Francis gave me three writing prompts, and this is the third. But I think he’ll be disappointed, as the only person I’ve ever written love letters to is a country. My dearest Philippines.
As a teenager in high school, when I discovered my love of country… It was funny. I was in the US, but through books my heart was transported to the Philippines, land of my blood, and my heart has never left there since.
I used to get bored in class and write, while reading on political science and history so I could someday find solutions to the country’s problems, or so I hoped. And occasionally, I’d get a seed of inspiration, and a burst of patriotic passion, and I’d write in pencil on that lined paper…
My dearest Philippines, I am your child… Or rather, I am the child of your child, one who left to find a future for his family abroad…
I don’t remember the rest. But they were promises. Promises that I’d come back someday to take care of my beloved motherland. To help solve the problems that my dad and my grandfather failed to permanently fix.
Three of my four grandparents were in government service. Bastions of integrity. Leaders in their field. Wiped out corruption within their domain under their watch. But when they retired, the problems crept back in, or at least that’s what I heard. I wanted to find a lasting solution…
When I didn’t get enough scholarship offers after high school, and I was facing the prospects of student loans, my dad gave me the option to come to the Philippines sooner. It was a chance to make true on my promise that after college or after high school, I’d go back, and see for myself the problems that my beloved Philippines faced…
Two, three years of love letters, sometimes penciled backwards so my classmates couldn’t read it and tease me, readable only through the back of the page when pressed against a light source… Folded into tight little squares, practically origami in their precision… Love letters acted upon with my crossing an ocean to come home.
For years since I came to the Philippines, I’ve been asked countless times why I never dated in the US, or why I never try to be an expat elsewhere, a thousand whys. And my answer is always the same: My heart is here. My heart is here in the Philippines, and it will never leave. I cannot live abroad in good conscience, so separated from the home of my heart.
My dearest Philippines. I am your child. Or rather, I am the child of your child, one who left to find a future for his family. My dearest Philippines, I have crossed an ocean for you, to keep my many promises to you. And now, I am home.