Friendships in the Filipino Community

Volume 3, Issue No. 41

OPINION/COMMENTARY

/ News That Fears None, Views That Favor Nobody /

. . . . . A community service of The Filipino Web Channel (TheFilipinoWebChannel@gmail. com) and the Philippine Village Voice (PhilVoiceNews@gmail.com) for the information and understanding of Filipinos and the diverse communities in North America . . . . . .

 

Our latest as of Friday, April 8, 2022 

~ Remember Dionne Warwick's "That's What Friends Are For"? It's a song of commitment, love, and friendship. Friendship has actually three categories, wrote the Greek philosopher Aristotle. His discourse on the subject finds relevance and meaning in the Filipino community of Toronto. Utility, pleasure, and goodness define each concept of friendship. And no more apropos are these when seen in the light of the individuals and organizations in Canada's largest city.

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NOT ON UTILITY OR PLEASURE

The Perfect Friendship: One Based on Goodness

By ROMEO P. MARQUEZ 

Editor, The Filipino Web Channel

“No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.” ― Alice Walker

TORONTO - I found this book the size of a pocketbook while rummaging in the "book sale" at one of Toronto's public libraries. It's the Penguin Classics' "The Ethics of Aristotle" - a treasure, if I may so - because of its stimulating discourse on the general subject of ethics.

Aristotle, as everyone knows, was the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist and "one of the greatest intellectual figures of Western history". His intellectual range, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica, covered most of the sciences and many of the arts, including ethics, history, logic, rhetoric, philosophy of mind, poetics, and political theory, among others.

Initially, I gave the book a quick glance over, speed-reading some chapters until my attention was riveted to his discussion of friends and friendship, love and friendship.

Friendships, he formulated, are of three kinds. These are friendship based on utility, friendship based on pleasure, and friendship based on goodness. The last is the "perfect friendship," he wrote.

Perfect would mean pure, undiluted, unblemished, and being as it is, is quite rare. That kind of friendship is priceless, a treasure worth keeping for life.

Based on current and past personal and professional experiences as a journalist, I can say I've seen and interacted with people in the three categories. 

Admittedly, my circles of friends are so limited to the "perfect friendship" I've cultivated for years. I had a few in my former hometown of San Diego, California; and a few more in Manila and in some European capitals where I had occasion to work in news agencies, like in Germany and the United Kingdom.

Here at home in Toronto, such friendship exists in what we casually call "the caucus" - a small group of less than a dozen men and women that saw birth from informal lunches in inexpensive restaurants. Though we all think, write and talk differently, we share a commonality in having meals other than Filipino food.

That kind of friendship emerged not so much out of necessity but of wanting to express ourselves freely without fear of being hauled to court and slapped with a defamation complaint. An onion-skinned individual afflicted with diarrhea of the mouth has no place in this caucus.

Again based on experience, the first category - friendship based on utility - is the most widespread in Toronto's Filipino community. One can find this in practically all the associations and high-profile organizations that project themselves as charities or bleeding hearts.

So long as one is useful to the organization in whatever capacity, such as helping raise money by selling tickets, recruiting new members, or covering up for leaders' misdeeds, etc., the person is accepted and soon becomes chummy-chummy with the officers of the organization. 

One organization enjoys the distinction of being, purportedly, a "savior" of the poor, etc., that kind of rubbish. Another refers to the organization as "volunteer-run" although its officials are recompensed for whatever they do or not do.

Many Filipinos here easily give in to this racket, perhaps to satisfy a sense of belonging, at a great price to their pockets and personal time with their families. In exchange, they get media exposure, mostly photo ops, in friendly newspapers.

It's a challenge for me as a journalist, at least, to find out the links between organizations, on the one hand, and the newspapers and local press club, on the other. Why is there an inordinate amount of news items and photos focusing only on selected organizations and individuals? Why? There is no question that the relationship is one of friendship based on utility.

One organization blows hot and cold on me. The "friendship" is seasonal. In summer, some of the officials of this group are amiable. Understandably so, because it is the season for their yearly extravaganza and they need constant media exposure for their event.

Now I remember how a low-level functionary had questioned why I, a media person, was being given a shirt - a cheap shirt at that for a souvenir - intended for volunteers. It was petty and the pettiness has upset me, knowing that such a shirt costs $2 in Chinatown.

If my friendship with the organization had been based on utility, why would she deny something she didn't own? What I'm doing, and have done in the past, were incomparable, money-wise, with her volunteer time even if she spent years getting involved. 

It's an insult. But what I didn't expect was forthcoming was the bigger insult. Measuring friendship, hours of toil, and out-of-pocket expenses because another person had accepted his utilitarian value in a meager way, was so belittling. That's quite a lesson for me.

Friendship based on pleasure is also common in Toronto. I know that pleasure has an erotic connotation and is usually interpreted in terms of sexual relationships. I will leave it at that. Private moments are private moments.

Haven't you heard about FWB? It's an online lingo that translates to Friends With Benefits. That should fit into that category of friendship based on pleasure. (Copyright 2022. All Rights Reserved).