Someone wise and older told me recently, “You are either No.1 or you are nobody.” I have mulled on this for a long time. I still am. But I have to agree that although that it’s a pretty harsh condition to impose on oneself, it does help in defining one’s perspectives in life.

I’ve been reading a lot of stories on the internet lately, about Filipinos who have succeeded in their chosen professions, careers, and businesses. I am both awed and humbled. And I am sure that their stories have been carefully chosen by the media people. It does make for good material – how they succeeded, how they managed to achieve their goals despite all odds, etc. The only catch is that most of them are Filipinos who are currently living abroad – it’s as if they could only have succeeded *because of* and not *despite of* living outside the Philippines. It sends a message to the readers that the greener pastures are “out there.”

But there is something that is frequently brought to the readers’ attention as well, and quoted so frequently that it simply grates the eyes: “The first Filipino”…to do this, to do that. It’s so much like the hype over the first Filipino who climbed Mt. Everest. Many people have been climbing Mt. Everest for God knows how long. It is already common knowledge that many people of various nationalities have already conquered the mountain. But do we really need to emphasize on the individual’s nationality? Does being a Filipino make someone any better at climbing mountains? Are we so hard up for recognition that we will seek each individual achievement as a boost to national pride? These achievements do not make up for the nation’s downward spiral towards chaos, graft and corruption, and moral disintegration.

Just yesterday I read about someone who was the first Filipino woman to graduate from some school in the States. Sorry, not just some school. A prestigious school – it just so happened that I’ve never heard of it until now. But who cares? Does anybody bother to know who the first Filipino Harvard graduate was? I rest my case.

This has become some sort of joke between me and Baggy. I told him, hey, YOU are the first and only Filipino in Grid Technology Center (and I know this to be a fact because the center has only been around for as long as I have been in Tsukuba, and I practically know all Filipinos who have ever been employed in our institute). And I could be the first Filipino woman who ever attended the applied superconductivity conference in Europe (though I have no way to verify this). The point is, if that sounds outright ridiculous to you, then you understand what I’m driving at.

There is nothing wrong with praising Filipino achievements, even if the individuals happen to be true-blooded Pinoys, Filipino-Americans, Filipino-Canadians, or Filipino-Timbuktuans. True recognition can never come from our own ranks, but from the rest of the world. We must not just show them that “Filipinos can do that, too” but that “Filipinos can do it better than you.” *We must be trailblazers on our own, not just followers or imitators.*

Originality has never been our forte. But it is never too late to change that. This is a challenge to every Filipino out there.