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Filipino Quotes

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Filipino Quotes

“I am almost thirty, never been in love, at least not enough to stay in love through the foul moods, the oppressive silences, the subjugation, the acquiescence, the petty fights, the nagging questions, all the other complications that tend to get factored into a relationship once it stews in time, simmering to a boil.”

RomanceFictionShort StoryBerlinLgbtqiaPhilippinesFilipinoDiasporaManilaOn A Sunday In August
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“But Manila was another life. It was another time. It was universes behind me. The woman who lived there, sheltered and shackled and dreaming of another place, such as this, this magical spot under the start-of-autumn sky adorned with brown leaves preparing for their eventual descent to the earth, this quiet side street near the busy, bustling Old Port in old Quebec, was no longer me.”

FictionPhilippinesFilipinoDiasporaQuebecManilaAlmost Romance
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“At night, touching himself, he would imagine her in every carnal detail, always determined he would see her at last, on Erzèbet Square, but always, once he was done, he would be consumed by guilt, which would not replace the fantasy, only dissipate it, and he would decide she was just an itch he could scratch away so easily without harming her or himself.”

FictionShort StoryPhilippinesFilipinoDiasporaManilaFlash Flood
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“It was then that it dawned on my great-great-great-great-grandmother that Avenida in Santa Cruz—with all its dark, dank, dreary alleyways, its patchwork of cheap cement, cheaper wood, and even cheaper corrugated iron that passed for houses, its ground littered with all sorts of scrap, including crumbs of goodies and morsels of meals to which they were never invited, its all-present humidity and intermittent rain, all its mud and flood on rainy days and all its dust on dry days, all its dirt, all its noise, and all the cruelty and fear and abomination and prejudice—was paradise.”

Short StoryPhilippinesFilipinoSpeculative FictionDiasporaManilaThe Nameless
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“We had everything before us, we had nothing before us, according to Charles Dickens in whose nest of words I grew up, and so, as rain filled the drains, flooded the streets, inundated the city, my great-great-great-great-grandmother and her community were driven skyward, gasping for air from the underworld.”

Short StoryPhilippinesFilipinoSpeculative FictionDiasporaManilaFableThe Nameless
Book:Manila Was A Long Time Ago - Official
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“But your lolas took offense at being called witches. That is an Amerikano term, they scoff, and that they live in the boroughs of an American city makes no difference to their biases. Mangkukulam was what they styled themselves as, a title still spoken of with fear in their motherland, with its suggestions of strange healing and old-world sorcery. Nobody calls their place along Pepper Street Old Manila, either, save for the women and their frequent customers. It was a carinderia, a simple eatery folded into three food stalls; each manned by a mangkukulam, each offering unusual specialties: Lola Teodora served kare-kare, a healthy medley of eggplant, okra, winged beans, chili peppers, oxtail, and tripe, all simmered in a rich peanut sauce and sprinkled generously with chopped crackling pork rinds. Lola Teodora was made of cumin, and her clients tiptoed into her stall, meek as mice and trembling besides, only to stride out half an hour later bursting at the seams with confidence. But bagoong- the fermented-shrimp sauce served alongside the dish- was the real secret; for every pound of sardines you packed into the glass jars you added over three times that weight in salt and magic. In six months, the collected brine would turn reddish and pungent, the proper scent for courage. unlike the other mangkukulam, Lola Teodora's meal had only one regular serving, no specials. No harm in encouraging a little bravery in everyone, she said, and with her careful preparations it would cause little harm, even if clients ate it all day long. Lola Florabel was made of paprika and sold sisig: garlic, onions, chili peppers, and finely chopped vinegar-marinated pork and chicken liver, all served on a sizzling plate with a fried egg on top and calamansi for garnish. Sisig regular was one of the more popular dishes, though a few had blanched upon learning the meat was made from boiled pigs' cheeks and head.”

CuisineFilipinoOffalRemedialMangkukulam
Book:Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love
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“Practice, Ami. There is no talent without practice." And practice you did. You hacked at livers and pig brains for sisig, spent hours over a hot stove for the perfect sourness to sinigang. You dug out intestines and wound them around bamboo sticks for grilled isaw, and monitored egg incubation times to make balut. Lola didn't frequent clean and well-lit farmers markets. Instead, you accompanied her to a Filipino palengke, a makeshift union of vendors who occasionally set up shop near Mandrake Bridge and fled at the first sight of a police uniform. Popular features of such a palengke included slippery floors slicked with unknown ichor; wet, shabby stalls piled high with entrails and meat underneath flickering light bulbs; and enough health code violations to chase away more gentrification in the area. Your grandmother ruled here like some dark sorceress and was treated by the vendors with the reverence of one. You learned how to make the crackled pork strips they called crispy pata, the pickled-sour raw kilawin fish, the perfect full-bodied peanuty sauce for the oxtail in your kare-kare. One day, after you have mastered them all, you will decide on a specialty of your own and conduct your own tests for the worthy. Asaprán witches have too much magic in their blood, and not all their meals are suitable for consumption. Like candy and heartbreak, moderation is key. And after all, recipes are much like spells, aren't they? Instead of eyes of newt and wings of bat they are now a quarter kilo of marrow and a pound of garlic, boiled for hours until the meat melts off their bones. Pots have replaced cauldrons, but the attention to detail remains constant.”

ModerationCuisineFilipinoVendorsExperimentingOffalMangkukulam
Book:Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food & Love
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“...the Anti-Imperialist League...carried on a long campaign to educate the American public about the horrors of the Philippine war and the evils of imperialism. It was...united in a common moral outrage at what was being done to the Filipinos in the name of freedom. Whatever their differences on other matters, they would all agree with William James's angry statement: 'God damn the U.S. for its vile conduct in the Philippine Isles'.”

HistoryAmerican HistoryUs HistoryPhilippinesFilipinoAmerican Imperialism
Book:A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present
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“First, I placed the clean snapper on a bed of aluminum foil sprinkled with sea salt and olive oil. I then stuffed the tomatoes, garlic, onions, and coriander into the belly of the fish before sewing it shut. The first time I'd tasted this, the snapper was skewered and turned over open flames. To accompany it, I'd drunk the sweet juice from young coconuts cut with machetes, taken off the very trees above us. Now that I was back to apartment living, I had to modify the recipe and grill the fish in a closed packet. The texture of the skin wouldn't be as crisp, but the flesh would be even more tender. If I had thought Celia preferred the crisp texture, I would have fried it with the stuffing mixture served on the side. The fish was ready to be baked. I prepared sinanag, Filipino garlic fried rice, to accompany the fish: jasmine rice, smashed garlic cloves, sea salt, and a sprinkle of vegetable oil.”

CookingRiceFishFilipinoFood PreparationStuffingMixture
Book:Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune
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“Large fountain glasses arrived at our table, layered with sweet beans, caramelized saba bananas, jackfruit, palm fruit, nata de coco, and strips of macapuno topped with shaved ice, evaporated milk, a slice of leche flan, a healthy scoop of ube halaya, and a scattering of pinipig, the toasted glutinous rice adding a nice bit of crunch. This frosty rainbow confection raised my spirits every time I saw it, and both Sana and I pulled out our phones to take pictures of the dish. She laughed. "This is almost too pretty to eat, so I wanted to document its loveliness before digging in." "This is for the restaurant's social media pages. My grandmother only prepares this dish in the summer, so I need to remind our customers to come while it lasts." "How do we go about this?" Rob asked, looking at his rapidly melting treat in trepidation. "Up to you. You can mix everything together like the name says so that you get a bit of everything in each bite. Or you can tackle it layer by layer. I'm a mixing girl, but you better figure it out fast or you're going to be eating dessert soup." We all dug in, each snowy bite punishing my teeth making me shiver in delight. I loved the interplay of textures---the firmness of the beans versus the softness of the banana and jackfruit mingling with the chewiness of the palm fruit, nata de coco, and macapuno. The fluffy texture of the shaved ice soaked through with evaporated milk, with the silky smoothness of the leche flan matched against the creaminess of the ube halaya and crispiness of the pinipig. A texture eater's (and sweet tooth's) paradise. "This is so strange," Valerie said. "I never would've thought of putting all these things together, especially not in a dessert. But it works. I mean, I don't love the beans, but they're certainly interesting. And what are these yellow strips?" "Jackfruit. When ripe, they're yellow and very sweet and fragrant, so they make a nice addition to lots of Filipino desserts. They were also in the turon I brought to the meeting earlier. Unripe jackfruit is green and used in vegetarian recipes, usually.”

Ice CreamDessertFilipinoFruitsMixed UpShaved IceTexturesJackfruit
Book:Homicide and Halo-Halo
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“I tried running roads, hung out with road runners. But it's not for me. Being on the road means people will see you, so your outfit matters and you can't blow your nose and wipe it with your hands and brush your hands on the pavement. It's like going to the gym. Sweat, odor, athleisure fashion, being self-conscious—none of those matter in the mountains. You'd slam your shoes across rivers and slap your ass on muddy trails and swing your dick out while running. Pee on the run because stopping to pee takes too much time. You don't bother with trivial matters. Instead, you thank the universe you didn't fall off that cliff or your knees didn't collapse or you finished the race with only calluses, maybe a cut here and there, sore and stiff muscles, but alive and without broken bones. You're in the moment. It's more fun that way.”

RunningLife LessonsAdventureFilipinoJoggingAppearancesFilipino AuthorsTrail Running
Book:Karinderya Love Songs
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“In 2016, when we started Build, Build, Build, critics said that the EDSA Decongestion Program is mathematically impossible, that it could not be done, that President Rodrigo Duterte was overpromising, and that Google Maps did not support such assertion. They failed to see the bigger picture — the possibility of a 90-year-old EDSA back to its original 1930s form, a future where Filipinos do not have to debate about Metro Manila’s “true midpoint” and a reality wherein every city in Metro Manila can be accessed within a 20 to 30 minute time frame”

FilipinoBuild Build BuildEdsaMetro Manila
Author:Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo , Night Owl: A Nationbuilder’s Manual
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“Back in 2016, no one knew what Build, Build, Build meant or what it stood for. Critics had very little expectation of the team. They wagered against our success, not knowing that when they did, they gambled against the future of their country. They were certain that the infrastructure projects would never materialize — that blueprints would remain as drawings. They didn’t expect 6.5 million Filipinos to stand and work behind it.”

InfrastructureFilipinoBuild Build Build
Author:Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo , Night Owl: A Nationbuilder’s Manual
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“My parents had come from Mexico, a short road in my imagination. I felt myself as coming from a caramelized planet, an upside-down planet, pineapple-cratered. Though I was born here, I came from the other side of the looking glass, as did Alice, though not alone like Alice. Downtown I saw lots of brown people. Old men on benches. Winks from Filipinos. Sikhs who worked in the fields were the most mysterious brown men, their heads wrapped in turbans. They were the rose men. They looked like roses.”

PeopleMenFeltParentSidesBornImaginationSawsFieldsPlanetsRoseGlassesMysteriousBrownOld ManMexicoMy ImaginationNot AloneBenchesUpside DownDowntownFilipinoPineapplesTurbans
Book:Brown: The Last Discovery of America
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“Tourism is a crucial industry that could employ millions of Filipinos, skilled and unskilled alike, cross those 7,107 islands of the Philippines. From the current projection of 3.3 million tourist arrivals in 2010, our aim is to eventually attract 6 million tourists. In the process, we expect to create 3 million jobs in the next six years.”

YearsJobsNextProcessMillionsIndustrySixCrossesAimCurrentsIslandsCrucialProjectionTouristsTourismArrivalsPhilippinesFilipinoTourism Industry
Author:Benigno Aquino III
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