What are What are Filipinos Filipinos

Like?Like?Leon Ma. Guerrero

Leon Ma. Guerrero

He was one of the foremost nationalists of this era. A partner in the law practice of Senator Claro M. Recto, he became Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs during the Magsaysay administration.

On retirement, he was the country's most senior diplomat, having been Ambassador in London, Madrid, New Delhi, Mexico City and Belgrade. On 19 June 1982 he received the Gawad Mabini -the highest award in the Philippine Foreign Service.He held the rank of Knight Grand Cross of the Knights of Rizal. Among his many works are internationally acclaimed translations of Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.

What are Filipinos Like?What are Filipinos Like?

Leon Ma. Guerrero

What do foreigners say

about Filipinos?

Filipinos are...• Friendly - good-natured

• loyal - idealistic

• Sentimental - socially gracious

• more intelligent than the Malays

• religious but not so mystical as the Indians

• imitative but less so than the Japanese

Filipinos are...

• unwilling to accept responsibility

• lacking in self-reliance• less hardworking than the

Chinese

and, in general,...

•the most adaptable of all races in the Orient.

A Spaniard thought Filipinos were very like the Spanish.

An American thought Filipinos were not American enough. They

also cannot understand why grown-up sons and daughters

keep on living with their parents after they have married.

A Frenchman remarked that Filipinos were the

only people in Asia with a sense of humor.

A Chinese thought Filipinos were improvident.

An Indonesian criticized Filipinos for immediately

accepting Western standards.

A Siamese said Filipinos were pretentious.

Other nations tried to

“save” us…

Spaniards believed that they were rescuing us

from agents of Satan.

Americans proclaimed their purpose to civilize us,

Christianize us, and liberate us from the Spaniards.

Japanese announced that they come to free

us from the Americans.

They were all fighting over us!Yet in the end…

save ourselves.

We have managed to survive in this

solicitude, and to learn that in the end we

must