Publisher's Note

Publisher’s Note
by CK May is the month of flowers not just in the Philippines but also here in Calgary. A lot of my neighbors have done their spring cleaning and unfortunately I cannot cope up with them. I remember that during this time of the year my husband, Hank gets busier day by day. He takes care [...]
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Page added on October 18, 2011

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The other FB… “Filipino Bayanihan”

By: Glynn Galla

We all know that Philippines is the “Text Capital” of the world and now Philippine ranks 6th place of the top facebook users worldwide. As many of us is so busy updating their status, uploading their picture and checking in where they are in the globe thru “FACEBOOK”, there’s one thing that we should still embody, our very own “FB” Filipino Bayanihan. As the recent typhoon hits the Philippines, many of our kababayans were affected of the unexpected huge volume of rainfall that results to the flood. Many areas were still affected by flood, particularly in Luzon. Bulacan is also one the provinces that directly affected by the typhoon “Nesat”. Houses in waters, scarcity of food, wipeout out livelihood, and children getting sick are just few to mention problems that our kababayans’ are facing now.

Like in the old days we show our sympathy to our fellowmen by helping each other, such as helping a kababayan’s nipa hut to transfer to a different place, if you’re living in countryside, you help pulling fishnet on the shore, and planting rice seedlings on the farm, these acts are the symbol our “Bayanihan”.

As we move into another century, we barely see these customs now. New generation is changing, and we can still find acts of helping but in a different way. We show this, by supporting our very own candidate to a pageant, or nominating our very own natural wonders thru online voting. But what is really the essence of Bayanihan?

“Walang tutulong sa Filipino kundi kapwa Filipino” I’ve learned this saying when I was in my younger years and I really believed in this until now. Whenever we experience sadness, tragedy, catastrophe, there’s always people that we can depend on…our fellow Filipino. Unity is the key to a successful country, we cannot be called “one” if we are not united and helping our fellow Filipinos is one of it. Helping without expecting any return is one of the old traits as a Filipino that we should still practice. As I saw the news for the past weeks, headlines about the aftermath really touched me, like people asking for help while waving their hands on the house roof is one that awakes me as Filipino, if we can do something for them. Please let us help our fellow kababayans, let us show our own version of “FB”. Let’s pray for them. Let’s help them.

The other FB… “Filipino Bayanihan”

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