World Without Borders
Patricia Evangelista, a 19-year-old, Mass Communications sophomore of
University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman, did the country
proud Friday night by besting 59 other student contestants from 37
countries in the 2004 International Public Speaking competition
conducted by the English Speaking Union (ESU) in London.
She triumphed over a field of exactly 60 speakers from all over the
English-speaking world, including the United States, United Kingdom and
Australia, reported Maranan.
The board of judges' decision was unanimous, according to contest
chairman Brian Hanharan of the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC).
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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 does that to you. I
have sixteen 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 just 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 twelve-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 UK'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 travelled 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 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 just 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
windows on a bright Christmas morning.
Mabuhay and Thank you.
