German-Phl friendship

Here are excerpts from my speech at the launching last night (Oct. 15) in Berlin of “Freundschaft / Pagkakaibigan: Sixty Years of Friendship Between Germany and the Philippines,” edited by Cleofe Natividad, Charlotte Bandelow, and me, designed by BG Hernandez, Rogel Vidallo, and Ermil Carranza, published by Studio 5, with Marily Y. Orosa as project director:

Tonight is truly a shining moment, because it is the diamond anniversary of diplomatic relations between our two countries, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of the Philippines.

We thought it fitting that we will celebrate the anniversary not just for a day or a year, but forever, through a book that will stay on the shelves of libraries or homes long after this year’s festivities are over.

Why this book project?

First, because Germany has been very good to the Philippines. When the Philippines staged the first successful revolution against a colonial power in Asia in the nineteenth century, Germany was there to help. There is an article about this in the book. When the Philippines was devastated by a supertyphoon last year, Germany was the first to help and is still helping the survivors of the disaster. There are photos about this in the book.

Second, because the Philippines has been very good to Germany. During the Second World War in the last century, the Philippines opened its doors to Germans who did not like what was going on in Europe. 1,300 Germans were rescued by Philippine President Manuel L. Quezon between 1935 and 1941. Today, the Philippines is sending nurses to help Germany cope with its health care situation.

Third, because staying together for sixty years is always a cause for celebration. That is why it is called a diamond anniversary, because such a friendship is as rare as a diamond.

The Philippine government and the German government supported the anniversary book. You will find messages by the leaders of both countries in the book, as well as articles by the current and the previous ambassadors and diplomats of both countries.

You will find a lot in this book about how Germans and Filipinos love each other. But there are so many other things about our relationship that could not be accommodated in the book. Let me give some examples.

For example, it does not have a full account of the life of Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines. When he was practising medicine in the Philippines, Rizal was called “el doctor Aleman” or the German doctor, because he learned medicine in Germany. We do have a few pages devoted to Rizal in the book, but we could have had a lot more pages, except that he lived half a century before diplomatic relations started between Germany and the Philippines.

Today, we have the Knights of Rizal in Germany, who could easily fill up several chapters of a book. We have the Kababaihang Rizalista in Hamburg. We have Sentro Rizal at the Philippine Embassy. We have German scholars specializing in Rizal. There are translations in German of Rizal’s fiction and poetry.

Speaking of poetry, one of the most important books in Philippine literature is the “English-German Anthology of Filipino Poets,” translated and edited by Pablo Laslo and published in 1934, with a preface by Salvador P. Lopez, who was once our Foreign Affairs Secretary. Again, that was way before our diplomatic relations.

Speaking of books, Germany is featured in one of the latest novels written by a Filipino – “Ang Makina ni Mang Turing,” by Ramon Guillermo.

We missed featuring a lot of families that involve much closer relations than diplomatic relations. For example, a family we could have featured are the Fischers of Germany. Werner Fischer was president of the Philippine Association of Mechanical and Electrical Engineers. He offered a pioneering course on television at National University in Manila. Horst Fischer placed second in the Philippine board examinations for Certified Public Accountants in 1941. Herman and his son Herbert Fischer helped the Philippine and American prisoners of war. Hermann Fischer became a Filipino citizen.

We did include Marestella Torres in the book. She is the Southeast Asian Games champion in long jump. She trained in Germany. But we did not have space to include so many other Filipino athletes who trained in Germany.

Speaking of sports, the coach that made our football team internationally competitive was Hans Michael Weiss, a German. He was assisted by Michael Kruger, also a German. Our outfielder was Stephan Schrock, who now plays with SpVgg Greuther Furth in 2 Bundesliga. The second choice goalkeeper of Duisberg, Ronald Mueller, played with us. So did Kevin Ingreso of Hamburg. Since I am in Germany, I have to mention football.

I am mentioning all of these to show you that we had to cut so many things in order to keep the book within reasonable limits. We don’t want readers to break their arms lifting the book!

But there are enough items in this book to keep you busy reading and looking at photos for years to come.