Immigrant Stories: Philippines
Imelda Marcos probably never wore most of the shoes for which she was forever known. As head of the Human Settlements in her husband Ferdinand’s Presidential Cabinet, she had helped implement tax incentives that drew international buyers to local shoemakers. Their gratitude came in the form of hand-sewn leather, boxed and bowed.
Manny Cabanilla’s world was full of contradictions like that—gratitude wrapped in disuse, abundance cobbled by ideas of solutions that never quite fit. That, in fact, pinched. Forgetting that the Philippines is born of earthquakes, fracture baked into the 7,641 islands that comprise the country.
He remembers when the government flooded farmers with new machinery funded by “soft loans”—money from the West (mainly the U.S.) that stemmed from compassion, but functioned dually as a bid for democracy and capitalism over communism. The problem was, the solutions were one-size-fits-all. Like the top-of-the-line tractors sent over. Too low for the thick, wet soil. They sank instead of plowed. “It was well-intentioned,” Manny said, “but ultimately useless. Like giving someone boots when they need a boat.”
That kind of misguided generosity ran deep. He recalled how flour donated to feed schoolchildren like himself ended up in private bakeries. How rural banks—like the one his cousin owned—failed when their collateralized farms lost value. Money had flowed freely under Marcos's seven years as democratically elected president, and 14 years as self-appointed dictator, feeding what surged into unbrimmable corruption. He remembered it all with the half-smile of someone who both profited and suffered from the same system.
He met his wife Lily only after college, although both were schooled in the same building in the oldest university in Asia, older than Harvard. Its famous main building was built to withstand earthquakes, bombings, and colonial powers. Its thick walls fashioned from humble materials, pre-concrete. “A kind of flour and egg mixture,” Manny joked.
The University of Santo Tomas, once packed with interned Allied civilians and prisoners of war, now housed classrooms and ghosts.
The foundation of the university’s iconic building moved almost on legs to absorb the most tumultuous winds, the deepest rumblings of the earth. And so it shouldn’t have been a surprise that he and Lily absorbed those laws of dynamics and immigrated to the U.S.
They had everything in the Philippines—cars, houses, maids, drivers. Because of the extreme wealth inequality there, these luxuries were the norm for the middle class. Lily was the daughter of a prominent judge; her uncle, a career bureau officer, had been the foreign secretary under Marcos. Their godmother was one of the richest women in Asia. Manny was a businessman through and through. Yet, inside him, a void had grown. He never saw the children; the nanny did. His customers came easily; the challenge was gone. Corruption made things smoother, dull. Success, once a mountain to climb, flattened to a plateau too wide to see the edge of.
The first time Lily mentioned moving to America, Manny thought she was joking. He was too exhausted to make big changes or long term plans. But Lily could. Her parents were already in the U.S. Along with four of her siblings, Lily flew to New York. She soon called Manny from New Jersey where they had family and told him she’d found a job. She said, Bring the kids and join me.
Something hollow inside him answered yes before he could reason his way out. He took the kids and closed the door on their old life, without selling the house or shuttering his business.
The business faltered without him. It died in the same way abandoned tractors did—shiny, promising, then slowly rusting into the mud.
And still, he missed it—at least at first.
That first year in New Jersey, Manny had a nervous breakdown. Culture shock, isolation, the icy silence of American suburbs—it all crashed into him. “I didn’t want to get out of bed,” he said. “I didn’t want to see the sun.” So Lily, wise as ever, told him: Go back. See what you need to see.
He returned to the Philippines, found piles of payables and notices, developed a wicked asthma attack—and knew, deep in his chest, that it was over. The life he left no longer wanted him either. Within two weeks, he was back in the U.S. for good.
That second beginning was slower, more deliberate. He got his broker’s license. The New Jersey real estate commission waived the usual years-long process. “On the basis of your experience,” they said, “if you promise to open right away, we’ll give it to you.” And they did.
The town they moved to was not welcoming. Locals didn’t even bother with veiled slurs. They called Manny and his family “ornamentals.” He laughed it off—“We knew we were more educated than them,” he said. And that was enough. His English was fluent, shaped by a school system molded in the image of American pedagogy.
What they built in New Jersey was smaller in size but richer in love. A multigenerational home. Many people in not many rooms, plus a dog. Carlo was raised by a community. Someone was always there to help. The real estate office was both workplace and playground. When Carlo wanted to play on the computer, someone boosted him into a chair and angled the keyboard so he could reach.
That upbringing, Manny believed, contributed greatly to making Carlo who he is.
“I didn’t always understand,” he said, “but now I know—community raises a person.” He saw it in his son, and he saw it in the stories he shared. How a small island nation like the Philippines could be so rich in land, in sun, in sea—and yet still suffer. “We need a new definition of poverty for people who move to the cities from the provinces,” he said. “They wouldn’t be hungry if they ate off the plentitude of the land, but they’re unmoored and hungry or malnourished.” McDonalds and all the fast food restaurants proliferate around Manila. “It’s an adventure to them, but often doesn’t turn out well, often tragic.”
The undervalued provinces are underused, underfunded, forgotten. “Wrong priorities,” Manny said. “If I could sell the land where I grew up, I’d build boats for the fishermen.”
There’s something profound in the way Manny holds all of it together—love, regret, gratitude, critique. He’s a salesman by trade and a storyteller by instinct. He admits freely that he exaggerates. “The best stories are tall tales,” he said with a wink. And yet, underneath the embroidery, there’s truth.
He feels good telling these stories now. He doesn't need to build another business or chase another profit. What he wants is to give back, to speak to the things that got stuck in his chest for decades.
His eyes light up. “And maybe that's what Bahala is.” A concept with a hard-to-define meaning, comprised of both mystery and surrender. A letting go while still gently nudging the world toward something better. It’s the space between hope and action, the invisible sinews that bind families and strangers and countries and history.
From flour meant for schoolchildren to tractors that rusted in mud, from a marriage that crossed oceans to a breakdown that led to rebirth—Manny’s story is not just about migration or memory. It’s about resilience, reinvention, and starting over when we leave everything. Not just the cream but the meaningful, the “flour and eggs mixture.”
The ineffable that rises to the surface and forms our new connected islands of being.