“How seems every Filipino is Related?”

Foreigners who visit the Philippines often get confused how come we have so many uncles and aunts, brothers or sisters, or in general, relatives. Sometimes to an outsider it’s like every Filipino seems related to everyone.

We, Filipinos, are taught to show respect to everyone we meet even before we learn to talk.  First of all we use the words po and opo to older people as a sign of respect. Another way of showing respect is using the words uncle or auntie, kuya or ate when talking to older people who are not even related to us. We use them when talking to jeepney drivers, sidewalk vendors, security guards and etc.

Uncle Para po!

Auntie, magkano po dito?

Kuya Guard pakibantay naman po tong bag ko o.

For an outsider this can get a bit confusing. One way to know if a Filipino is actually talking to his actual uncle or aunt is we would usually use the words Tito or Tita, but it should be noted that we could also use this for non-blood related family extensions. These are the people who are very close to our family or people who we have utang na loob to.

Utang na loob is a debt that cannot be paid with money or any material object. This debt may most usually be lifetime.  Utang na loob is created when someone does a big favor for us specially when we or our family was in a great need of help. Sometimes we may hear some statements from our parents like,

“Magmano (way of Filipinos to show respect to elders) ka kay Uncle Jhun at Auntie Bheybi mo, sila ang tumulong magpaaral sa akin noon.”

“Go bless to you Uncle Jhun and Auntie Bheybi, they were the ones who helped me in my schooling.”

 We do these things to towards people who are not even directly related to us by blood because of Utang na loob.

The Filipino value of family and appreciation can be observed through these practices. Our concept of a family is not only limited to those who are related to us by blood. We greatly consider the people who have done so much good to us as part of our families too – extended families.  Our deep appreciation of the good deeds other people have done for us and/or our family despite it being a good trait to us may sometimes be limiting.  We could not do the things we really wanted to do because they may upset or displease our extended families. We would enroll our child in a school even though we know it is not the best one there is but we only do so because one of the people who we have utang na loob to owns it. Another situation is we buy goods from a store owned by one of our extended family even though we know we can get better goods from another place but we are too afraid to upset them.

Having these traits and values in Filipino families is a good because it shows respect and gratefulness to people around us. These traits and values can create a strong bond between families inside communities therefore making them a more effective contributor of this humble nation. Despite its good effects on developing good relations between families we should not always try to please our extended families unto an extent that we are already forgetting our own families. These people have helped us some points our lives but our families have surely been there for us more than this people have.

It is good to please our so-called “uncles” and “aunts” and we should always respect them but we should never turn our backs on our families.

-Isaiah Mejia