PANA Institute for Leadership Development

Concurrent Session A1 / Bauer South, Room 25 / Friday.2009.Aug.7 / 9:45 AM

Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, University of San Francisco:  Gonzalez@usfca.edu

My proposed presentation is about the remarkable and untapped soft power that Filipino and Filipina migrant faithful possess and how various actors—from governments, NGOs, business, and international organizations—could tap this valuable resource to enhance global cooperation and development. With detailed and intimate illustrations from the experiences of the large Philippine spiritualdiaspora, my study examines how this widespread community performs numerous acts of public diplomacy bridging their twin homelands or two home bases—their old and their new. Backed with colorful stories from a generation of Filipina and Filipino migrant faithful in San Francisco, London, Dubai, Dhaka, and Singapore, this study elaborates how this diaspora's rich religious traditions, economic and social contributions, and political legacies provide an important resource that can be used in the construction of a new and more resilient global security architecture.

Powered by the charm of more than eight million migrant faithful in over 180 countries who work, socialize, and worship in more than a thousand cities, associations, and churches, Filipino and Filipina migrant faithful have become the international face of Philippine spirituality, training, and culture surpassing formal foreign policy initiatives. They boost homeland and home base economies while at the same time sending

back tens of billions of dollars and millions of care boxes influencing their families and hometowns annually—more money and goods than what the Philippines receives in foreign aid and investments. Conversely, in North America, Europe, the Middle East, as well as South and Southeast Asia, Philippine migrant faithful facilitate the transnational

connection of countries through the universality of the Christian faiths they practice,the globalized work they perform, and the engaging civic and social networks they establish.

Many societies see migrants as powerless. Contra Joseph Nye and neoliberalism, I expose how they spread the Filipino spirit, mind, and heart. How Philippine migrant faithful help renew American and Anglican churches as well as respectfully spread Christianity in Islamic states? How Filipino and Filipina migrant faithful help keep the health care system in the United States afloat, the delicacies in the restaurants and patisseries of the United Kingdom flowing, the garments industry in Bangladesh socially responsible, the ports and malls of the United Arab Emirates running efficiently, and the flats in Singapore neat and tidy? How their Philippine hometown associations, beauty pageants, and basketball leagues make San Francisco, London, Dubai, Dhaka, and Singapore more culturally vibrant?