SUMMARY
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I just need you to speak. Speak to my country in that tone you use when you talk to the American people.
Stand there and deliver your lines to their hearts in the way that still makes me nervous each time you stand within easy target of a sniper, or the ire of the world.
Speak in the way that makes my Republican workplace say, “I don’t agree with anything Obama says, but man, he is the best speaker the White House has ever had.”
Speak in the way that made the black woman in my crowded subway train keep her seat during an altercation, hold her ground, and say, “You ain’t pushing me around. Don’t you know the President is a black man?”
Tell your story in the way that would inspire even a balut vendor in Catbalogan or the conductor of a bus careening through EDSA. Tell your story of being called “negro” in Jakarta, of being called “Oreo” (black on the outside, white on the inside) at Occidental College.
Tell the Filipino people of your travels and how they shaped you, and about your mother’s insistence on education and how that saved you. Tell us how not fitting in to one tribe, group, or demographic actually made you belong – to all of us.
Speak in the mix of humility born of your roots, and your pride in your nation, to my people who are looking for nothing more than a hero. And God knows we are in desperate need of one right now.
You see, mine is a country that for centuries was ruled by others in the guise of religion, friendship and salvation. When everyone was done with us, we were left to the hands of a ruling class comprised of the same faces, names, speeches, broken promises, and campaign jingles. We love music so we can’t help it.
We always sing along and cheer on the politicians and their celebrity entourages, but most of us go home with the same disappointment to the same old life that is devoid of any chance at change.
One after the other, corruption scandals explode from those in which we’ve invested our trust and taxpayer money, and their images are all the same – New York lofts, California mansions, foreign bank accounts, luxury cars, and “innocent” mistresses – all while the Philippine poverty level remains at 28%. (Read this map on the poorest provinces in the PH)
For the most part, electing an official in the Philippines these days becomes just a promise to be disappointed.
Mr President, I’ve never known you as one who throws empty promises, but instead one who unearths the promise that everyone has within them, regardless of where they’re from. I want you to talk the way you did before your first term. I want you to tell my people about the Audacity of Hope, because Filipinos are so, so tired of hoping. They just want to get on with their lives without relying on anyone else but themselves.
Filipinos have long given up, and it’s only a hero in the magnitude of Ninoy or Cory that could ever shake them again. (Those two personalities actually shook the people enough that we elected their descendant and namesake, but that’s another story.)
Tell Filipinos that by bettering themselves they might be able to hold their leaders accountable, or become good leaders themselves. Tell them to stop saying “Ganyan talaga, eh. (That’s just the way it is),” or that the best they could ever hope for are leaders who also steal, but just a little bit.
I want you to mobilize our young people who are exhausted of the song-and-dance of traditional politicians, who feel that the system runs without them and that they have no impact on their own country aside from their own struggle to survive. I want you to be the different face for my tired and jaded homeland. I want you to pull the people in a different direction the way you did for the US in 2008.
At the very least, I want you to be the symbol of hard work and dedication, and the example that a great education is best used serving people who need it the most. I want you to show our men that you are proud to be married to a strong, formidable, and opinionated woman. I want you to say to my people that you believe that everyone should be able to marry the one they love.
Dear President, you will never know me. I’m just one of the millions in the sidelines who are still cheering for you even if all around me they say that your presidency has lost its steam. I don’t know if I’m foolish to believe that the bureaucracy, mind games, power plays, and narcissism you have to deal with in politics are just a means for you to achieve your first objective of instilling hope and change to your people.
Who am I really to ask anything from you? The Philippines isn’t even your country, and you’re just visiting! We don’t have a lot in common except that I am also a daughter of more than one nation, culture, and tongue. I also happen to have made my home in your country as one of your constituents.
One of my most memorable moments in the US was taking my Citizenship Oath in a room of over 300 immigrants with similar struggles and hopes. I had so much pride in my adopted country because it welcomed all who were willing to work hard in the ‘Land of the Free’. I stood there with people of different colors and shapes, all of us beaming with the sense of possibility that is hard to find elsewhere.
Shortly after that day, it became my greatest honor to perform my duty as an American citizen and vote for you on your re-election, Mr President, because I believe in you. I always have, and even if many around me say I’m being naive, I probably always will. All I ask from you is to return the favor and “vote” for my people because you believe in them too.
How?
I just need you to speak to them, Sir. By addressing Filipinos with the same passion you address the American people, you will tell all of us that there is still room for hope – even in the most hopeless of lands.
Thank you. – Rappler.com
Shakira Andrea Sison is a Palanca Award-winning essayist. She currently works in finance and spends her non-working hours writing letters in subway trains. She is a veterinarian by education and was managing a retail corporation in Manila before relocating to New York in 2002. Her column appears on Thursdays. Follow her on Twitter: @shakirasison and on Facebook.com/sisonshakira.
Do you have a message for the US President? Tweet us at @MovePH or send an email to move.ph@rappler.com with the subject line #DearObama!
Read other #DearObama letters by our contributors:
#DearObama: On terror and wars by Arizza Sahi Nocum
For Obama: How about a high-skilled immigration pivot for Asia? by Curtis Chin
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