Category: Sister Profiles

This section contains profiles of sisters throughout the Philippines.

Patricia and Joanna

Based on December 2016 interview

From the Angeles City barangay Pulung Bulu,  sisters Joanna, 23, and Patricia, 21, are natives to the area.  They are two of three sisters and nine siblings presently living with their family. Their father, 64, is unemployed and their mother, 54, makes a living laundering clothing.  Though their mother had had a high school education, their father’s education was limited.  As single mothers, it was important to find a vocation.  After high school, Patricia and Joanna developed the hand-eye coordination to earn a living operating sewing machines working as dressmakers. Because of the popularity of ornate pageants and festivals, the need for costumes is always in demand.  

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Older sister Joanna began working at the age of 18 and has been working as a dressmaker ever since she began adulthood along with her sister.  She began working full time to help her mother and father with household expenses. She had a close relationship with Patricia as children which has carried on through adulthood.

Currently involved in a relationship, Joanna and her current boyfriend first crossed paths at work while visiting for a delivery.  Satisfied, with her recent relationship, Patricia loves her new boyfriend. She likes doing what most couples enjoy such as dating and spending quality time.  “He is hardworking and loves me unconditionally,” Joanna says of her love interest.  Despite the difficulties associated with the institution of marriage, it is a promising prospect for Joanna. However, for 23-year-old Joanna, marriage ranks low on her list of priorities.  Beforehand, Joanna aspires to travel abroad to a Middle Eastern country such as Bahrain to earn money to advance her education and become financially stable. “I want to study more and grow more,” Joanna says of her plans before contemplating marriage.

Joanna’s sister and workmate describes coming from a big family as “hard at first” but ultimately “happy and fun.”  She enjoyed learning new and playing with her siblings. Patricia has the utmost respect for her parents.  She began working full time to help her mother and father with household expenses. She had a close relationship with Joanna as children which has carried on through adulthood.

Content with life in the Philippines, apart from the Filipino way of life, Joanna says she loves living in the Philippines because she is close to her family and friends and people she encounters daily are warm and hospitable. She is happy with her current job because of the ease of work and fun working environment. “Typically, we take orders from our clients in a given time.  We do our job.  Usually, in a day, we make ten to fifteen dresses,” she says of a common workday.   She likes the controversial new president Rodrigo Duterte.  “I think he’s a good president and can do (make) good change in our country [the] Philippines…”     

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Mila and Teresa

Based on interview from April 2017

    Mila, 25, and Teresa, 22, are older sisters of Gia and Jenna.  They earn substantial income working in an outdoor market selling hot dogs, juices, and other household items.  She attended business training seminars with her sister and combined the money they saved to invest in inventory and kitchen supplies to open a spot at Angeles City’s Santa Tersata Market.  She is one of eight siblings.  Unlike their father, Gia and Jenna, both sisters managed to complete secondary education.

    Mila currently resides with her family alongside her live-in partner who she met at a local canteen. As a child, Mila enjoyed going to school and playing with her siblings and friends.  At 18 she began to enter the workforce. Her jobs ranged from working in fast-food restaurants and was one of the many women to work as a weaver in the furniture industry. Working as a weaver was difficult for Mila. She would often cut her hands while overlapping tree fibers while constructing top-grade rattan furniture ready for export to the US and other countries abroad. The hectic schedule spent enclosed in a make-due workshop in an area home, with little time allotted for social interaction made Mila’s former position at a fast-food restaurant seem more appealing… 

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    Emily and Rachelle

    Feature is based on January 2017 interview

    Emily, 45, and Rachelle, 38, have been living in the Angeles City area for their entire life. Emily is a widow with three children and Rachelle is separated with two sons.  They are two of six children.  Growing up, they lived with four brothers, sister and parents. With limited education, Emily and Rachelle’s mother, 86, and father, 91, worked as wage laborers before they had enough money to start a small business. Inseparable, Emily and Rachelle take turns working together maintaining a family-ran small business.  They sell everyday staples such as snacks, laundry detergents, and cigarettes out of their father’s sari-sari store.  Tagalog, meaning “sundry” or “variety,” sari-sari stores are commonly seen in communities throughout the archipelago and play an integral part in the Philippine economy.  Unlike in the United States where “big box” marts and convenience chains have dominated the economy, the prevalence of sari-sari stores throughout the Philippines keep the spirit of small business alive and well… 

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    Gia and Jenna

    Originally written June 2016

    In the Philippines, the importance of beauty is never underemphasized. Past beauty queens such as Pia Wurtzbach have received attention commonly reserved for astronauts and Olympic medalists in countries such as the United States. Regularly scheduled programming is interrupted by news tickers flowing at the bottom of television screens across the country featuring updates of pageant results. Not only is the pageant circuit a desirable career and lifestyle path for women, but it is also a viable option for many born male.  As many boys traditionally aspire to become athletes, in the Philippines, a country ridden in socioeconomic disparity, success as a beauty queen offers a fast track from poverty to fame and fortune.

    Homosexually and/or transvestitism /transsexuality/transgenderism is perhaps more accepted – if not more apparent – than in many western countries, not because of laws and legal provisions that protect sexual minorities, but by the prevalence of GBLTQ culture. Unlike the United States where many gay events remain on society’s fringe, celebrities such as Vice Ganda and Boy Abunda are television personalities often seen on television…

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    Mia and Rosa

    Pampanga sisters Mia and Rosa sit and relax
    Pampanga sisters Mia (left) and Rosa (right) sit and relax

    Originally written June  2016

    “If she is from Pampanga, she must be a good cook,”  Filipinos often say about the women from this area because of its internationally-renowned cuisine. Before the closing of Clark Air force base in 1991, US servicemen indulged in the food and natural beauty of this province, situated between metro Manila and the coastal province of Zambales. Clark’s closing put the local economy under pressure, make diversification essential. Presently, Clark serves as an international airport and designated economic zone and the provincial economy is driven by tourism and the manufacturing of furniture and other goods and services.

    Sisters Mia and Rosa are Pampanga natives. They are two of seven siblings from a tight-knit and hard-working family…

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    Olongapo: The Azarcon Sisters

    Gerald and Rolly Chat
    Gerald (left) and Rolly (right) chat outside of Gerald’s Olongapo internet cafe

    Originally written March  2011

    How far can someone advance in society based solely on looks? Traditionally, males value physical appearance above all.  Men, regardless of sexual orientation, search endlessly for the perfect mate.  Age, education, religion and social status are often important factors in choosing a mate, but men, overtaken by lust or love, in a lapse of reasoning, put physical appearance atop their list, while females wait pensively for men to adore them. Pictures of female figures printed in the pages of a magazine set unattainable beauty standards for most women. Wishfully, women perceive them as mirror images of themselves.

    If truth exists to a picture saying a thousand words, women typically read pictures of models in publications such as Vanity Fair, Vogue and Allure as detailed trade-book instructions on how to be “beautiful”.  They analyze each pixel – each article of clothing. They represent a puzzle piece – the missing link to the perfect ensemble ready to be bought, sold, worn, and tossed out as next season’s rags. “It is the clothes that make the man,” is a phrase more commonly uttered than clothing “making” the woman. Ironically, popular men’s magazines – Playboy, Esquire, and Maxim – sparsely feature male models promoting the latest fashions amid pages filled with text and femme fatale images imbued in glamour.  Male slaves of fashion represent a debutantes’ caricature. Men who believe that someone can never become too fashion conscious and define themselves by designer labels fall into the category of camp or the updated metrosexual.  “They appreciate the finer things,” cosmopolitan females comment. For women, they are seldom a lover, a husband, a boyfriend, but a best friend; they are “less threatening” with fashion plans for everyone, but none to rule the world.  In western society a man among common men is ostracized – or to lesser extent, affectionately teased for detail to style. Male’s outward preoccupation with the dress on a woman instead of the body it covers insights suspicion in many social circles.  His sexual orientation goes before a jury of peers. 

    “Functionality,” “mechanics,” “strength,” and “prowess” are words synonymous with the male mystique. For men, boundaries for fashion are well-defined. Men who attempt to broaden fashion’s parameters often fail miserably. Fashion for men remains a bland black & white three-piece world allowing little variation. It is not inasmuch the clothing for men, but their ability to compete in one-style-fits-all attire. Men dressing out of the ordinary are rarely taken seriously for pushing styles’ envelop. Power-driven American males brought up with the American football philosophy, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” would reluctantly accept an award honoring the “best dressed” or “best looking,” for taking such a title intimidates the male bravado.  Like winning a losing race, it is a trite, self-defeating distinction, lacking selfless heroism relegated to uniformed men….

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    Rona and Roane

    Sitting in the cemetary
    Rona (left) and Roane (right) sitting in La Peita  Memorial Park

    Originally written July 2016

    Originally from Olongapo, a coastal city in Luzon’s Zambales province, Rona and Roane are single mothers who presently reside in the northern Isle’s landlocked province of Pampanga. Rona,29, and Roane,28, are two of six children. Throughout childhood, they grew up with their youngest sister,18,  and two brothers, 27 and 17.  As teens, they welcomed a new addition to the family as their mother, just shy of her fortieth birthday gave birth to their youngest brother,  10.   Other than Taglish, a unique hybrid of English and the commonly-spoken Tagalog, a language they would often hear on television talk shows and dramas, Rona and Roane had minimal exposure to English.  Growing up, Tagalog, and Kapampangan, the region’s indigenous language, remained their main means of oral expression.

    As teens, their father, 49, invested money earned delivering gravel in relocating their family closer to Manila and the purchase of a motorcycle with side cart to pursue a new venture as an independent city tricycle operator.  At the age of sixteen Roane decided to move in with her boyfriend, two years her senior.  They rented an apartment together and soon became pregnant, carrying her first child.  Like her father, Roane’s boyfriend earned a modest living as a tricycle driver while Roane found work weaving rattan furniture in a home-based business.  She worked up to twelve hours daily, six days of the week except Sunday – her day of rest.  After three years as a weaver, Roane found a position working as a machine operator at a Clark Field light fixture assembly plant. Roane noticed a night and day difference en route to and from her job. The wide open green space and air conditioned, multi-bed-roomed houses synonymous with Eisenhower-era suburban Americana inside Clark contrasted starkly to the drab tin-roofed cement tenements of the neighborhood which she and her coworkers lived, only a short jeepney ride away.  The former US airbase eludes locals such as Roane.  Seemingly, Clark’s parameters remain well-defined and isolated from the immediate area as it was prior to US military withdrawal in 1992. US servicemen that once patrolled the boundaries are replaced with security guards who check identifications of wage earners who flock daily through the entrances on their morning commute to the hotels, restaurants, call centers, and manufacturing plants within Clark’s present-day Freeport Zone. Unlike younger sister Roane, she works outside the confines of Clark in a wallet and accessory factory in neighboring San Fernando…

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