Philippines Books

I received this email from an obviously well educated Filipina. While I understand her point of view, I argue that the situation is not of my making and if anyone is actively attempting to change the perception of Filipinas as mail-order brides and as commodities then it is I through my eBooks.

This young woman has had the benefit of a privileged upbringing in one of the wealthier families in the country. These are the families that own everything and part of the reason why the majority of Filipinos are poor and many feel the need to marry older foreigners and leave for a better future. It is her generation and social class that must take action and stop the cronyism of the ‘trapos’, or traditional politicians. These trapos are all from the same families, they merely swap political positions from election to election. They own all the commerce and industry and manipulate the economy and society to maintain the status quo. A situation that can only be changed by the young, educated and well off classes taking charge and demonstrating some leadership. Leadership worth following. I doubt it will happen while they stand to gain from maintaining this situation. Perhaps the pressure of being thought of as a mail order bride just might spur some into taking action?

Then the ‘masa’ will follow, they will cast off the yoke of the catholic church (controlling them with myth, superstitious ritual and the prohibition on effective birth control) and hopefully the country will move forward with some real hope for a brighter future for all Filipinos. Right now those whose only hope is to marry a ‘fat, old foreigner’ will cause all Filipinas to be cast in the same mold. So do something about it rich, educated Filipinas! It starts with you and the way you treat your domestic servants, the helper, the yaya, the lavenderia, the driver and the guard, then the sales clerks and waiters and so on. Treat them as equals and not as serfs and servants. People doing a vital job to make a living, not just there to make your living easy. Here is her email:

Good Evening,

I must say, your website is quite degrading. It’s true that many Filipinas do want to marry foreigners for money/white skin/”a better life abroad”, but not all of us do. Some of us are actually educated (not just in school but in life as well), have active intellects, and futures to build wherever we please. It’s unfair to the rest of us for websites like yours to portray all Filipinas as women desperate to find rich, old, fat guys looking for a child bride. Granted, you don’t use those words specifically, but it does come across like that.

I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve been actively chatting and making friends online since the mid-90s (I was twelve). Given that, I’ve met countless men who only saw me as a Filipina and automatically tried to find some way of getting married either to me or one of my friends. Unfortunately, my friends aren’t in the social class that usually marries foreigners so they can “get a better life abroad”. It’s been painful and very harrassing to be approached by men old enough to be my dad, and be asked if I’d marry them. I’ve cried innumerable times from the harrassing feeling of having pensioners and middle-aged men suddenly attracted to me all because I’m a Filipina.

I’m sure you only want to share your happiness with other men and women and you don’t mean any harm, but not all Filipinas are the way you say they are. It’s very humiliating and degrading to have to explain that I’m “not that type of Filipina” and I’m not looking for “a better life” because a better life for me actually means working hard for it and earning it myself. I have to make this explanation a lot because of websites like yours.

I’m not asking you to shut down your site, merely to be more considerate and include a paragraph or two advising your clients not to jump to conclusions, and to consider that no nation is homogeneous. We’re all different, therefore not all Filipinas are looking for a man who “can give them a better life”.

To be honest, I’m currently dating an Englishman, but it’s not because he’s white or he can “give me a better life”. He’s three years my junior, and when we met, he was still at university. But because of the stigma of the “Filipina mail-order bride”, instead of being proud to be together, we hid the nature of our relationship (and how we met) from our families and friends. It took several months to actually decide to tell other people that we were in a long-distance relationship. We met and became close because of similar interests, as I’m sure several of your clients have done with their wives. But unlike your clients, he had never met a Filipino or Filipina before, and he only found out about Filipina dating sites after we had met and he looked up Filipinas (to learn more about my culture). That was when we decided not to be completely honest with other people about our relationship. Since then, I’ve told my family and friends and have had to answer
too many personal questions and explain to every single one of them that my boyfriend “is not some old, fat guy wanting me to move to his country” but is someone who is actually around my age, has never been married, is going to follow me to whatever country I decide to settle down in, and feels the same way I do about mail-order Filipinas”.

I understand you have no ill will for Filipinas, but please, please explain to your clients that Filipinas aren’t all the way they expect. Your clients may not understand how their inconsiderate approach affects those of us that aren’t desperate for a way out of the country. It’s painful and it’s making some of us distrust Caucasians in general. At one point, I lashed out even at people who only wanted to make friends with me, because I had gotten another stupid message from someone who seemed to not even consider that Filipinas were not all made from the same mold. I apologised to my friends, but it was no less painful.

I honestly hope you set the record straight.

Thank you for your time,

(Name and address supplied but withheld by Editorial policy)

Well Miss, I think you should be very grateful you are so fortunate to be born into a family rich enough to provide you with such a future. Too many Filipinas have nothing to use to secure a better life than their looks and personalities and a very, very big reason for this is the systemic corruption and exploitation of the majority by the rich, landed and well educated classes. Feudalism ended in the west some centuries ago, colonialism perhaps less than half a century back and yet thanks to the influence of the catholic church and the greed of the oligarchs, the Philippines remains pretty much how it was when the Spanish owned the place.

I’m sorry you feel my web site degrades you, but that is your choice to feel that way. The truth never degrades or offends, it is merely what it is… the truth.