Having lived and worked in the Philippines from 1987 to 1993, I experienced several Christmases in that predominantly Catholic country and exchanged countless “Maligayang Pasko!” (‘Merry Christmas” in Pilipino) greetings along the way. I often reflect on my time there, especially at this time of year…but also as America goes through some dark times.
Many of my holiday season memories of Manila, the capital, are positive. There were delightful celebrations, abundant Christmas decorations, lots of time off work and relatively mild (by Southeast Asian standards) weather during December.
On the other hand, the lead-up to New Years meant increasingly frequent, loud fireworks explosions throughout the month. Traffic congestion soared as shopping and partying put even more cars on Manila’s clustermuck of clogged streets.
A Christmas Spirit All Year Long
But what Maligayang Pasko means most to me is not about the holiday season itself, but how Filipinos display the Christmas spirit of joy, giving, cheerfulness and resilience throughout the year. I’ve never been in a place where so many people smiled and joked around so easily. (In a bit of culture shock, upon moving back to the States in 1993 I found that in meeting strangers I needed to tone down my Philippines-enhanced jocularity, even in the generally friendly Bay Area.)
Partly due to my grant-giving work over there for the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation, I was also lucky to come into contact with many Filipinos doing tremendous good for their country against great odds, including: the woman who founded the Philippines’ first battered women’s shelter; the courageous reporters who launched its first investigative journalism organization; and loads of young lawyers working with and for the poor in a land that, despite all its charms, was plagued by injustice.
Filipinos’ resilience in the face of that injustice and poverty was also striking. Many quite deservedly live comfortable, even affluent lives. But millions more work overseas for years at a time, typically in harsh or even inhumane settings in the Middle East or elsewhere, to ensure that their families back home get by and even prosper. Many other Filipinos endure working and living conditions in their homeland that would make most Americans blanch. The country also has a history of people putting their lives on the line for freedom and human rights throughout its spasms of corruption, repression and dictatorship.
Amidst all that, Filipinos push on in their lives. They display smiles, cheerfulness and sometimes amazing selflessness in their daily interactions. I still recall a security guard in my apartment building matter-of-factly tossing a rope over my fourteenth-floor balcony so he could rappel down to the unit below, in order to turn off the oven gas when the maid there had locked herself out.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The Philippines faces a plethora of problems. But this post is about learning from Filipinos’ spirit, not their society’s setbacks.
A Horrific Week
Thus, these reflections about a people coping with their country’s worst traits come to mind as I consider America’s most recent wave of violent news – and what we can do in its wake.
First, there was the Brown University shooting, which took two students’ lives and critically injured numerous others. (The same murderer subsequently killed an MIT professor before committing suicide.)
With the help of financial aid and loans, I was lucky enough to attend Brown. I made lifelong friends and learned lifelong lessons there, including from classes that taught me that justice is about more than laws. Several months ago, I revisited the house I’d shared with several such friends during our senior year, just up the street from the murders. The assault accordingly hit home especially hard, as I pictured where it took place. But nowhere near as hard as it must have impacted the Brown student who survived not only this attack, but also a 2019 rampage at her Santa Clarita, California high school – during which she was shot in her abdomen.
(Sadly, as we know, such incidents do not occur in isolation. During the past month alone, the United States saw 18 other mass shootings in which at least four people were killed or injured. These totals could well increase between when I write this piece and when you read it.)
Barely after the figurative ink had dried on the Brown story, Australia’s beautiful Bondi Beach was the setting for the massacre of 15 Jews by radical Islamic State-inspired terrorists. My wife and I visited the sun-drenched spot a number of years ago; it’s the equivalent of any number of California communities’ beach-and-park scenes. The loathsome, metastasizing antisemitism the attack reflected added an abominable insult to the injury of the death toll itself.
Making matters even worse, some social media sources shamelessly sought to blame all of Islam and Muslim immigrants in general for the crime. The sad double irony here is that the hero who wrestled away a gun from one of the terrorists was himself one such immigrant, from Syria, and that Syrians were banned this week from entering the United States.
Two Murders, Two Remarkably Different Reactions
Then there were the murders of director Rob Reiner and his wonderful wife, apparently by their severely disturbed son. What did Reiner, who brought so much joy and light to the world – through such other films as This is Spinal Tap, The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men and The American President, as well as through his gay rights, political and humanitarian work – do to deserve his fate? Obviously, absolutely nothing. In fact, his comments on the September assassination of conservative leader Charlie Kirk reflected his compassion: “an absolute horror…That should never happen to anybody. I don’t care what your political beliefs are.”
What a contrast with the President of the United States’ remarkably cruel, self-centered remarks about Reiner’s death, which he claimed was “reportedly due to the anger he caused by others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction … known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Given time later that day to reflect on those sentiments and perhaps pull back, he instead doubled down.
A Holiday Wish
With my attention to these attacks and their aftermaths, this isn’t a very happy holiday season post I’m sharing here, eh? What’s worse, 2025’s flood of bad news consistently reached beyond these violent events in all sorts of ways.
But these immense tragedies and tough times bring me back to what I learned from the wonderful people whose country I lived in for six years…
I recall the joy, the cheerfulness, the giving and the resilience that Filipinos repeatedly demonstrated during my time there, in the face of all their challenges. Their smiles and laughter, their grit and determination, even amidst their personal and political struggles.
My holiday wish is that we Americans can do the same this holiday season and beyond, with joy in what we have, cheerfulness toward others, giving to the less fortunate and the resilience to face and fight for the future, with hope.
So, despite these tragedies and the sorrows they entail, I want to wish everyone…
Happy Holidays. Merry Christmas. Hanukkah Sameach (Happy Hanukkah). Heri za Kwanzaa (Happy Kwanzaa).
And of course, Maligayang Pasko!
Heri za Kwanzaa!