As kids we used to fish in the wetlands that bordered the rice fields and the bramble bush pasture (bag-bagotot and bolbolding). Our fishing gear was simple. A short line made out of twine, a hook, and a bamboo stick to secure the string unto. We used earthworms for bait since they were the most readily available. We stuck the bamboo stick into the mud leaving the line to sit in the bottom overnight. In the morning, we would go back to check our fishing lines. Often we would catch an unsuspecting mud fish or catfish.

The wetland waters were always pristine, thanks to the raft of water hyacinths that performed the water filtration via their extensive roots and floats. There were other kinds of water lillies too, mostly floating, drifting while showing off their beautiful flowers. Often I would while the time away sitting down by the banks of the slough, playing with the small minnows that swam, grass shrimps and colorful snails (bisocol) that lived among the cattails and reeds. It would be during times such as these that I would observe the frogs jumping from lilly pad to lilly pad.

I often reflected on where the frogs thought they were going, or what they could have been thinking. Were they searching for small, flying insects to eat? Were they going from one lilly pad to the next just as a matter of practice or habit? Or did they have a much deeper reason for jumping from one lilly pad to the next, as in, a change of environment, perhaps?

My own personal study and observation of the amphibian was never scientific but I did come up with some ideas and notions of why the frogs jumped from one lilly pad to the next. I concluded that the overarching reason was search for food, to find a better hunting ground and as a side benefit, for their own self-preservation. The latter became apparent to me when I noticed how a water snake snagged a frog that had been sitting still on a lilly pad for too long. The poor frog was a palpable sitting target. He was gone in one big gulp.

Fast forward the tape to sometime last year.

Tinong and Tina came to America as tourists. They landed in California and although they had no relatives, no friends, nor acquaintances, they boldly set out to begin a new life in their new environment. In a way, by leaving the islands and coming to America, they were leaping from one lilly pad to another. You and I know the ramifications of overstaying one’s VISA. Overstaying could be a very tenuous if not perilous existence. Tinong and Tina managed to befriend some people in our local church. After they had explained their situation, a family in our church agreed to have them stay in their garage for free until they can stand on their own two feet.

By profession, Tinong was an engineer and Tina was a registered nurse. At that time in California, companies and hospitals were hiring. All one had to do to get hired was to fill out a job application. They both found work although their pay was transacted under the table for obvious reasons. In three months time, they were able to save enough to afford themselves a downpayment towards a rental apartment. Tinong and Tina, much like the frogs in the wetlands that I first described to you, jumped from their current garage lilly pad to yet another lilly pad – the rented apartment.

They also changed churches – another lilly pad. Their reason for leaving was that there were too many Filipinos in our church (98% of the parishioners) where they had met the family that so kindly afforded them their garage for free when they were first starting out. They claimed that when there are way too many Filipinos in one place, intrigue and gossip thrive and persist; they wanted nothing of the kind. Besides, since they were both professionals about to become established in their current employment, they wanted to expand their social and professional network of contacts. So they left our church, went to the Cathedral in the city and registered there as parishioners.

There was not one single time that Tinong and Tina ever called back their original host family – to say hello, to greet them on holidays, or to just be neighborly. They have totally abandoned their orginal garage digs turning their backs to the very people who gave them their first start. It was as if that part of their history was totally erased. To them, it never happened.

Reflecting on the two stories, I can understand why the frogs that lived in the water lilly pond never went back to their original lilly pads expressing gratitude. They were amphibians – almost insect-like in their make up, in a kill or be killed animal world. That ethical responsibility was not part of their make up or psyche and it was not part of our expectations of them. They were just frogs.

But for Tinong and Tina, the fact that there were those who helped them out of the goodness of their hearts to get started – at the risk of being complicit in their illegal and egregious plans to overstay their VISA, that alone deserved unshakable gratitude.

But none ever came from Tinong and Tina. In their successful, meteoric ascent in their pursuit of the American dream, they totally abandoned their own sense of gratitude and humility. They have abdicated their most basic and most fundamental sense of kinship with other Filipinos, claiming that they were a cut above everybody else.

I’ll take the frogs anyday. They can sit on my lilly pad anytime and are free to jump to another lilly pad as their instincts may dictate. Theirs is by far, a much nobler goal of survival.