For the past couple of years, life has been so hard for people across the globe: the COVID-19 pandemic, armed conflict in some parts of the world, human-induced and natural disasters, and hunger brought about by the effects of the pandemic has caused us emotional, physical and psychological distress.
Sadly, many people are not emotionally strong enough to face and deal with these challenges in life. In contrast, there are people who are emotionally and psychologically strong enough to deal with life’s unfortunate events, one of them is the Filipinos who are able to withstand and weather through life's challenges.
Undeniably, the Filipinos are a different breed of people on earth. They possess these exemplary virtues that they use as their potent weapons in dealing with unfortunate circumstances in life.
The Filipinos are no strangers to life's difficulties and hardships. They have gone through all forms of difficulties in life and they face these misfortunes head-on. In the Philippines, many Filipinos experience hardships in life at a tender age.
The rags to riches stories among many Filipinos are real. Using poverty as their motivation, many Filipinos strive hard in life to be on top of the social ladder. The successful “rags to riches” life of Sen. Emanuel 'Manny' Pacquiao is just one of them.
In today's blog, let's find out how the Filipinos deal with and overcome life’s challenges using their exemplary values listed below.
Optimism. This is one of the virtues of the Filipinos that they can be proud of. Regardless of how difficult a situation they are in, the Filipinos would never lose hope and continue with their respective lives dealing with the challenges head-on.
They always exude positivity and optimism for good things to happen amidst challenges and misfortunes in their life. Optimism is the distinct quality of the Filipinos manifested in different ways and circumstances:
Fighting extreme poverty. For centuries, and despite the country's abundance of natural assets, millions of Filipinos have been suffering from extreme poverty in life. Millions of Filipino families are experiencing involuntary hunger every day in the country.
This miserable situation is aggravated by the lingering economic effects caused by the pandemic where millions of Filipinos have lost their livelihoods either temporarily or permanently as business establishments particularly small enterprises have been forced to cease operations due to lockdowns and loss of purchasing power of the Filipinos.
Losing loved ones. This is the most feared event that any family does not want to experience. And yet, life is full of uncertainties and surprises. We don't know what will happen in the future. There are things that would happen in our life unexpectedly that will cause us emotional stress.
Losing a job. Losing a job is both painful and difficult, especially if someone has a family to feed. And once in a while, many Filipinos have experienced losing a job. Despite this particular misfortune, Filipinos would never lose hope.
Lingering illness. Having an illness would cause depression not just to a person having an illness but also to his family. The emotional pain would be doubly hard if the family doesn't have enough medicines.
The Filipinos, no matter what difficulties they have gone through will surely rise and recover from any difficult situation. Their virtue of resilience is best manifested after a disaster like after being hit by a destructive typhoon or an earthquake or any difficult situations arising from unfortunate events in life.
As human beings, they would also feel distressed after experiencing hardships in life. But what makes them set apart from other breeds of people is their ability to quickly rise and recover from painful, traumatic situations. Despite experiencing hardships in life, they would still recover.
Compassion. Another remarkable virtue of the Filipinos is their being compassionate towards their countrymen or towards a complete stranger. Social experiments videos where foreign social media influencers would pretend to be beggars and would ask for cash or in kind from Filipino strangers.
Filipinos will compassionately give even if nothing is left for them. These social experiments are a testament to the Filipinos’ compassionate nature. Filipinos’ compassion is manifested in many ways and situations.
No less than former Philippine Pres. Rodrigo R. Duterte exemplifies this particular value of the Filipinos. During his presidency, former Pres. Duterte would never fail to visit grieving families whose family members have perished either in a disaster or accident.
Cooperation. Last but not least is the Filipino value of cooperation. It's one of the important values of the Filipinos that enable them to draw strength from one another during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic.
This particular virtue of the Filipinos is manifested particularly when they are faced with difficult situations like disasters and hardships in life.
Cooperation would lift up the spirit of the Filipinos in trying times. It was during this time that Filipinos would draw strength and courage from one another amidst difficulties in life.
In the Philippines, the spirit of 'Bayanihan' or community cooperation is alive.
Like the other Filipino values of hospitality and generosity that are inseparable, these two values of optimism, cooperation, and resilience are also inseparable.
Without these values, the Filipinos could not have survived the challenges in life. They may not be financially blessed, but they are gifted with these values that enable them to deal with and overcome the hardships in life.
And in spite of the modernity of life, the Filipinos still value and practice these long-embraced virtues that have been passed on from one generation to another. Being a Filipino, I am so proud of my country's culture and values. Although, not all of these values are purely Filipino.
It's public knowledge that the Filipinos had been colonized not by three nationalities and each of them brought and introduced their own culture to the Filipinos.
Trivia:
How many siblings did Dr. Jose Rizal have?
Answer: Eleven (11 including Jose Rizal himself) Siblings.
Paciano Rizal, Saturnina Hidalgo, Josefa Mercado, Soledad Mercado, Maria Mercado, Concepción Mercado, Lucia Mercado, Trinidad Mercado, Narcisa Mercado, and Olympia Mercado.