A Filipino Jealousy

A dictionary definition of the word ‘jealousy’ is the “mental uneasiness from suspicion or fear of rivalry, unfaithfulness, etc., as in love or aims.” In the American Heritage Dictionary, jealousy means “close vigilance”; in Webster’s Revised Unabridged, it is an “earnest concern or solicitude.”

Tie all these together and what do you have? An oft-stereotyped behaviour in Filipino relationships.

I say it not because I believe it, but because I’ve heard of it, countless times, from university sociologists and from Westerners with brown-skinned girlfriends (or boyfriends). Apparently, Filipinos are very hot-blooded. “In no other country,” a Caucasian friend observed, “have I witnessed people going such great lengths to confirm their jealous suspicions – checking a lover’s cell phone on the sly, sifting through the other’s private E-mail.”

I’d be none the more patriotic for saying this, but I suppose there’s something in my friend’s observation which rings painfully true. Just read the papers. On the front page, players in the political arena are bringing each other down, and officials are matched against others in fierce power rivalries. In the showbiz and entertainment section, celebrity romances are sensationalised by introducing infidelity rumours: break up, make up, break up again. And stories from the metro beat writers often report a homicide in this barangay and that, carried out by an otherwise good-natured husband in a drunken fit of jealousy. Wives, too; one of the craziest headlines I’ve ever read was about a woman who castrated her philandering partner.

This is not to say that Filipinos are inherently murderous monogamists. It’s just that most of us like to, uh – well, express “earnest concern”. Hence, the publicity blitz on Ruffa Gutierrez’s divorce. And eunuchs. Whether suspicions are warranted or unfounded is beside the point. Jealousy has its case-by-case origins, but the question here is: does it have a locale? Is it a weakness of the Filipino character?

In a country that is predominantly Roman Catholic and with a soap opera culture that glamourises love forevermore, we have learned to find security in faith and loyalty – and fear the most minor departure from this norm. In the close-knit setting of family and Filipino domesticity we’ve nurtured a great anxiety over abandonment. And in a tradition where love may exist without jealousy but rarely the other way around, we live to love the best way –perhaps the only way– we know how.

So don’t be surprised if you happen to have a Pinoy or Pinay sweetheart who cares for you hotly, uneasily, vigilantly. Instead be kind and thankful. In the dictionary of the Filipino, jealousy is the most maligned form of flattery.