The Road Abroad is Paved with Utang Na Loob
Pagtanaw ng utang na loob (an expression of gratitude) — Is it really an admirable Filipino family value or is it nothing more than an invisible Gaslighting Contract none of us should sign up for?
Photo from Star Cinema
By Katt Briones (Melbourne, Australia)
May 21, 2021
“Wala kang utang na loob!” (What an ingrate!”) someone on the TV would shout. What usually follows is the cracking sound of a slap, or a dramatic exit followed by a door being slammed. We’ve pretty much grown familiar with scenes like this, having seen them on television and movies one too many times that it’s pretty much cliche now. A plot point, a twist, sometimes even an extended arc - the concept of utang na loob is so familiar and ingrained in our culture that seeing it on mainstream media doesn’t even raise an eyebrow for us anymore.
While hard-wired into the Filipino psyche, one would still find trouble defining it in a single swoop easy enough to grasp for people who did not grow up in our culture. A study has attempted to do so, in a journal written by Charles Kaut1 in 1961, defining ‘utang na loob’ first as its literal translation “debt of prime obligation”, and then as a whole - “a system of contractual obligation”, encompassing the way an individual integrates into society, their security in the group they belonged in, and a pattern of positive and negative behavioral patterns defined by control - usually by the person or group to whom the favor is owed to.
“…the word pakikisama is used not as its literal meaning, but as an implied order to play along with her conditions as she was providing for him. In his sister’s eyes, he was indebted to her, and his submission to her control (and the expectation to clean up after her) was repayment for having a roof over his head for free - a clause written in fine print he didn’t realize he had signed up for.”
While owing money from a bank, person, or organization is by no means a walk in the park, having an ‘utang na loob’ in our culture is more complex and taxing. A monetary debt would be quantified, payment terms clearly laid out, and an individual - as long as they comply with the terms agreed - knows exactly how much is expected of them to repay and when the monetary obligation is expected to be fulfilled. Owing a favor is a whole new ballgame in our culture because as earlier mentioned, it involves control and sometimes an invisible hold over someone’s head. While it is usually pointed out how Filipinos are much too lenient of past mistakes during election time, where politicians get voted to power over and over despite their misgivings, the same cannot be said in the utang na loob spectrum. In this department, forgiveness or forgetting is unheard of and the invisible interest rate from these favors sometimes gets so high that the expectation to repay these obligations transcends generations
"…the word pakikisama is used not as its literal meaning, but as an implied order to play along with her conditions as she was providing for him. In his sister’s eyes, he was indebted to her, and his submission to her control (and the expectation to clean up after her) was repayment for having a roof over his head for free - a clause written in fine print he didn’t realize he had signed up for.
Pinoys who move abroad are not spared from this system. As moving would usually be initiated (funded, even) by family or friends who have already settled in a foreign city, the process of helping out is usually regarded as an utang na loob. While not as dramatic as what we see on television, the toxic side of having a debt of obligation is felt by most of us still from those who have helped out, the experiences ranging from awkward to unpleasant, leaving us wondering if the debt will ever be considered repaid.
Written in Fine Print
Luke* is one example. He had moved to the United States after graduating in the Philippines and being petitioned by his dad who is a US citizen. While he acknowledges that his Dad has given him the opportunity to migrate, they didn’t have a good relationship, so he instead decided to stay with his sister in a big city on the East Coast. Luke celebrates his fifth year in the US this month, and he looks back at his early days in the country with a mix of sadness and relief that things are different now.
“We love our family, but this is the truth, it’s sad and it affects you,” he says as we begin the interview. Luke, like the rest of us, did not have an easy start - he had to work a job that paid below the minimum wage and sleep in his sister’s living room at first. Being in a major city with one of the highest costs of living in the world, he tried to make the best of his situation. While his sister shouldered his expenses during this time, it did not come without a catch.
“It was difficult to have a family member who liked to nag, and it was worse because she was providing for me,” he recalls. “She liked ordering me around and telling me to wash the dishes or clean the house, even if it wasn’t even my mess.”
He eventually found a job that paid a living wage, and while he was relatively more comfortable in the financial aspect of his life, he found himself struggling with his relationship with his sister.
“What’s funny is I remember them saying they’d always be there for me, but that night was the most alone I’d ever felt in my life.”
“I could recall two stages of my fights with my sister. The first one started with her nagging me to go to church more, as she said I owed my job to the Higher Power,” he muses. Luke found this annoying as he had different beliefs, and he thought it hypocritical to be asked of this when his sister’s church-going habits were not much different from his. This nagging would move on to other things and coupled with the continuous demands to clean up the house or wash dishes he didn’t even use, things got to a head. During one especially intense fight, Luke tried to defend himself, saying it wasn’t even his mess or dishes to begin with, which his sister countered; “Ah, you don’t want to wash dishes? Don’t you want a place to stay?”
The argument had then worsened, leading them to reopen much deeper wounds that involved their dad, who Luke said had abandoned them during the early years. This was especially grating for him when his sister tried to compare him to their estranged father, as who would even want to be compared to a parent who had neglected them? Luke ended up having a shouting match with his sister, whose husband ended up getting involved and pushing Luke towards a wall.
His sister eventually broke up the fight. Luke remembers his sister’s words in clear detail: “I don’t need you to move out. I just want you to understand that you’re living and staying with me and kailangan mong makisama. (you need to get along accordingly.)”
This statement would ring familiar to a lot of us. The concept of utang na loob goes hand in hand with its equally convoluted sister, pakikisama (getting along). In Luke’s context, the word pakikisama is used not as its literal meaning, but as an implied order to play along with her conditions as she was providing for him. In his sister’s eyes, he was indebted to her, and his submission to her control (and the expectation to clean up after her) was repayment for having a roof over his head for free - a clause written in fine print he didn’t realize he had signed up for.
“It’s even worse when you think about how she’s a millennial too,” Luke continues. “You’d think that as a next-generation Filipino-American, my sister would be the one to initiate cutting off this utang na loob culture in our family and outgrowing it to be left with our parents as an antiquated practice, but that didn’t happen.”
While he managed to keep the peace for a few more months, tensions eventually boiled over, leading to a second major fight that led to Luke moving out. Things got even worse as his brother-in-law got even more involved, and one Friday night, he found himself getting hit on the side of the head. It had gotten so bad that his sister even apologized while crying, asking him to stay away for a bit as her husband was still angry.
“I’d never forgotten it. I was homeless for a weekend,” Luke recounts. “It was a Friday night when the fight happened, and I stayed in a 24/7 diner with my laptop, looking over Craigslist ads for a place to live. I was also trying to look for hotel offers that would give me some time, maybe three nights for that weekend, while I looked for a longer-term arrangement because I really didn’t want to go back to my sister’s place anymore. What’s funny is I remember them saying they’d always be there for me, but that night was the most alone I’d ever felt in my life.”
“Luke realizes how many Filipinos probably are hearing this narrative - especially from our elders, who either give themselves the credit for someone doing well or get threatened when the people they help start getting merit in a much quicker timeframe than they did. He tries to understand where they’re coming from - especially with how the people who helped out treat us like their assistance was some sort of investment that we have to pay back in some way, shape, or form for an undefined period of time - and comes up empty. He points out how bad and toxic this mentality is, and how we are the ones forced to forgive and just charge these unpleasant incidents to experience. “
He eventually found a good place, thankful that he had a job that paid well now and he was able to afford it. While he settled down in the new place, he said it was when the ‘sumbatan’ or the reproaching began, which would be communicated via their youngest sibling. At the time, their youngest sibling had flown into the US as well and took Luke’s place in his sister’s living room.
“It was also good that I moved out, our youngest had more space as well,” Luke said, fondly speaking of this sibling, whom he said he was best friends with. “But things weren’t better for them either. Our youngest would meet me from time to time as I had my own place now. Umiiyak siya, naa-affect din mentally (He’d cry and get badly affected mentally) - apparently the couple’s shouting matches and fights didn’t stop even with our sibling there. And this sibling would tell me that Ate (big sister) said this, Ate said that… basically, the gist was wala akong utang na loob. (for my big sister, I am ungrateful.)”
Even with the fight and the whole process of Luke having to move out in such a traumatic fashion, his sister apparently hasn’t let go of the assumption that he was still indebted to her. His name was being dragged in the household he left, and the couple were saying things like “Why couldn’t he be the bigger person and just apologize?”
Luke wonders ‘For what?’, and lets out a small laugh as he continues with the interview. He admits he talks back to them to defend himself, but hardly sees this as a reason for him to apologize.
“I think my sister’s anger just got pent up, and she especially hates it now that I had my own place and would rather hang out with our youngest than with her. There’s a huge age difference between us, and I think she’s jealous that we see each other and don’t invite her. She’s the eldest kid and she branched out early, didn’t have much time with the rest of us - I think that’s another factor affecting the whole thing, too.”
Luke wonders how different it would have been if he lived with their youngest instead. He says their energies were a lot more in tune with one another, and that, unlike his sister, he wouldn’t use the ‘indebtedness’ to treat another person with less respect just because there was a debt of sorts between them.
“Even my dad uses this same logic,” Luke says. “We hardly see each other now, but when arguments arise, he would find a way to bring up that he petitioned for me to be here, so I was indebted to him too.”
In addition, Luke points out that not only has utang na loob been used as a way to make him do chores, he is also not spared from his family members using it to invalidate his experiences and attribute his own success to themselves.
“They’d tell me, ‘if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be here,” he relates. “And then there’s other stuff like ‘you had it much easier than we did!” It just happened that my line of work in design was in demand in the city we lived in, so I was doing extremely well already for someone who’s only been here for five years. While it’s true that the demand for services in my industry sped up my climb up the ladder - that doesn’t mean they get to invalidate my experiences and hardships for it.”
Luke realizes how many Filipinos probably are hearing this narrative - especially from our elders, who either give themselves the credit for someone doing well or get threatened when the people they help start getting merit in a much quicker timeframe than they did. He tries to understand where they’re coming from - especially with how the people who helped out treat us like their assistance was some sort of investment that we have to pay back in some way, shape, or form for an undefined period of time - and comes up empty. He points out how bad and toxic this mentality is, and how we are the ones forced to forgive and just charge these unpleasant incidents to experience.
Luke muses how we could only try, going forward, to cut this mentality and leave it in the past, and try not to pass it on to whoever he will be helping out in the future.
Non-Disclosure
Penelope* had a similar experience. She migrated to the US West Coast in 2012 with her mom who raised her alone. Having no jobs or other connections in the beginning, they too, had to stay with family members during the first few months. Her story begins the same way as Luke - in a family member’s living room.
“It was my grandma and one of my mom’s sisters that helped us to get here,” Penelope starts. “They provided us with their tax returns to help with our documents and show that we will be supported.”
With this support provided and sharing their living areas, Penelope’s Tita and Lola did not take too long to start with the ‘paniningil’ (‘demands’) and the power-tripping.
“We used to sleep in a sofa bed in my Tita’s house. Sometimes we’d get woken up by my Lola making a racket as early as seven A.M. in the morning. We almost want to believe it’s not deliberate, but my mom would find the trash conveniently placed near the foot of the sofa bed,” Penelope remembers. “It was demeaning. They couldn’t even communicate or ask, it was just there. Like, they expected my mom to just put the trash outside.”
Penelope and her mom would also hear a lot of passing remarks that would seem innocent to whoever would hear, but they knew each comment had something else behind it.
“That was bad. It was one thing to be a second-class citizen in a foreign country, but a whole different ballgame when it happened inside your supposed home too,”
“While we weren’t even complaining, we’d hear stuff like, oh, this is a studio - we’re not supposed to have more than three people,” Penelope relates. “It was like a hint that we were expected to do the things they want us to, because we wouldn’t have a place to live otherwise, given we were already in a fragile situation as it is.”
The household chores seemed to be expected of them, and Penelope clearly remembers how her Mom had to be strong for both of them despite this less-than-ideal treatment. The way her mother held her composure while doing all the things was both admirable and difficult to see for Penelope as a daughter.
“I hated it. They were supposed to be family. My Lola acted all high and mighty, putting trash and laundry next to my mom and expected her to do these things. Basically, they were treating my mother like a maid. I wanted to say, hey, that’s your child - what are you even doing?!”
But of course, she couldn’t say anything. She eventually found a job that helped her and her mother begin their journey out of there. Like Luke, her situation still didn’t get easier - and the unspoken resentment grew as the untoward instances became less and less subtle.
“There was this one time that my mom and I got home late, like 10 PM. When we got there, my Tita was just watching TV, sitting on the sofa. She wasn’t talking to us or anything, it was like we weren’t there,” Penelope recounts, the incident standing out to her like a red, painful welt. “So my mom and I didn’t know what to do. I had work the next morning and as my Tita was there, not paying us notice, we didn’t know where to go as that sofa was where we slept.”
They had to suck it up still, and as they were living under this roof, they didn’t feel safe to say anything. They had to stay up late as there was no place to sleep - and it was only after midnight that this Tita left.
“That was bad. It was one thing to be a second-class citizen in a foreign country, but a whole different ballgame when it happened inside your supposed home too,” Penelope continues. “And we can’t even talk about it. It was like, they expected us to act accordingly and keep our heads bowed under their control just because we were living with them.”
The poorly communicated expectations were already taxing as they were, and just when Penelope thought it couldn’t be worse, the demands that followed as time passed were starting to push them to the limit.
“I was forced to take a double job at one point. I did as I was told since I felt it was needed. I did want to expedite our way out of that house and save up for things too. That time, I worked at a coffee shop, go home for a bit of rest, then spend the next few hours working as a receptionist in a doctor’s office.
One time, I dropped by at home for my rest, and out of courtesy told my Tita and Lola that I was going already because they happened to be there. My Tita threw a fit, “Jusko, nakakaloka! (my God, It was crazy!)” Penelope says, unable to resist rolling her eyes on the video call and putting a hand on her forehead. “She went, hala, ‘I’m going to work na (already) - who’s going to watch Nanay (Mom)?’”
“While they’re out of that household now, she still laments the fact that no matter where she goes - this Tita will attribute her achievements to herself, just for giving her that stepping stone to get to the US.”
Penelope was taken aback. The household knew that she was doing two jobs, so this reaction was weird and uncalled for.
“So, ok, I thought fine, just to avoid the drama, I told her I’d call my job to tell them I was going to take the day off. Tita then backpedals and goes, hey, no, don’t do that. Your doctor boss is Nanay’s (Mom’s) attending physician!”
Penelope, just beyond annoyed and exasperated at that point, could not help but answer: ‘So what do you want me to do?’
“I think her issue was not Lola’s welfare. Her issue was she wanted control,” Penelope stated. “I didn’t know for how much longer they expected us to keep it up and be okay with what they’re doing under the guise of paying them back. Until when were we supposed to owe them?”
Eventually, Penelope and her mom moved to a different Tita’s house. There wasn’t drama when they left, but boy did it catch up just a short while after.
“She got really mad at my mom. I kept asking her why? Why did she hate my mom so much? There was even this instance that it got so bad that she started harassing me at my place of work. Imagine, she was incessantly calling the Starbucks store where I worked as a shift supervisor - on a really, really busy shift at that - and I had to tell my fellow barista to just hung up on her. Eventually, my co-worker just told me - ‘Penny, she’s just going to keep calling’. She literally embarrassed me at my place of work so I got forced to talk to her.
"Do you know what she told me when I got on the phone? She said, ‘Wala kayong utang na loob! (You are ingrates!) Your mom promised she would help me with my catering business!’ So I was like ‘Do you even have the catering business already?’ And that shut her up.”
Again, it seemed like another power trip. The concern wasn’t even something of significance, and Penelope just marvels at how bad it was for them that time, and how far the Tita was willing to go just to harass them.
“It was bordering on bullying. There was even this instance that this Tita (aunt) talked my mom into disclosing her Social Security Number for this Tita’s use. I told her to take it back because what was going to happen to us if this Tita used it for bad things, especially as my Tita had a bad credit line?” Penelope recounts. “And this Tita and my Lola even had the nerve to tell other people in our family, ‘Why isn’t Penny sweet to us?’ Like, we never fought back, we didn’t even defend ourselves because we felt we weren’t allowed to because of this supposed utang na loob we owed them - and when we got out of their hair - I’m getting gaslighted and told that I had no reason not to be sweet with them? They were basically saying I didn’t even have the right to get mad at them for the things they did, and the sad thing was - at one point, I did believe them. I even started to doubt my own feelings and wonder why I hated them.”
“While she needed the stepping stone, she wonders if she would have taken it if she realized it came with a figurative noose.”
Thankfully, Penelope and her mom found their own place in the city, and have since found new jobs that suited them and made them happier. She is optimistic about the future, despite the difficult experiences, and has since learned to keep the toxic members of her family at arm’s length.
In family arguments, even with the safe distance in place, Penelope says she still hears ‘utang na loob’ thrown around. She feels that ‘utang na loob’, in her context, not only used as an excuse but a weapon to threaten and control not only her and her mom but other members of the family as well. Again, she wonders how much longer her family will hold this over her mom’s head and hers. While they’re out of that household now, she still laments the fact that no matter where she goes - this Tita will attribute her achievements to herself, just for giving her that stepping stone to get to the US.
While she needed the stepping stone, she wonders if she would have taken it if she realized it came with a figurative noose.
Penalties
Jasmine*, like Penelope, moved to a first-world country with extended family’s assistance.
“My mom moved to Canada first,” Jasmine tells us after introductions. “She was asked by my Tita to stay with them to take care of my cousin with special needs.”
Jasmine’s Tita started out in Toronto in the early 1990s, while her mom moved there during the late 2000s. Her mom worked as the cousin’s caregiver, and this became her pathway to getting a visa. Nearly a decade later, Jasmine joined her mom and saw that things were not as pleasant as she would like.
The untoward incidents that were the price for their move did not involve dirty dishes, the trash, or passive-aggressive power trips - it came in the form of financial control.
“The Canadian government gives caregivers a form of tax credit or allowance, especially if it concerns an individual with special needs,” Jasmine relates. “And as my mom was caregiver, and my Tita was classified as a high-income person, only my mom was receiving these credits… which my Tita would be taking from her.”
“It wasn’t just financial abuse, now there was some psychological abuse involved too. Imagine having to look over your head in case your own family member decided to set you up with trumped-up charges and investigation requests just to assert their ‘power’ and remind Jasmine’s family of who was there first, and who was in charge. “
Jasmine felt her mom did not feel like she could contest this because of - you guessed it - utang na loob. And when arguments came up, like in the case of Luke and Penelope - this exact thing was used as reasoning in Jasmine’s case.
“I couldn’t imagine how strong my mom was back then. She had to take it because my Tita would say, ‘If it weren’t for my child, you wouldn’t even be here!’. She didn’t have much room to fight back as our supposed indebtedness to this Tita was being held over our heads, and she really had gotten attached to my cousin after years of looking after her. She didn’t want to endanger that. But it wasn’t just bad - this thing where Tita was taking money - it was also illegal.”
The financial abuse did not end with the government’s stipend - Jasmine remembers her maternal grandmother keeping a considerable sum of money aside for her and her mother, which the grandmother was intending for them to use for their move to Canada. When the grandmother died and they eventually moved, the Tita offered to keep the money for the meantime.
“Her reasoning was to help my mom, so my mom wouldn’t unnecessarily spend it,” Jasmine muses, her expression a mix of amusement and annoyance. “What a joke - we eventually arrived and we didn’t see this money at all. She never gave it to us.”
The issues with money ended up in disagreements, naturally, and there was even an instance that the government’s tax authority or bureau got involved. As Jasmine’s mom was testifying about the cousin’s disability, her mom’s name was being used with the organization, so they all got a rather nasty shock when the said tax authority called them out of nowhere.
“They said they were getting my mom’s authorization to investigate her income, and this request was initiated by my Tita,” Jasmine told us. “Which was all too convenient - they had a fight over money shortly before that, and now this?”
Jasmine says there were multiple threats from her Tita during these disagreements - she would hear her mom being told, while she wasn’t a permanent resident yet, ‘So, do you want me to have you deported’? The surprise call from the tax bureau sounded like her Tita making good on that promise to discredit her mom, and seemed like a concrete start to setting her mom up with the law.
It wasn’t just financial abuse, now there was some psychological abuse involved too. Imagine having to look over your head in case your own family member decided to set you up with trumped-up charges and investigation requests just to assert their ‘power’ and remind Jasmine’s family of who was there first, and who was in charge.
“It wasn’t limited to those threats too. In other instances, Tita would threaten my mom with shaming on Facebook. As if the deportation threats or whatnot weren’t enough, my Tita would say, ‘Gusto mo, i-Facebook kita?’ (Do you want me to expose you on Facebook?)”
“Jasmine wonders how much the total principal, interest, and penalties this utang na loob from her Tita had already accumulated to collect from them. While she acknowledges that these may be part of growing pains and necessary evils to the better life she is aiming for now, she thinks the price is perhaps too high - and the utang na loob is valued by the ‘debtor’ much higher than its actual market value.”
Jasmine’s case of being asked to pay back the utang na loob extended to very real threats and real-world currency. Money had always been a huge issue for this Tita who had assisted them. She remembers one time she was talking to this Tita as she was progressing with her university studies.
“She would tell me, ‘O, if it weren’t for us, you wouldn’t be able to study there, and when you graduate you’d have the highest pay grade,’ tapos (then) she would say I’ll have to give her back a portion of that, just because of this favor we owed her. I feel like she’d be holding that over us forever, and it feels terrible because she keeps using my cousin who had special needs… and acts like it was all one-sided, like we were the only ones who benefited from this setup, when my mom was more of a mother to my cousin than my Tita was.”
While she and her mother deeply cares for the cousin and recognizes the part played by the Tita in their move, Jasmine feels it was terribly unfair for them to be treated like that. They have since moved into a house, away from the said Tita, and are in a better place now, but the trauma from these experiences continues to bear weight on their chests. It was like the utang na loob not only held a principal and an interest they had since worked to pay back - the following abuse and control-tripping were like penalties - charges that they didn’t know came with the offer of help.
“I wish she’d stop,” Jasmine says. “Being away from her physically helps, but in gatherings or instances that we have to see her again, she never misses a chance to remind us that we were here because of her. She always has to make it a point to tell me that whatever I reach in life will be credited to her, notwithstanding my own hard work and my mother’s efforts to bring me here.”
Jasmine wonders how much the total principal, interest, and penalties this utang na loob from her Tita had already accumulated to collect from them. While she acknowledges that these may be part of growing pains and necessary evils to the better life she is aiming for now, she thinks the price is perhaps too high - and the utang na loob is valued by the ‘debtor’ much higher than its actual market value.
Terms and Conditions
Luke’s, Penelope’s, and Jasmine’s stories all sound familiar - we at one point would have experienced these in our lives in varying degrees and extents. Learned as we are of the implications and toxicities involved with having an utang na loob, it seems to be a part of life now.
Our generation, however, has a choice. While putting this cultural thing to a full stop within our lifetimes seems impossible, we can also start the hard work to keep the toxic parts of it out going forward.
“…while the generations before us seemed like they want us to suffer as they did - most of our same-age peers would rather work now to let the future generations have it easier.”
“If I had a niece or nephew that would have to live with me, I really intend not to make them go through the same things that I did,” Luke concludes. He muses that while the generations before us seemed like they want us to suffer as they did - most of our same-age peers would rather work now to let the future generations have it easier.
“That was the point, diba? We work on these things para (so) our children don’t have to suffer,” Penelope agrees. She resolves and sharply adds, “And honestly - helping - it should be just that. Here in the States, the locals just pay each other back when it’s over, and then they move on. In our culture, it’s used as a guise for favors, unjust labor, and borderline abuse. Like, seriously, if you’re planning to charge for helping - you might as well not do it.”
“It’s so good that our parents were strong,” Jasmine says. “But I hope it stops with them. I hope no one else has to pay for the price of utang na loob in ways that are hard to stomach and are just emotionally and mentally taxing.”
We recognize that utang na loob is in fact a form of debt for many people to get to where they are now, and it’s not bad to be grateful for the help we receive. However, we will have to draw a hard line when the payback and expectations extend beyond people’s rights and boundaries.
“It’s so good that our parents were strong,” Jasmine says. “But I hope it stops with them. I hope no one else has to pay for the price of utang na loob in ways that are hard to stomach and are just emotionally and mentally taxing.”
Like a monetary loan, providing utang na loob should be transparent. Terms and conditions in the form of expectations should be laid out in the open, so people know what they’re getting into. This should go without saying, but after hearing what the interviewees went through, it has to be reinforced with us, friends, or family, that receiving help or money does not make the debtor not human or valid; neither does it give the creditor or provider of help an unreasonable hold over the other party. A debt, whether of money or contractual obligation, should stay just that - something that could be paid back, with clear communication of intent, and no fine prints of non-disclosure, interest, or penalties that the people helped do not even realize they have to pay for with their sanity.
The resulting abuse, hurt, and resentment from these incidents can transcend generations, and with the above approach, we believe the bitterness cycle can eventually be stopped. There is already enough evil in the world without family turning against each other over a favor owed or a bunch of papers submitted to migration authorities.
Hopefully, one day, we can all just help and be helped peacefully - and leave utang na loob’s toxicity where it belongs - the past.
UTANG NA LOOB! PLEASE LANG. (For F*ck’s sake! Please.)
*Names have been changed to protect the identities of the people featured in this article.
1 Kaut, Charles. “Utang Na Loob: A System of Contractual Obligation among Tagalogs.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. 17, no. 3, 1961, pp. 256–272. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3629045. Accessed 8 May 2021.
