Luzviminda Camacho: Making Stride for Pilipinas

 “Woman must not accept; she must challenge. She must not be awed by that which has been built up around her; she must reverence that woman in her which struggles for expression.” - Margaret Sanger

On October 28, 2013, the Philippines made headlines as reports of their seventeenth peace-keeping mission to Haiti decorated both written and internet news publications. The Pilipino contingency is a part of a larger pacifist effort called the Multinational Interim Force. Conceptualized by United Nations in 2004, it was the reaction to the bloody confrontation that occurred between the Haitian government and insurgents that same year. They continue today as a means to maintain peace in Haiti, a country torn by violent anti-government revolts.

As a participant in this initiative, the Armed Forces of the Philippines provides perimeter surveillance, administrative and logistics service to UN diplomats. They ensure the safety of these figureheads as they move forward in their attempts to stabilize Haiti’s still transitional government and prevent any acts of violence that would only increase the amount of blood already spilled.

This ongoing campaign is praiseworthy without help, however, that is not the reason why it was plastered on newspapers and websites in bold print. The reason is Luzviminda Camacho. Camacho is this year's commander of the Philippines' peacekeepers. She is also a woman, the first woman the Philippines has ever sent on such a mission. This is an enormous stride for both Camacho and Pilipino women, and it is not the first she has made. In fact, she is quite familiar with the notoriety that surrounds a 'first woman leader'. She was the first female to command ships in the Pilipino Navy (four naval vessels over a period of three years). Assigned to traditionally male-occupied positions, Camacho is both carving out a larger space for women in the Pilipino military and proving that the intellectual skills of strategy and leadership do not elude women as much of society may think.

Gender Equality in the Philippines

Heavily influenced by Spanish colonialism, the Philippines is a society that, in its early years, centered itself a patriarchal ideal. Men were breadwinners and women homemakers. However, with the ascent of female President Corazon Aqunio, the Philippines saw major changes that allowed women to shatter the "glass ceiling" in the Philippines. Not only was a women assigned to the most influential seat of power in the nation, but Aquino released a revised the constitution so that it guaranteed Pilipinas impartiality in the eyes of the law and protection in the workplace. The following 30 years brought even more progress, enacting legislation that counteracted gender discrimination in political representation, reception of land, and entrance into military schools.  Women were also protected, by law, from sexual harassment, rape, and partners seeking mail-order-brides. As a result, the Philippines, today, boasts the title of the best performer of gender equality in the Asia-Pacific, ranking number six in on the list of most gender-equal nations.

As noteworthy as this accomplishment is, there are still instances, albeit reduced, of workplace exploitation, and violence against women. These instances are proof that there are still obstacles hindering complete gender equality; although the "glass wall" has been broken, shards of it remain. Luzviminda Camacho is, then, more than just the first Pilipino female to command a naval fleet and more than just the first Pilipina ambassador to Haiti. She is an example of women who refuse to let their brilliance be repressed. She is not a woman who will bashfully reject compliments, but rather eagerly accept the well-deserved rewards of her excellence.

As a naval captain, ready to confront the dangers of  protecting foreign diplomats, she has not limited herself to "making puddings and knitting stockings." She is as physically capable as any man. As a single mother, constantly leaving her son for foreign seas and countries, she does more than "[play] on the piano and [embroider] handbags." Her emotional and intellectual capacities are as far-reaching as that of her male counterparts. Although she may not know it, Camacho is an active warrior evening the playing field between the sexes, working to close the gap that has deceivingly defined men as society's "more privileged creatures."

[I]t is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that [women] ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.” ― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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Passing on the M.E.A.L. Plan

It is a running joke in my family that my siblings and I did not take up the "M.E.A.L." career plan championed by every parent. M.E.A.L.–that is, Medicine, Engineering, Accounting, and Law professions–is the golden standard, the life paths parents cross their fingers for as soon as their toddlers start school. M.E.A.L. jobs are hard-earned titles, widely respected, financially stable, and of no interest to my siblings and I. Trust me, I often wish I grew up with dreams to be a doctor like so many of my admirable friends, but my restless mind led me to a different calling–a calling that too often generates furrowed-brow-wrinkled nose-reactions at Pilipino family parties.

"A writer? But, why? Are you sure you don't want to take up nursing?"

Cue: sigh.

I have three siblings. My oldest brother studied linguistics, traveled around the world teaching English for several years, then returned to be a high school Mandarin and French teacher. My other older brother studied Film and Television, had a run as an NBC Page, and now works in production at Discovery Communications. I'm studying journalism–a career my heart was set on since I was 14. My 15-year-old sister doesn't know what she wants to be yet, but the M.E.A.L. plan isn't on her radar either.

Our parents never imposed any M.E.A.L. dreams on us. They let us discover our true passions, only bolstered by being raised in a city where opportunity sits at your fingertips. I was only 12 when my mom gave me a door sign that read "Future Award-Winning Author at Work."

Why did we not pursue more traditional careers? Why did we choose the risk of uncertain paths with no set plan or mode of study? Despite my parents' undying encouragement and gung-ho dive into uncertainty alongside their kids, I still have felt guilt. Sometimes, I've wished they could boast about their daughter-the-doctora. I have felt the succeed-or-else urgency unique to second generation kids, and have been reminded of the struggles often associated with parents who leaving the Philippines in order to provide for their families.

I recently read an article in The Atlantic titled "All Immigrants Are Artists," profiling one of my favorite writers, Edwidge Danticat. It put into perspective the creative pursuits of my siblings and I perfectly.

"First-generation immigrants often model artistic behavior for their children... I realize now I saw artistic qualities in my parents’ choices—in their creativity, their steadfastness, the very fact that we were in this country from another place. They’re like the artist mentors people have in any discipline—by studying, by observing, by reading, you’ve had this model in the form of someone’s life. My mother could not have found time for creative pursuits with four children and a factory job. But she modeled the discipline and resourcefulness and self-sacrifice that are constant inspirations in my own life’s work. The things she did, the choices she made, made the artist’s life possible for me. I didn’t know it, but she taught me that being an artist makes sense."

If stringing words together, painting meaning from language, and capturing life's moments with pen and paper fulfill me both personally and professionally–I do not need to apologize. The M.E.A.L. plan wasn't for me, and it doesn't have to apply to others who have felt guilt as like I did. Besides, there are young Pilipino girls and boys with creative dreams like mine, and they need a role model to look to. Why not me?

Blood is Thicker than Water: The Importance of Family in the Pilipino Culture

THWACK

A thin bar of plastic had descend on my shoulder. A hanger and my older sister wielding it.

SMACK

My sister was crying. My clenched fist had just collided with her stomach.

I was not quite ten and she not quite fourteen.

If you have siblings then you probably are, I venture to say, familiar with this type of experience. Growing up with two sisters – who were more like brothers when they were angry – I have experienced, and inflicted, my fair share of emotional and physical blows. I cannot count how many times I’ve been hit, punched, bitten or screamed at. How often I heard the words, “I hate you!" or felt the sting of a cold shoulder is beyond me. When we fought—and we fought A LOT—no feelings were spared, no insult was unused and at least one of us walked away with a bruise.

When I reminisce about all the childhood clashes that classified my sisters as enemies, two things happen. One, I realize that my sisters and I were little barbarians when we were younger. I mean when you resort to biting an adversary, you've regressed a few evolutionary steps.  Two, I look at us now and wonder how did three people who could so easily "hate"  each other become three people who could not live without one another? I suppose some of it has to do with getting older. As the number on our birthday cakes increased, the petty differences that pitted us against one another dwindled in importance. But was it really just time that changed us? Definitely not.

A blur of flying fists and ugly words — especially now, more than a decade later— I remember very few details about our fights. What I do remember is my father saying this:

"Love your sisters. At the end of the world, your family is all you have."

Repeated each time I ran to my room in tears, my dad's advice became tradition. No argument felt complete unless it ended in his voice and these words. There seems nothing abnormal about this; just a father trying to mediate between his bickering children.  However, there was strange and remarkable about this advice: I didn't have to fling a toy at my sisters to hear it. Any situation in which my dad had my attention, he found some way to remind me how essential my family is (the man could turn conversation about Christmas dinner into a sermon about family!). But however much fun I like to poke at my father's lessons, they worked. There is no one I trust more than my little sister, no one I can joke around with like my Ate. And as I became older, I began to understand these values were not exclusive to just my family. Like the eight-rayed sun, close family bonds are indicative of the Pilipino culture.

The family stands at the center of the Pilipino culture. A beautiful feature that only adds to the richness of our culture, many Pilipinos - myself included - do not often ask why. Why is family such a crucial part of life for Pilipinos?  According to Ador Vincent Mayol in the Global Nation Inquirer, religion is the driving force behind this mentality. Mayol asserts that the family is a gift from God and as a cohesive unit it is a representation of the Lord. It is no surprise, then, that the arduously Catholic Pilipinos feel the need to strengthen family ties as another means of showing reverence to God. No doubt, the family, my family,  is a great blessing. However, I would like to share a different possibility.

The Philippines is a poor country. Yes, it houses the very modernized, very affluent Manila, but the greater majority of this island nation is in a state of seemingly perpetual poverty; its poverty level have remained stagnant for the past six years.  So impoverished is the Philippines that the goal of many of its younger residents is to leave the country, unwilling to raise a family in these dire conditions. This is a disheartening fact, but it is one that, I believe, encourages Pilipino families to develop such unshakable relationships. When you have  no financial stability and very few material possessions, and when you live in fear that at any moment you could be removed from school because of insufficient funds, the only constant thing is your family. In a country whose economic state is constantly testing the physical and emotional resilience of its people, the family in the Pilipino culture is a gold mine of strength.  It is the cushion for when one falls and the holler of joy when one succeeds. The family provides, for Pilipinos, a sense of togetherness and emotional stability vital in a situation earmarked by toil and inconsistency.

Am I glad that my parents, my titos and titas, my grandparents faced such hardship? Never. No one should have to wonder if they'll have enough money to buy a decent meal or suitable clothes. However, I do consider myself lucky having been born to Pilipino parents, born into a culture defined by endurance and a clear understanding about the importance of family.

"We never had a lot, but we always had each other." -Glenn Estavillo, my dad

On Traditional Courtship in the Barrio

When I find myself surrounded by female relatives, there is one topic, both beloved and dreaded, that always enters conversation. Once I was with my mom, two aunts, sister, and four girl cousins, waiting in an airport, when the ubiquitous question popped up.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" When the answer was no, there was a follow up question.

"Well, is anyone courting you right now?"

This routine usually generates incredulous reactions from myself and fellow twenty-something year old cousins at the use of the dated word "courting." Come on, Tita, people don't do that these days, we'd explain while scrolling through our iPhone texts.

Determined to enlighten us millennials about traditional romancing, my mom and aunts openly reminisced their own stories of courtship in the deep provinces of Bicol, which is where they grew up. They recounted expectations of interested men, as they had to fetch water, cut wood, perform a harana, do farm work, and much more to win over not just a girl, but her whole family.

One particular experience from their stories stuck out, however.

Every year during fiesta season, teens in the town flocked to the town plaza for a dance. One of my aunts admitted to actually sneaking out of the house just to make the event. Ladies put on their best dresses. Men put on cheap cologne and, with no gel available, used vaseline to slick back their hair. My mom said that girls sat in a fenced off area, while men–some visiting from other barangays–raced to approach the most beautiful ones to ask for a dance. The few minutes they swayed, always a conservative distance apart, was their getting-to-know-you phase.

"It was my biggest fear that if I went to the plaza, I'd be a wallflower. No one would pick me to dance with them," my mom said, sounding as worried as she must have been at 17.

"Girls are taught to be timid. But they were really put on a pedestal," she reasoned. My aunts nodded their heads in agreement.

Sheesh, I thought. That is way too much waiting around.

"Sometimes it'd take years before a girl finally gave a pining guy her attention."

Years?

"When you court a girl, it's more valuable if it took you a while. You learn patience... this thing now about 'hooking up' and whatever? OH-MY-G! Ohhh no!" she laughed. My dad sent my mom love letters and poems, and even picked her flowers from the garden.

"That's how it should be, Kristina."

There is something undeniably alluring about this slow-moving game played by lovers in my parents' youth. Anticipation. Innocence. Things that seem scarce in today's world, where Tinder rules the dating sphere. Even the words associated with courtship: manligaw, kilig, ibig, kasintahan, sound undeniably poetic on the tongue. I am romanticizing, however. I know the foundation of my golden-age syndrome (the belief that a past condition is infinitely better than the present) is from a singular experience and antiquated tradition.

In reality, I'd never subscribe to the doctrine of timidness that is essentially imposed upon women, including my mom, from birth (the "Maria Clara" syndrome, if you will). If I like a guy, I let him know, much to my mother's chagrin. However, my mom's stories do make me reflect on love and the state of "courtship" today. How have hearing these stories of my titas and my mom growing up affected how I act around guys and what I expect out of modern day love? Is it completely irrational to wonder if someone will ever serenade me outside my window?

While I already know the answer, I'm just going to lament and leave this song right here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59jm5_8KqhE

Photo credit: Tagalog SEAsite Project

Cultural Differences in Discipline: If I Did That, My Mom Would Have A...

“Mom, get me this one. I want this one!”

One too many times have I heard this phrase fall from a child's lips, as they whine relentlessly for some new contraption that has piqued their interest. Their voices are sprinkled with an unsettling cockiness, an overconfidence that their demands will be met. And God forbid they are not. Their faces swell up beet red, disbelief and anger flaring up in their nostrils. They become little bulls, their voices growing to the shrillness of dog whistles. Mistake me not. It is understandable if a child of four or five acts up this way. Public etiquette would still be a very new concept to children of such a tender age. Plus, these toddlers are only just leaving the stage of their lives during which they are always accommodated. During the ages of one through three, one could be fed, played with and lulled to sleep simply by crying. The idea of not being carried everywhere is still considerably foreign to them. Their insolence can be entertained. They are not the ones I’m worried about. They can and will learn.

What frightens me is when I hear that whine, twist my head in its direction and I see an eleven, twelve or thirteen-year-old. I try my best to blink away the surprise but, once I am out of sight, I can feel the question mark forming in my eyes. I am so confused each time I see a sight like this. And, as I said, I have seen it one too many times.

Children can act that way? I would think. If I did that, my mom would slap me.

When my sisters and I were younger, we would misbehave. We weren’t angels. We were little children, needy and curious to see how far something could bend before it broke. Whenever my parents were the targets of those mentalities, they gave us an incentive not to act that way again. A slap or pinch on the shoulder, a smack on the mouth. Never meant to hurt us, they were physical reminders that disrespect would not be tolerated.

I knew nothing was the wrong with the way my parents handled our behavior. So, I was shocked when I laughingly shared my experiences with a friend and heard the words, “That’s abuse.”

Pilipino Mentality vs. Americanized Mentality: the Difference between Discipline and Abuse 

“That’s abuse.”

The words lingered on me. Never before have I received that type of reaction, especially from another Pilipina. I knew discipline to be a tradition in Pilipino households. Ask any Pilipino teenager, “What were you hit with as a child?” and you will get a slew of different answers. But you will find that none who answer your questions will do so with resentment.  In fact many of them laugh, reminiscing about what stunt they pulled to find themselves on the receiving end of a wooden spoon and how whatever they did they never did it again. The thwack of a tsinelas against your backside or of a palm against your face, all of these become memories Pilipinos jokingly exchange.  So to hear the rancor in her voice, I could not understand. I couldn’t, that is, until I inspected more closely this friend who disapproved so intently. We were both Pilipino, but her personality bore no resemblance to the features that defined others like us. Time and again, I expressed my confusion to her. Each time she only answered, “Yea, I’m just really Americanized.” That explained the Santo Nino-less living room but does that really affect our attitudes on the abuse vs. discipline debate?  I learned that it does.

The Pilipino culture is one that deeply values respect, especially to one’s parents. When you show disrespect, you invite punishment. A light slap to the face waited for me when I ‘sassed’ my parents. A pinch the shoulder was to be expected when I misbehaved in public. But it was only when I diminished my parents’ authority that I was disciplined. For the Pilipinos, discipline is not something done out of spite, rather it is something done to preserve the ideal of parental appreciation. It is not a way for parents to hurt their children but to teach them how to respect others and, thus, gain respectability in return. This, according to Laws.com, is the main difference between discipline and abuse. While discipline is a controlled reaction to a misdeed, abuse makes no distinction between right or wrong, leaving emotional and physical wounds on its recipients often for no reason.

“Americanized” people, I feel, are unable to perceive that difference.  When the only examples of discipline that they are exposed to are televised abuse stories, Americans are given almost no choice but to be biased against physical punishment. They are forced to think in extremes, automatically associating discipline with fear-inducing violence when it is not. They don’t realize that a middle ground does exist, and one of the places you can find it is in a Pilipino house.

I will always remember that conversation with that particular friend. I was in seventh grade and, although I knew that my parents were not abusing me, there was no way to properly explain that. Intuition was not enough ammunition against the black-and-white ideology of children. I was not aware of the shades of gray that vindicated my parents from the label of child-abusers. However, I walked away from that conversation confident that my mom and dad were loving parents. Now older, I can and do defend my parents actions as something they learned from their parents, something that is indicative of the Pilipino culture, and something that allowed me to become a considerate and respectful individual.

Photo Credit: izquotes.com