I was on the way home from Ateneo to Parañaque one day. Getting off the LRT, I wasn’t in the mood to walk home. All the jeeps going past were filled to the brim with commuters, so I settled for the next best thing: An e-jeep. 

As I passed through Quirino Avenue, I saw new establishments left and right, with signs written in characters I recognize, but can’t read. With the recent boom of Philipine Online Gambling Operations, restaurants and residences were constructed in order to meet the demands of the workers arriving in droves⁠—many of which are Chinese.

En route home, an elderly couple hailed the ride I was in. While talking to his wife about the many changes in the avenue and the streets beside it, lolo asked me out of the blue: “Ikaw, diba instik ka (You, aren’t you Chinese?)” I replied, “Opo, instik ako, pero laki naman ako sa Manila (Yes, I’m Chinese, but I was raised in Manila).” “Ah, halata kasing instik ka eh. Ang mo puti kasi, kala ko kasama ka sa kanila (Ah, it’s obvious that you’re Chinese. It’s because you’re so white, I thought you were with them),” he continued. “Them” referred to the Chinese that live and work in the surrounding area, after an e-gambling company set up nearby.

The rest of the trip was lolo going on about the changed area, now a bustling road with brand-new white vans everywhere. I got off in front of my house and that was that. But the short conversation I had with lolo made me think about whether other Chinese-Filipinos have the same experiences of discrimination as I do.

What does being Chinese-Filipino in the Philippines entail? Does it mean being part of those allowed in “Chinese only” restaurants? Does it mean that we side with the Chinese on national issues? These generalizations can often be found in discussions online that drag in Chinese-Filipinos who have lived in the country for as long as those pointing fingers have. 

Columnist Solita Collas-Monsod wrote a controversial piece for the Inquirer on Filipinos’ distrust towards China. She brings up our loyalty to the Philippines, saying that “…a Chinese-Filipino will never ever state unequivocally that he/she is a Filipino first, and a Chinese second.” 

I am a Filipino. The cultures and values that I have grown up with are Filipino as well. We struggle and succeed together as citizens of the Philippines. We fight for the same causes that plague our country.

Change may not be something immediate and visibly seen, but I still believe that we can rid ourselves of the generalization that the Chinese-Filipino community will always side with the country our ancestors came from.

Last April, I tagged along with a reporter who covered a rally in front of the Chinese consulate. Amidst the anti-Chinese placards, some protesters gave me looks and were whispering to each other. One of them approached me and asked what I was doing. I said “coverage lang po (just covering),” and the person’s expression suddenly changed from a frown to a smile. He told his colleagues, “Ok lang yan, kasama natin yan. Pinoy naman yan! (That’s alright, he’s with us. He’s Pinoy!)”

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