FILIPINOS: The Sweetest and Most Love-Centric People in the World
TODAY - I was determined to write an article about the Wonderful people of the Philippines. This desire was further catalyzed yet again with my coincidental attendance of a lovely Filipino church, and guess what the message was: none other than “LOVE”… Yup, LOVE as the only thing that is the greatest among all virtues, with the others being “HOPE” and “FAITH”. It kind of renewed my vows about writing this article.
Often I feel like I am in my early 40’s going on my early 90’s. The reason is because I have lived life in such a complete way that I have gotten to interact with people from all walks of life (i.e., race, creed, national origin, religion etc.) And admittedly, every culture has its own pro’s and con’s. Yet, there are cultures that are simply more hospitable and love-centric for one reason or another. I have worked with engineers, lawyers, doctors, educators, and entrepreneurs of all professions, and have learned as much from them as they have learned from me. I never think that I know enough, and the latter has fueled my love for knowledge as evidenced by my academic credentials.
To me, a culture is like a computer’s operating system or system software (e.g., Windows, MAC OS). It is demonstrated in every aspect of a society (i.e., law, education, cuisine, language, infrastructure, kindness, politeness, hospitality and most importantly love for one’s fellow human-being). While one may not be a computer engineer, and thus, may not have a clue as to how particular operating systems work, one can still enjoy its features, and enjoy using it. Such is the case with a wonderful culture that I will affectionately call the “Filipino Love Culture”.
My interactions with Filipinos started as of 15+ years ago. As a businessman, I would communicate with them about services that they were providing for US companies often from called centers that were located the Philippines. Their kindness, professionalism, and empathy were nothing short of remarkable, and so remarkable that I started having some Filipino friends. I even met the family members of some of those folks in the States and even partied with them, and of course enjoyed Filipino cuisine as I did today. Excellent people!
As of today, the super of my apartment building is Filipino. Excellent dude… I have also met countless Filipino men and women that I have become friends, and I have yet to meet one who was arrogant, disrespectful, ungrateful, angry, and unpleasant. To be honest, it took me a while to come to this conclusion as by nature human beings are competitive and I know that the second this article is published, there will be people who will have implied that I am biased. However, to those people I will say, “Please put my observation to the test”.
I have spoken to countless people who have also interacted with Filipinos and visited the Philippines and the message is the same. “Very nice, humble and hospitable people”… as of today I have a few special Filipino friends for whom I feel compelled to visit the Philippines in the foreseeable future. A couple of them I have known for nearly 12 years and they are still as nice and kind as they used to be when I first met them. No complaint whatsoever on this end…
Today, I made at least 10 new Filipino new friends. They are kind, observant, smart, courteous, hospitable, supportive, compassionate, lovely, Godly, creative, interesting, and to be honest simply DECENT!
Today, as I attended the Church, I was the only Black man there. But there were also two White men who were the only Whites. I also noticed that these White men were attracted to them for the same reason. YOU SEE… birds of the same feather flock together… in other words; there are virtues that make people of different races THE SAME. In a nutshell, kind, observant, smart, courteous, hospitable, supportive, compassionate, lovely, Godly, creative, interesting, entrepreneurial and to be honest simply DECENT are attracted to people who share similar traits.
We all need to feel the warmth of kind and honest human beings (i.e. LOVE). Often, when such a love is missing among people of our kind, we find surrogates. The heart does not care about the source of the love, but as human beings we can see trends… and we start appreciating certain groups for certain things that they offer to humanity. We appreciate Blacks for their soulful nature, musical talent, and athletic abilities. We appreciate Germans and the Japs for their desire to seek perfection in their crafts. We appreciate the Americans for Capitalism and a consumer-driven economy etc.
TODAY – I appreciate Filipinos for reminding me that Human beings can be CONSISTENTLY decent, loving, understanding, compassionate, and caring. I pray that God will allow me to learn more about this wonderful people and as I do so, I hope to share aspects of their culture that can be emulated in other culture.
If anything less, I will not forget the message that I learned from this amazing FILIPINO Church today that showered me with LOVE, and made me that it didn’t matter where I came from, or where they came from, ONLY LOVE can make all human beings being the same, and only LOVE can truly bring us closer to GOD!
1 Corinthians 13 – “LOVE IS THE BEST… DON’T SETTLE FOR LESS~”
I think every culture and race of human-beings can learn something from the Filipinos... certainly, it is better to LOVE than to HATE… They are happier than seemingly any other group of people that I have ever met. I can easily contrast that with my experience with far too many Indians. See my article entitled "Are Indians Culturally More Racist than Whites"
Undoubtedly, I will be visiting the Philippines over and over and over… I want to try their dishes and I want to know WHY they are so darn NICE… and I hope to share the results of my research with the rest of the World then.
Perhaps they may share some traits of other formerly colonized nations (e.g., preference for European-like phenotype and kinder to foreigners than to each other) but their version of it is minimized because they seem to be nicer to each other than any other formerly colonized groups of whom I am aware.
By the way, Filipinos don't speak "Filipino", their language is called "TAGALOG"
I LOVE YOU in Tagalog is "MAHAL KITA!"
The latter is the first thing I learned to say in Tagalog years ago. I wonder WHY.... LOL
Dr. Pete Lorins is the Chief Editor of LorinsPOST.com. This article was sponsored by LORINS.biz