Editor's Note

Ties That Bind

By Marisse G. Abelgas

It’s been weeks since Americans had gone to the polls to vote for a new president. Hopefully, by the time this sees print, America will have had a new president. Don’t you find it interesting that both candidates never seemed to make an effort to reach out to the Filipino-American community while they were campaigning? At the rate both camps are fighting tooth and nail for every single vote, one would think that at least one of them would have recognized our much-vaunted “two million”- strong community in this country.

Even more interesting is that no matter how much our community leaders flog statistics to prove our strength in numbers, political empowerment remains as elusive to this present-day generation of Filipino-Americans as it did to the “manongs” who began the struggle decades ago.

We can’t exactly blame American politicians for ignoring us. What candidate or politician in his right mind would spend crucial campaign hours and precious campaign funds on an ethnic group that’s more interested in Atong Ang, or juetenggate or the peso-dollar exchange rate or Nora Aunor, than in issues like social security, public education, tax cuts for the middleclass, healthcare reform or environmental conservation? It’s a lot easier to mobilize Filipino-Americans for a dinner-dance where the guest speaker is a barangay captain from back home, than to invite them to a townhall meeting with presidential candidates.

If we go by statistics, sheer numbers alone would have, should have, made us a powerful political force to contend with a long time ago. The number of Filipino-American associations in Southern California alone is mind-boggling. Multiply the average number of Filipino associations and organizations in every state by the average number of members in an association and you can count hundreds of thousands... easily. If those numbers are true and accurate, our community is a virtual mine of votes for any politician worth his salt.

Aye, and there’s the rub: how many members of the Filipino-American community are American citizens? The underlying issue is not so much how many we are, but rather, how many of us can actually vote as American citizens.

American politicians know our numbers better than we do. They know a great number of Filipinos in the U.S. don't, or can’t vote. Many Filipinos who are legal permanent residents hold off applying for naturalization because they want to have the best of both worlds: a good life in America, and the probability of eventually going back home to the Philippines where they can live out the rest of their retirement years. Namamangka sa dalawang ilog, ‘ika nga.

The problem is, we can’t use our numbers to attain political empowerment if many of us will continue to think this way. Empowerment will come only if and when the men who hold the reins of government, and those who aspire to do so, can be convinced that as an ethnic group, we are more interested in having a hand in determining our future in this country, more interested in forging our destiny as American citizens than in constantly making “miron” to Mr. Estrada and his house of cards.

I’m not suggesting that we cut our ties to the homeland. Neither am I suggesting that we shun Philippine politics and close our eyes to whatever goes on back home. Far from it. In our pursuit of political empowerment in America, we don’t have to forget where we came from. We should, in fact, pass on our culture and heritage to succeeding generations, and make sure they appreciate their roots as much as we do. And we should do everything we can to ensure that the likes of Mr. Estrada never get away with corruption and oppression.

But even as we continue to nurture the ties that bind us to our home country, we should at least take the necessary steps to empower ourselves in America with our votes. We can begin by helping other Filipinos legalize their status in this country, by referring them to employers who can petition them, or by supporting groups and individuals who actively help community members in immigration matters. Eventually, those we have helped can be counted too, once they become citizens. We can take a cue from the Hispanics who empowered themselves by launching a citizenship drive, something our community leaders can spearhead by mobilizing our numerous associations and organizations. If Filipino-Americans can do this with the same passion and conviction that they throw their feet all over the dance floor, politicians will sit up and take notice. It also wouldn’t hurt to take an interest in political issues and the political process in our adopted country, where we have already staked our lives and our future.

Unless we can translate our numbers into votes, those numbers will amount to nothing. We can scream “two million-strong” all we want, until our faces turn blue, and nobody will listen. That’s because we have no right to seek political empowerment in America unless we commit ourselves to her as her citizens.

As one of the presidential candidates succinctly puts it: our vote is our voice. Without it, we will simply languish as a silent, powerless minority.

Their father's daughters

By Marisse G. Abelgas
(first published September 2002)

Imagine a novel about three bewitching women. Three daughters living in the shadows of their deceased fathers' famous names. Three women carrying the burden of their country's expectations on top of their fathers' enduring legacies. Three restless souls defiantly charting their own individual destinies, and in the process, turning their country's history askew.

It's an historical novel of epic proportions, cleverly compressed into three riveting chapters, as gleaned from the lives of three individuals whose fates are intertwined in a country beset by poverty, strife, tragedy and scandal.

The first chapter deals with a woman named Glo, daughter of a president people have nicknamed "Dadong." (In the country where this story takes place, everyone is called -- for better or for worse -- by their nicknames.) Dadong is a former president of the country, but when the story unfolds several decades later, Dadong's daughter is already president, not quite having followed his footsteps by winning the presidential election, but president nonetheless. A year before she assumes the presidency, Glo's predecessor -- a former actor who plunders the nation to keep his mistresses happy -- is booted out of office through a melodramatic uprising by the people. Claiming they have no choice (she being his vice-president and all), the people install Glo as president.

The people accept her ascension to power grudgingly and they let her know it, often pointing out her diminutive frame as unbefitting of the highest office of the land. The antsy Glo responds by turning Napoleonic from head to toe, talking tough as she forms an alliance with the white people from across the seas to subdue the rebels in her own destitute land. In their generosity, the white people give her millions of dollars to rebuild her country, and ask only that they be allowed to use her country in any way they wish. She eases out her political opponents by humiliating them in public, much in the same manner that she humiliates crime suspects by parading them in front of television cameras. If you are not with me, she tells her people, then you are communists. The people cower in fear, not knowing what the word communist really means.

She's mad, the people whisper among themselves. But Glo is undeterred. There is a method to her madness that makes her proud. The chapter ends in a cliffhanger, as she prepares to win an election, telling the people she built them roads and bridges and buildings with the money she had taken from the white people. Be grateful and impressed, she tells them, and reminds them how she singlehandedly (as seen on TV) captured criminals and brought peace to their troubled land. Blinded by her own methodical madness, Glo fails to recognize impending defeat, and the reader is left to wonder whether she even survives her presidency at all.

The second chapter is about a woman named Imee, daughter of the president they call Ferdie, who defeated Glo's father in his bid for re-election. When Ferdie's term is about to expire, Ferdie declares martial law and declares himself president for life. Ferdie, like Glo, raises the communist bogey and imprisons all those who dare to cross him. The people are subdued, not knowing what communist meant even then, knowing only that Ferdie was too powerful for them to mess with. Meanwhile, Imee grows up in the palace where Glo now holds court, a place Imee dubs the "snakepit" in her younger years. Professing no love for the palace and the power it shelters, Imee runs off with a married man, the husband of a beauty queen. As her chapter unfolds, she is seemingly reformed and becomes a beloved politician in her home province. Imee rails against Glo, and in an ironic twist of fate, makes strange bedfellows of the communists her father hounded with impunity.

The third chapter is all about Kris, daughter of the man they call Ninoy. Of the three fathers in this novel, he is the one who -- by force of circumstance -- bequeaths a legacy, not of power, but of self-sacrifice. From the day Imee's father declares martial law, Ninoy would fight him, not just for the presidency, but for freedom as well. Ferdie throws Ninoy in jail and eventually exiles him, barring him from returning to the country on pain of death. But the obstinate Ninoy does return, and is assassinated by Ferdie's men. Ninoy's martydom galvanizes the people who boot Ferdie out of the Palace and install Ninoy's wife, Cory, as president. As her chapter unfolds, Kris is constantly putting on make-up, reveling in her television show where she gossips with hairdressers about actors and actresses. Eventually, she is forced to gossip about herself : her affair with one of the country's politicians, a former comedian who's married to a former sex symbol, has just gone the way of another scandal. It's her fourth scandalous affair with a high-profile married man, prompting Imee to quip: "Compared to Kris, I'm a nun!" Embarrassed out of her wits, Kris' mother, the former president and wife of the martyred Ninoy, asks the entire nation to pray for her errant daughter, again.

Interested? A novel sounds good, but I'm really dying to see the sitcom.