The Filipino family is a unique family. Here, most households do not simply comprise what is considered the normal composition or make-up of members seen anywhere else around the world. While most families elsewhere are composed of a father, a mother or the parents and their children, a Filipino family would normally go beyond that structure in one household.

The grandparents of one of the parents are sometimes part of the Filipino family. Even nieces and nephews of the parents or uncles or aunts of the children may live in one household apart from the “basic family”, that is, the parents and their children.

Further, it is not unusual especially in the rural areas for two or more Filipino families to share a common house or attend to common household chores. They may also be found working together in livelihood activities like farming, fishing or small family enterprises.

The father in the Filipino Family often takes the role of primary provider. He is the authority figure, the acknowledged counselor and disciplinarian. The mother or wife takes the key responsibility for homemaking or household management. She is the moral compass and the children’s first academic mentor. But there have been changes in the home front. Parents today seem more open-minded, having evolved from being too disciplinarian to being an older type of friend for their children.

Although some parents these days still get a little uneasy with this “leveling-off” behavior towards their children, more and more of them have seen the positive impacts, like closer ties, better communication lines, higher levels of mutual trust and, more importantly, deeper respect and love for one another.

While some grandparents and other members of the “extended” Filipino family gets drawn to this relational unraveling, in some cases it is still on a much more conservative level. This is understandable since grandparents were born and reared in family traditions and culture steeped in more conservative and stringent manners.

Nevertheless, it is an amazing discovery how the Filipinos, with both their traditional “extended” family structure and continuing social evolution are able to survive in spite of these seeming incongruent characteristics of both the old and the new.

But then again, the Filipino family is unique.

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Filipino wedding customs combine both colonial influence and traditional beliefs. The more common Filipino wedding customs include choosing where to hold the wedding church and who the officiating priest will be. Couples who belong to prominent families usually prefer holding the wedding in an ancient Spanish-time church and enlist a well-known personality for an officiating pastor. Some say the ambiance generated by a Spanish-era church adds to the grandeur and solemnity of a wedding.

On the eve of a wedding, the bride-to-be is forbidden to see the groom-to-be. She likewise cannot try her wedding dress for fear that the wedding may not push through. On the wedding day itself, the bride usually wears a white-blue gown. There is preference for one that is borrowed. On exit from the church, the newlyweds go through the traditional throwing of coins, rice grains and flowers. This practice is said to induce abundance or wealth, as well as promote loyalty and abiding love between the couple.

There are sights of a wedding that make them distinctly Filipino. Example is the overflow of crowd witnessing the wedding rite, from the church to the reception. A Filipino wedding is never good enough if the crowd is not big enough. Filipinos after all are clannish people.

Post-wedding rites continue with undiminished festivity. The father of either bride or groom reads a wish list and toasts the wine, all in a gesture of ushering in a bright future for the new couple. The wedding dance brings the clan together, latching money bills of different denominations to various parts of the newlyweds’ clothes. It is a sign of sharing responsibilities among family members.

While some customs are unique to a certain province, the traditional Filipino wedding remains as one of the most valued occasions in the Philippines.

Filipino women are gifted with beauty, intelligence, sensitivity and generosity of heart. They are reliable, protective, conscientious and committed as a friend, mother, wife and worker. While most Filipino women were taught at a young age to be good at domestic chores and housekeeping, they nevertheless grew up to value good education.

They are socially well versed. They also can be creative in many ways, from coming up with a good home-cooked meal on a tight budget, to being able to present work-related innovations, or to being organizers of social events.

As an adult with incomes of her own, a Filipino woman never hesitates to extend assistance to other family members in need, like caring for parents with advancing age, sending a sibling to school, and sharing in the household expenses. She, too, can be trusted with family heirlooms, family livelihood or to carry family traditions onto the next generation when she begins her own family life.

As a wife, a Filipino woman excels as a housekeeper. She can be counted on to help her husband provide for family sustenance. And she remains the ever sensitive and responsible mother, keeping close watch over the upkeep of her children.

As professionals, Filipino women bask in a variety of disciplines such as education, social welfare, arts and culture, entertainment, medicine and, yes, even politics. She can be as good or even better than her male counterpart in careers where sensitivity, creativity and charm are put in harness. Truly, Filipino women have shown they can succeed not only as housekeepers but also as partners of nation-building.

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There are unique values and traits that make and bind a Filipino family. Prominent among them is the way Filipinos address each other. There is, for example, the traditional use of “po” and “opo” as a sign of reverence to older family members by the younger ones.

Similarly, younger siblings address an older female sibling with “ate”, and an older male sibling with “kuya”. Kissing the hand of an elder is also a common greeting and considered uniquely Filipino. Respect for elders is manifest wherever there are Filipinos, even abroad.

Other Filipino values worth noting are seen during Sundays. Household members wear their best dress as they attend church services together. Most families later take leisure time together, like relaxing at the park, malling, watching a movie, eating out or just playing the favorite family game or sports, all in the spirit of fun and bonding. Many adult males are also cockfight aficionados.

While the fast-paced life has made it more difficult for the family to spend time together at the dinner table, some parents still believe this is one valued practice that should never be lost. Having meals together provides opportunities for interaction among family members. Here they discuss and share daily experiences, like updates on the parents’ work or on the kid’s school activities.

Children are not expected to leave home even in their early adulthood. Because Filipino families put great value in education, older children who earn incomes are expected to help pay for household expenses, including the education of younger siblings. Children try to keep the company of their aging parents even when they have families of their own. Being clannish is a common Filipino family value. Special occasions like weddings, fiestas, Christmas, baptism or death in the family usually bring families and clans together.

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There is nothing significantly peculiar or odd in the scene of Filipino romance, but being natural romantics, the Filipino men and women have exceptional and even unique ways and habits of showing their affection for someone they sincerely desire.

In the not-so-distant past, Filipino men would serenade their lady love either alone or in the company of friends on any given night, although a serenade when the moon is full was deemed most romantic. Men normally choose kundiman or local ballads for these magical occasions. They belt them out with gusto and emotion right on the doorstep of the lady’s house. If she and her family consent to the wishes of the serenading prince, he earns the good graces of her home and may propose from there.

These days, however, pre-occupied by a fast-paced life and uninhibited by a less conservative society, Filipino romance has taken on new dimensions. While serenading no longer exists, at least in the urban areas, Filipino romance has applied variety in its approaches. Dating is fashionable and displays of affection are publicly flaunted. With faster means of communication via mobile phones and the internet, Filipino romantic relationships can now grow from a whirlwind courtship.

Filipino romance flourishes when sustained by loyalty, commitment, trust and open communication. Filipino women are sensitive and fiercely loyal to their partners. They expect their partners to be re-assuring and provide emotional security to their romantic relationship. And with these they offer enduring bond of a partnership based on love.

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Generations past–the Filipina wife was the typical docile, sweet and unassuming person behind the hardworking, conscientious and more dominant household figure that was her husband. In those simple days when life was less hard and households were typically patriarchal in nature, the Filipina wife and mother took the roles deemed supportive of that of her husband. Filipino marriage that defined a couple then seemed uncomplicated, ordinary and down-to-earth.

Several decades later, transformation in the household became more and more apparent. Stemmed by the increasing recognition of the talents and skills of the Filipino women, the subservient wife evolved and so has the Filipino marriage customs and landscape. Two things gave rise to the evolution. One is basically economic in nature.

The wife took on the role as an equal partner of her husband in providing for the basic needs of the family, such as by engaging in livelihood herself. The other is the growing attention given to her as a potent force, not only within the confines of the home but as partner in community building as well.

While we can still see some of these women dutifully performing their roles as wife and mother at home, they now occupy better positions as working professionals and as co-provider for the family. Her role in the Filipino marriage now expands from being a mere cook, dishwasher, moral and spiritual mentor to her kids, as well as supporter of her husband as he seeks his fulfillment. She has emerged as an empowered person aware of her own talents and dreams.

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Filipino friends are often considered extended members of a typical Filipino family. Since Filipinos are known for being friendly and clannish, friends of any member of a household are always welcome in most family occasions like dinners, parties and outings or vacations.

It then becomes natural for friends to call each others’ parents “tita” and “tito” or even Papa or Mama or Tatay or Nanay as if they are their friends’ parents own children. Children also have no qualms about sharing or seeking advise from their friends’ parents on varied matters whenever they feel uncomfortable telling their own parents about them.

Filipino friends normally maintain close association. They spend a lot of time together. The young ones, after school, often spend more time after school to play games or just hang around the campus or at each other’s homes either to study together or play video or outdoor games. Weekends are often spent together as well.

The professionals, on the other hand, often seek one another on weekends or specially-designated get-together weekdays after work. Special occasions like birthday parties are also venues for catching up on missed stories about how other relatives or friends are doing.

Filipino friends are fiercely loyal and protective of one another. They are generous with time and resources. They share intimate secrets and often have the same interests or level of intellectuality. They are likely to come from similar social backgrounds, family and individual orientations, sets of values and beliefs. Their friendship goes beyond physical borders and distances.

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Filipino food culture comes as part and parcel of Filipino life. It speaks both about their uniqueness and diversity as a people. Most regions or provinces are known for one or several types of food or for the distinctive taste of their home-cooked food.

Bicolanos for example are known for a variety of food preparations that go with lots of chili and other spices. People from Northerm Luzon take pride in pinakbet (mixed vegetables) and in their exotic menu. In Central Luzon, delicious confections and kakanin (snack foods and sweets) are hard to resist. The rest of Luzon and Tagalog region are known for their spicy kaldereta and kare-kare (meat and entrails with vegetables and many other spices), paksiw and adobo (fish and meat boiled with vinegar, among other ingredients).

In the Visayas and Mindanao, food preparations with coconut milk are common. Also in many parts of the country and Visayas in particular, occasions like birthdays, weddings, baptisms, family reunions and the like do not seem complete without lechon or roasted pig or roasted chicken.

Statistics have been shown that the more well off people are, chances are higher that wheat-based bread, instead of rice, becomes the staple food. But in the Philipinnes and wherever Filipinos may be found abroad, an ordinary Filipino meal would basically still consist of fish and rice. The essence of this menu has sustained Filipinos for generations after generations. A dish with rice and fish, along with other sets of menu perfected in various parts of the country, is what makes it Filipino.

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The rising popularity of online dating has drawn thousands of Filipinas to internet sites and programs that allow them to connect to foreigners. Male foreigners are likewise apparently attracted to Filipinas, if the number of on-going online relationships is any indication. Hundreds of thousands of Filipinas are believed chatting and exchanging emails with male foreigners in the hope of finding the dream partners, possibly as future husbands.

The ease by which they communicate with foreigners is unfortunately making it also easy for some Filipinas to victimize foreigners. These scammers and cheaters chat with their online dates and use an innocent front to win people’s hearts, so to speak. When the unsuspecting foreigner begins to show a sincere liking for them, they begin to ask money for the cost of chatting with them.

The amounts being asked are bound to increase, until online chatting grows to become a livelihood with hordes of online friends coming forward as willing victims. This may not be a problem at all for the foreigner, but it becomes so when he visits the Philippines to seek out her online Filipina friend, only to find out that she is as committed to other foreigner male friends.

These cheaters are professional chatters. Although they represent an insignificant segment of Filipinas who are looking for foreigner males as future friends or husbands, they succeed in blemishing the general reputation of Filipinas loyal and trustworthy persons. If there is anything good, however, that can come out from them, it is in alerting males from all over that the charming, beautiful and cheerful Filipina may not always be good as tagged.

Online Filipina dating has made romantic matching easy and convenient for all interested parties. But it also has its dangers. Elders advise that there is no substitute for honest to goodness courtship. This requires effort on the part of foreigners, like visiting the Philippines to seek face to face the Filipina they desire before committing anything deeper especially if that is going to cost them money.

The Filipina wife has many beautiful facets that many husbands can attest to. She is the devoted partner and loyal ally of her husband in all aspects of their marriage. While she remains the hands-on parent for her children, she also often helps her husband earn needed income to meet the family’s daily basic needs.

This was not the case some decades ago. Before, the wife was totally stay-at-home. She had to ensure that the family home was neat and tidy; the meals ready at the table; the clothes clean, crisp and dry; the children did well in their studies; and the general order at home was maintained. The Filipina wife used to be a reserved and religious woman; a good housekeeper and budget planner; a devoted and loyal partner to her husband; and a doting mother if strict mentor to her children.

Even as most of these characteristics of the typical Filipina wife remain manifest especially in the countryside where people are generally conservative and families are patriarchal, these days the contemporary wife is almost co-equal in social status with that of the husband. The Filipina wife now shares the burden of providing for the family needs by engaging in livelihood or getting regular employment.

In some cases a domestic helper takes the housekeeping role of the wife, but often the wife still has her say in organizing the entire household. And while Filipino children are normally trained to help get the household chores done, the overall responsibility for managing the household still rests with the Filipino wife and mother.

It is therefore not surprising that the Filipino wife came to be known as “multi-tasker” and “superwoman” here and abroad. And even if her multi-roles can sometimes get overwhelming, the Filipina wife remains generally strong and a proud woman. She draws her strength from her love for the family. After all, she is the one and only “ilaw ng tahanan” (light of the home).

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