Pinay wins it big in London

By Alfred Yuson
The Philippine Star 05/16/2004

Patricia Evangelista, a 19-year-old, Mass Communications
sophomore of University of the Philippines (UP)-Diliman, did the
country proud Friday night by besting 59 other student contestants from 37 countries in the 2004 International Public Speaking
competition conducted by the English Speaking Union (ESU)
in London.

She triumphed over a field of exactly 60 speakers from all
over the English-speaking world, including the United States,
United Kingdom and Australia, reported Maranan.

The board of judges' decision was unanimous, according to
contest chairman Brian Hanharan of the British Broadcasting Corp.
(BBC).

PATRICIA'S SHORT SPEECH WORTH READING....
========================================

BLONDE AND BLUE EYES

"When I was little, I wanted what many Filipino children all
over the country wanted. I wanted to be blond, blue-eyed, and white.

I thought -- if I just wished hard enough and was good
enough, I'd wake up on Christmas morning with snow outside my window
and freckles across my nose!

More than four centuries under western domination does
that to you. I have sixteen cousins. In a couple of years, there will
just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will have
gone abroad in search of "greener pastures." It's not just an
anomaly; it's a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight
million
Filipinos are scattered around the world.

There are those who disapprove of Filipinos who choose to
leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction of someone who
was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier with
each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a
land that has perpetually fought for the freedom to be itself. Our
heroes offered their lives in the struggle against the Spanish,
the Japanese, the Americans. To pack up and deny that
identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice.

Or is it? I don't think so, not anymore. True, there is
no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what was once
the other side of the world is now a twelve-hour plane ride away.
But this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim
to be purely from where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent,
my father is a quarter Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino-a
hybrid of sorts resulting from a combination of cultures.

Each square mile anywhere in the world is made up of
people of different ethnicities, with national identities and
individual personalities. Because of this, each square mile is
already a microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot
that is England is the world, so is my neighbourhood back home.

Seen this way, the Filipino Diaspora, or any sort of
dispersal of populations, is not as ominous as so many claim. It must
be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that
Is still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years
of dictatorship. But we shall make it, given more time.
Especially now, when we have thousands of eager young
minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills.
They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all.

A borderless world presents a bigger opportunity, yet one
that is not so much abandonment but an extension of identity.
Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses
who support the UK's National Health Service. We are the
quarter-of-a-million seafarers manning most of the
world's commercial ships. We are your software engineers in
Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your doctors
and caregivers in North America, and, your musical artists in
London's West End. Nationalism isn't bound by time or place.

People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still
remain
essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a
multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and
cultures. We are, indeed, in a borderless world!

Leaving sometimes isn't a matter of choice. It's coming
back that is. The Hobbits of the shire travelled all over
Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of
the
word. We call people like these balikbayans or the 'returnees' --
those
who followed their dream, yet choose to return and share
their mature talents and good fortune.

In a few years, I may take advantage of whatever
opportunities come my way. But I will come home. A borderless
world doesn't preclude the idea of a home. I'm a Filipino, and I'll
always
be one. It isn't about just geography; it isn't about boundaries. It's
about giving back to the country that shaped me.

And that's going to be more important to me than seeing
snow outside my windows on a bright Christmas morning.

"Mabuhay and Thank you."