopinos etc. -– whose multi-lingual and multi-cultural upbringing makes them functional and employable in the Philippines in the fields of diplomacy, trade and tourism, and social entrepreneurship. And as you might have heard –- even in IT or sports like basketball and football -- beyond the usual entertainment arenas such as television, movies, modeling, and the like.
This Arts and Culture Exchange and Dissemination project is mapped out in a
strategic plan with four (4) major components: (1) a databank on overseas Filipinos engaged in Arts and Culture; (2) the development and maintenance of an Arts and Culture Website with links to
culture agencies and Sentro Rizal/s worldwide –- to inform and share a calendar of festivities, forthcoming productions, sponsorship and service learning opportunities etc.;
(3) the institutionalization of a Sentro Rizal in the Philippines, primarily at/by the National Commission for Culture & the Arts in Intramuros, and satellite Sentro Rizal/s in overseas Filipino communities and the 42 Philippine Schools Overseas (currently found in 10 countries, servicing 30,000+ children of OFWs), plus a possible web-based alternative
(4) the promotion of diaspora philanthropy for artists and cultural workers especially in the Schools of “Living” Tradition established by the National
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Commission for Culture & the Arts to recover and document endangered arts, crafts, literature etc. In Phase I of our work plan, we are in process of completing by October 2012,
a digital collection of essential Filipiniana materials which are found in the Commission for Culture & the Arts library. The goal is to put together a balanced patikim or taste of Filipino history, language, arts, and culture across genres and regions, fully aware of our multi-ethnic, diverse, and hyphenated citizenry.
The decision to start with a “virtual Sentro Rizal” as a vehicle for cultural heritage
transmission has been prompted by several factors:
In the last quarter of 2012, we will be ready to launch this in the form of a one (1) terabyte external drive in the Philippine Schools Overseas, and hopefully, in Hawaii through the Filipino Community Center in Waipahu. We are keen on forging a partnership between our Commission and the FilComCen to implement various programs of mutual interest, and to formalize a Sentro Rizal facility where, already, the more than life-sized statue of Jose Rizal stands guard. With your support and cooperation, we would like the pilot FilComCen Sentro Rizal – a first in the United States -- to serve as a showcase for replication/adaptation by other overseas Filipino communities and diplomatic posts. And -- what about the role of the Knights of Rizal? While the Sentro Rizal is not just about Jose Rizal, it stands to reason that a virtual or real time exposition of Rizal’s life and works should remain at its core. Truth to tell, in my forays into some library catalogues and websites, it is evident that there is a digital resource gap which warrants the attention and coming together of dedicated Rizalistas. This is a charge which only the Knights of Rizal can and must lead.
Rizal’s amazing productivity, in a short and suddenly abbreviated life, has gifted us
with works that require assiduous translation, meticulous research and interpretation but with limited visuals that could otherwise make them more appealing.
Therein lies the challenge. My educated guess is that even those that are already
written by and about him, including exhibits and theater or movie productions, have had limited circulation. Perhaps, they are still inaccessible to the millions who constitute the Philippine diaspora today. Producing a virtual Rizaliana is our next recourse. As I have earlier expressed, there is a call for commitment that is at once exciting and daunting. And who else should rise to the challenge on behalf of the diaspora?
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V -- Building the Inclusive-Imagined Nation
It has been a long day for all of us -- interpreting Rizal’s vision for the nation and exploring what roles we can respectively play to see it through. Poor Rizal could only “imagine” what that nation could be and should be. Like him, our overseas Filipinos and your successor generations can only do the same.
Our Hawaii mission therefore is to work together through an equally “inclusive” Sentro Rizal -- with the Filipino Community Center in Oahu and the other islands, the hundreds of members of our numerous Filipino associations, plus the dedicated Knights of Rizal -- to “Build that Imagined Nation FOR and WITH the Diaspora.”
This pioneering initiative we especially dedicate for our diaspora children and
grandchildren’s future. THEY who are at risk and stand to lose their connectivity with the motherland of their forebears. THEY who need our help in strengthening their rootedness, and deepen their sense of belonging to Philippine society even as they are growing up in a multi-cultural environment.
When we do that, then it will be much easier for the Commission on Filipinos
Overseas to correspondingly “Build the Imagined Nation OF Diaspora” Filipinos for the citizenry you have left behind. Our partnership will help them realize what “Migration and Development” truly means -- that even as you have left Philippine shores, the invaluable work you do for us and with us goes on, in this, our now borderless Filipino nation.
Thank you for listening. /MGT-09.02.12, HONOLULU, HAWAII
