This year’s Philippine Independence Day celebration in Dubai will go down the history books not only as the first-ever virtual celebration of Independence Day but also as an enormous gathering of brilliant minds in front and behind the cameras.
Philippine Consul General to Dubai and the Northern Emirates, Paul Raymund Cortes, shares his thoughts and excitement as we are bringing the fiesta from the usual parks to the screens.
Here’s his full statement:
The 2020 edition of Anniversary of the Proclamation of Philippine Independence presents to us a more somber nuance of what a celebration of our freedoms would be. In the past, our commemorations consisted of lively cultural presentations, dances and songs, and a fiesta atmosphere that would reflect the joy of the overseas Filipino community in Dubai and the Northern Emirates. For us, June 12 offers the opportunity to manifest who we are as a people, our history, and how we surpass the challenges presented to us as we try to highlight our culture in a very competitive and globalized world.
The COVID-19 pandemic forces us to think more strategically on how our people could move on in the midst of an economically-challenged global community facing the uncertainties that this crisis brings. It makes us rethink about how the realities of migration and health affect our current diaspora.
This is not to say that this year’s celebration and beyond must be devoid of pride in our culture but more so the need for it to be juxtaposed with a reality that our diaspora has never faced since hundreds of thousands of our people began exploring economic opportunities outside our country some 50 years before.
Perhaps this is a time for us to strategize how the overseas Filipino communities around the world could not only make a difference in the economic set up of the places that they have chosen to relocate themselves but now also ensuring that they likewise become positive agents of hope and change, much needed in a world where health has now become society’s top priority.
Now we must rethink how economics, culture, the arts, and our heritage can be pursued while understanding that above them all is the health and the greater good of the majority. For the people who prides itself in communal gatherings and a very active artistic sense, this becomes a challenge. But with digital and technological information at our disposal, we look forward to an even more enticing, savvy, and perhaps more virtually challenging celebration of who we are as a people and what we can contribute to a world that is looking forward to a new normal.
Now, perhaps more than ever is our chance to show the rest of the world that what a united, resolute, strategic, and more determined Filipino community we are in this part of the world.
Let us keep showing everyone what we can do and what we can share with the rest of the expatriate communities in the UAE keeping in mind our newfound priorities. Mabuhay to all Filipinos and may we always rise up to the expectations of an even more hopeful future.
