Maria Santos
“In the Philippines, we do not just adopt children — we adopt neighbors, strangers, anyone who needs a family. We call it bayanihan. It means: we carry the house together.”
Meet Maria. She's 38, a nurse pulling double shifts at a public hospital, and the main earner for a household of nine — her parents, her three children, her husband, a widowed aunt, and a neighbour's child whose mother works overseas. In the Philippines this is ordinary; the extended family means no one is left alone. She's up at 5am to cook adobo for everyone, rides the jeepney to work, and gets home at 9pm — exhausted, and fiercely proud. Her country sends out the world's largest diaspora of overseas workers, more than 10 million, her own sister among them, wiring money home from Dubai. Sundays are Mass and then a meal together, and every birthday, however lean the month, there is pancit — long-life noodles. Tradition is how they say: we are still here, still together.
- Profession
- Public hospital nurse
- Household
- 9 people, one roof
- Dish
- Chicken adobo
- Value
- Bayanihan — communal unity
“Catholicism in the Philippines is identical to European Catholicism — it's just Western religion transplanted to Asia.”
Filipino Catholicism is a unique blend of Spanish Catholic tradition and indigenous Philippine beliefs. It incorporates pre-colonial animist practices, local festivals (fiestas) that mirror ancient harvest rituals, set within a culture that prizes communal values such as bayanihan, which predate Christianity by centuries. The Philippines is Asia's largest Catholic-majority nation — one of only two in Asia, alongside Timor-Leste — but the practice is distinctly Filipino, blending East and West in ways found nowhere else on Earth.
SourcePhilippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, Ateneo de Manila University.
When you think of Filipino culture, do you picture it as purely Western or Asian?
That's a natural question. But Maria's story shows us that Filipino culture is a unique blend of East and West, indigenous and colonial. It's not one or the other — it's both, in ways that are distinctly Filipino.
Good. Now ask yourself: what other cultures do you try to categorize as 'one thing'? What complexity are you missing?
Maria cares for nine people in one household and considers this normal. In Western culture, this might be called a burden. In Filipino culture, it is called bayanihan — the shared weight that makes everyone lighter. Who carries you when you are heavy?
You do not need to answer. Notice what feels familiar, what remains unfamiliar, and where your own experience differs.
Understanding does not require agreement. Sometimes paying closer attention is enough for today.
Check on someone today
Call or visit someone who might be carrying a heavy load — a single parent, a caregiver, an elderly neighbor. You don't need to fix anything. Sometimes presence is the help.
Note an act of kindness — today’s or your own. This stays on your device only; nothing is uploaded or counted publicly.
“He who does not look back at where he came from will never reach his destination.”
Filipino proverb