Family-Oriented Filipinos?

Reflection on the Feast of the Holy Family by Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David

We are indeed known to be family-oriented—and rightly so. But we also know that family can be lived in two very different ways.

There are families that turn politics into business and pass it on as an inheritance, families that turn power into entitlement, and public office into private property. Political dynasties, too, are families. They protect their turf. They keep power within the clan. And like Herod’s household, they often collapse from within—siblings against siblings, parents against children, spouses against spouses—once fear and insecurity take over.

That kind of family is not life-giving. It is self-destructive. And when it dominates a nation, it slowly destroys the nation as well.

But there is another kind of Filipino family:

Quiet families. Families that survive calamities, floods, fires, and earthquakes. Families that endure economic hardship, migration, separation, war, and political uncertainty. Families that pray together, stay together, and journey together.

Families that widen their tents.

Families that welcome relatives, friends, neighbors, even strangers. Families that choose compassion over resentment, forgiveness over revenge.

These are the families of Bethlehem that become families in Egypt. These are the families of Egypt that grow roots again in Nazareth. They do not make headlines. But they carry the future.