“Faith is not sim­ply a patience that pas­sively suf­fers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things — with res­ig­na­tions, yes, but above all, with blaz­ing, serene hope.” –Cora­zon Aquino

Ang araw bago sumikat nakikita muna’y banaag. (Early dawn pre­cedes sun­rise.)

For the past year, I have been col­lab­o­rat­ing with two teams in the Philip­pines, on the med­ical social net­work I’ve been work­ing on. It has truly been a plea­sure to work with them, as I have often told my friends and col­leagues. Pro­fes­sional, friendly, and pre­cise, they have exceeded all my expec­ta­tions when we first entered into part­ner­ship. Despite the 12 hour dif­fer­ence, which actu­ally accel­er­ates devel­op­ment when prop­erly focused, we have had few if any prob­lems coör­di­nat­ing our work.

So it is as the dawn pre­cedes sun­rise that after a year of vir­tual meet­ings, con­fer­ence calls, Skype chats, Google Wave updates, Piv­otal Tracker and Track tasks, and the like, I am now trav­el­ing to the Philip­pines for the first time to meet them. And I couldn’t look more for­ward to the trip.

Aan­hin mo ang palasyo, kung ang nakatira ay kuwago. Mabuti pa ang bahay kubo, ang nakatira ay tao. (What good is a palace if it’s inhab­ited by owls. Bet­ter a straw hut inhab­ited by humans.)

From my expe­ri­ence but also from what I’ve researched,

Fil­ipino peo­ple are among the most relaxed and fun-loving peo­ple you will ever meet with an aver­age of about 10 fes­ti­vals being cel­e­brated every month across the nation. So much so, in fact, that there has been a dis­tinc­tion made between reg­u­lar time and “Fil­ipino time”, which is gen­er­ally delayed by thirty min­utes to an hour.

The Fil­ipino pos­sesses a unique abil­ity to main­tain a light­hearted mood no mat­ter what the cir­cum­stances are. Through­out polit­i­cal strife, eco­nomic hard­ships, and a rough colo­nial his­tory, the spirit of the Fil­ipino remains uncon­quered; shar­ing laughs and smiles with every­one they meet. This is key to under­stand­ing the cul­ture and tra­di­tions of the Fil­ipino. The Fil­ipino way of life stems from their desire to live in hap­pi­ness and peace.

As I am half-Brazilian, I can fully relate to this. It sounds like I’ll feel right at home.

Ang tunay na anyaya, sinasama­han ng hila. (A sin­cere invi­ta­tion is accom­pa­nied by a pull [of the hand].)

This fur­ther con­firms it:

The Fil­ipino is known across the globe for being very hos­pitable and pleas­ing to be around. With cur­rently 11 mil­lion Fil­ipinos work­ing over­seas, there are many nations that will con­firm that they are some of the warmest peo­ple you will ever meet. Due to their colo­nial his­tory, Fil­ipinos can be espe­cially accom­mo­dat­ing to West­ern­ers that they come across. They will often turn sheep­ish around them and try to avoid hiya or shame.

Fil­ipinos pos­sess what’s known as utang ng loob, or debt of grat­i­tude, in which they feel obliged to repay any kind­ness that you show them to for­tify their alliance with you. As well as utang ng loob, Fil­ipinos pos­sess a will­ing­ness to engage in coöper­a­tive labor for the good of a per­son, fam­ily, or a com­mu­nity; this is what is known as bayanihan.

For the beau­ti­ful land­scapes and the warm peo­ple, this coun­try is blessed.

philip­pines, travel