Filippino Lippe who?

Florence, Tuscany — We took about a three-hour drive from the town of Larderello, known to be the “hotbed” of geothermal energy in Italy, to get here to the “religious arts” capital of this region. Located north of Rome, it’s much colder here during this autumn season.

On the way, we passed by the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa for some typical “photo-ops,” or picture taking that we love to do for posterity. Travelling by land proved to be an enjoyable scenic drive in the Italian countryside from one town to another. We learn up close and personal the rich cultural and historical background of the country known as one of the world’s seat of civilization.

We took time out to spend some cultural appreciation of Italian arts at the Galleria degli Uffizi, or “The Museum” where it features L’ Arte del Settecento a Firenze. The Uffizi is the pride of Florence because it houses almost 60 percent of Italy’s priceless arts from Leonardo da Vinci’s oil paintings to frescoes by various Italian painters, and the world-renowned sculptures like the statue of “David” by Michaelangelo Buonaretti that are in public display here.

But there was one particular collection of paintings that caught my attention. I had to take a second — and a third look even — when I almost stumbled reading the name Filippino Lippi in the captions of one row of huge religious paintings. In the same room are the paintings of another Italian painter by the name of Filippo Lippi (1406-1469) who happened to be his father. Filippino Lippi (1457-1504) completed his apprenticeship in the workshop of another famous Italian painter Allessandro Boticelli, who had been a pupil of his father.

What obviously got my interest to him was his familiar name that sounded like the word “Filipino” as our nationality is referred to. After all, the “Filippine” is how Italians call the Philippines and we are called here “Filippinos.” If only for such very similar names we are called here like one of Italy’s treasured painters, we are very much at home and regarded like members of the Italian family.

We relate this to the furor back home in Manila that was stirred by the article that quoted excerpts from the October 1 issue of Time magazine. Written by Jeff Israely, the article “What Berlusconi’s Tan Obama ‘Jokes’ Say About,” it stated that a cleaning woman is often called “Filippina.”

“In supposedly polite company, one can still hear the word negro which essentially translates into the N word. A cleaning woman is often generically referred to as ‘Filippina.’ Northern Italians joke that darker-skinned Southerners are ‘Moroccans,’” Israely wrote.

“Actually, domestic work is also done by many Ukrainian and Moldavian migrants. Along with Filipinos, they do house cleaning, baby sitting, and taking care of the aged,” Newsbreak quoted reports from La Repubblica, a Rome-based Socialist newspaper. The Newsbreak further quoted the newspaper also citing that the Filipino domestics, aside from helping a lot of families back home with their remittances, have boosted the dwindling population of Catholic church-goers in Rome and elsewhere in Italy where they stay and work.

Italian Ambassador to the Philippines, Rubens Fedele strongly took exceptions to the article of Israely as “misleading” account of how Filipinos are highly regarded by his countrymen here. I must say Ambassador Fedele was not patronizing when he strongly denounced the article of Israely who came to his country and made such erroneous reports based on the writer’s prejudiced impressions.

I learned from Filipinos here that Italians highly respects the work ethics of our countrymen who come here to work. Yes, many of them are nurses who work here as domestic helpers and earn a monthly net salary of 800 Euros. Or this is more than P56,000 a month if remitted totally back to their families in the Philippines at P70 to 1 Euro exchange rate. This amount is nothing to sneer at.

But many of our fellow countrymen here are also entrepreneurs and investors. In fact, we met two of them who have put up their own businesses in the city of Rome. Dondon Infante of Laguna, who has been staying here for the past 19 years, is running his own rent-a-van business that transports travellers from Rome to other European cities. He took us to a restaurant called “Kusina Ristorante,” owned by a fellow Laguna provincemate and serves typical Philippine menu from “sinigang” to “kare-kare” to Filipino-style spaghetti. But many of its customers are also Italians.

Actually, this is my second time to visit Italy. The first trip here was work-related when I did not have the time to even enjoy the sites in Rome. It was in 2003 when I covered the first state visit of President Arroyo at the Holy See where she and the First Family paid a courtesy call to the late Pope John Paul II.

The scheduled three-day state visits to Vatican and Italy though were unceremoniously cut short when a nuclear-run power plant in France conked out and caused massive blackout all around Rome and other parts in Italy. Philippine ambassador Philippe Lhuillier reminisced with me last week how all the members of the presidential entourage were hurriedly gathered the next day to the airport and immediately enplaned to Paris as the next stop of Mrs.Arroyo’s European state visits.

Ambassador Lhuillier still maintains as ill-advised the cancellation of the rest of official activities of Mrs.Arroyo and fly out of Rome the following morning. As repeatedly assured by Italian government authorities, he said, the normal power supply would be restored later and indeed electricity was indeed back on stream by lunchtime. The President was scheduled to meet on the second day of her visit with the community of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from all over Italy who have spent time and money just to come to Rome and meet her. The President left behind former Labor Secretary Patricia Sto.Tomas to meet with them instead.

Today, Lhuillier told us he is proud to care for some 200,000 of our OFWs all over Italy but only around 80,000 are documented or those holding valid work permits. The Italian government recently implemented amnesty to all illegal migrants to make their stay legal. But only 13,000 OFWs availed of this amnesty, he rued. He stressed, however, this does not detract the fact that Italians value the presence of Filipinos here with no racial bias at all against us.