BOOK REVIEW: The Philippines Is Not A Small Country

by Rose Cruz Churma

“The Philippines Is Not A Small Country” by Gideon Lasco was initially released in 2020 but is now on its eleventh printing in 2025.

Published by Bughaw, an imprint of the Ateneo de Manila University Press, most of the essays contained in this publication are from the author’s commentaries in the Philippine Daily Inquirer from 2015 to 2019.

In April 2023, we invited the author to be a panelist at the Hawaii Philippines Business & Economic Council’s (HPBEC) Virtual Talk-Story to help inform Hawai’i’s large Filipino community on current issues that were then faced by the Philippines, among which were the proposed phase-out of the iconic jeepneys in Metro Manila.

His opinion piece on the modernization of the jeepney in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (and reposted on his Facebook page) was insightful and thought-provoking and would be of interest to our audience with ties to the Philippines. However, due to conflicts to his schedule, it did not push through.

It was a pleasant surprise to discover this publication at the September 2025 Manila book fair at the Ateneo de Manila University’s booth.

Author Caroline Hau calls this collection of essays “wide-ranging, well-considered, and above all, thought provoking and empathetic.” She adds further that the author “…is attentive to the nuances and resilience of Filipino life, place and meaning-making…”

In the introduction, Lasco explains that his essays address the questions: “What does it mean to be Filipino, and what is the meaningful basis for taking pride in the nation? What is our place in the world —and how should we envision a future we can all share?”

Although the essays do not directly answer the questions, they hint at its answers.

The essays featured in this book were culled from Lasco’s weekly column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer spanning five years—from 2015 to 2020. The essays are grouped into seven chapters with single word titles: Country, Nation, Culture, People, Technology, Modernity and World.

The essays can be read in any order, depending on one’s mood and interest.

In the first chapter and the first essay “Letter to Young Filipinos on the land I love,” he admonishes the Filipino youth to “learn more about our country” to look beyond textbooks but “peruse stories of the untold heroism of ordinary people.”

To look beyond Metro Manila, the focus of most headlines, “to explore your own country before you aspire to visit distant lands.”

In the second chapter, in the essay titled “Memory as resistance” he reflects on how people easily forget the misdeeds of corrupt politicians, and cites as an example the political rehabilitation of the Marcos family.

He laments that the Filipinos’ collective amnesia is instrumental in the impunity enjoyed by those who have exploited the nation. He admonishes: “We must keep remembering and retelling the injustices of our time and the people that enable them…and remembering itself is a creative form of resistance.”

Various forms of art can be the truth’s last refuge, a weapon against disinformation and fake news. He concludes, “…for as long as we bear the memories of injustice, the hope of a fair verdict remains.”

The essay “Pasalubong, pabaon, and utang na loob” in the third chapter, the author describes these three Filipino ‘institutions’.

In pasalubong, a traveler is expected to bring back souvenirs for his family and friends. If you’re coming from Davao, it’s durian and its many forms; a trip from Baguio would require walis tambo, peanut brittle, strawberry or ube jam; and from Hawai’i, chocolate macadamia nuts.

Pabaon, on the other hand, a traveller is given gifts from the places he visits—from any object he admires in his hosts’ home or special products of the locality. (My brother-in-law’s favorite pabaon is their household’s prized bagoong alamang, which I dutifully pack in my carry-on—until one bottle broke at the airport: that was the last time I would accept that pabaon!).

Attached to these two cultural quirks are obligations on the part of both the giver and recipient that strengthen social ties.

The author observes that “The pabaon and pasalubong become vessels through which social relations can travel and geographic and social distances are bridged.”

Another concept is utang na loob translated loosely as a “debt of gratitude.”

This cultural practice implies that there are favors that cannot be quantified or repaid in money. The only way to repay it is to return the favor when an opportunity arises, a voluntary act given freely but repaid under obligation.

The essay in the fourth chapter titled “Why some Kalinga men don’t want a tattoo” caught my attention. I recently attended a forum on the art of batok and how some of the speakers described hiking to the remote village of Buscalan in Kalinga province to get a tattoo from Whang-od, the Philippines most famous mambabatok, a cultural icon in her own right.

The author describes how some of the Kalinga men echoed this sentiment: “I will never get a tattoo from her!”

For most visitors who come to Kalinga and seek and value the “poetry on the skin,” as one of the tattoo recipients described the art, tattoos can be decorative and therapeutic.

But for Kalinga men who are still rooted in their culture, tattoos can only be earned, by participating in a head hunt and distinguishing oneself in battle. For these men, having an undeserved tattoo would dishonor their ancestors.

Essays in chapters five and six explore the impact of technology in our modern world. In “The lost art of bedtime storytelling,” he admonishes parents to resist the impulse to leave the task of storytelling or book reading to the TV screen or to the electronic devices that most kids acquire early on.

Neuroscientists have determined that children listening to stories or being read at bedtime improves their mental imagery and narrative comprehension.

The most convincing proof of this is in the biographies of great writers themselves like Gabriel Garcia Marquez who credits his grandfather who told him stories of their civil war, or of Jose Rizal whose mother told him stories, one about the moth who hovered over the candle’s flame.

Lasco himself credits the stories his mother told him while growing up at the University of the Philippines-Los Banos faculty housing on the slopes of Mount Makiling.

In the last chapter aptly titled “World,” each of the essays were written outside of the Philippines, documenting his observations of the cities and towns he has visited around the world.

One that was of interest to me was “A city without billboards” which he wrote while in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the largest city in South America with a population of 12 million people. He was amazed that Sao Paulo had no billboards!

Apparently, in 2006, the city passed a law that forbade outdoor advertisements, such that the following year, over 15,000 billboards, considered visual pollution, were taken down. Perhaps that city mayor who convinced his constituents of the merits of removing billboards had been a visitor of Hawai’i and was impressed with our uncluttered horizons.

Hawai’i has banned billboards since 1927, a bill that was enacted by the Hawai’i Territorial Legislature with the help of the local group called The Outdoor Circle, to protect the state’s natural beauty and scenic views.

Lasco is a Filipino medical anthropologist, physician, and academic known for his work in medical anthropology and public health research. He is also a writer and mountaineer.

He obtained his medical degree from the University of the Philippines (2011-2014) and his doctorate from the University of Amsterdam (2013-2017). He was a lecturer at UP Diliman’s anthropology department and a researcher at Ateneo de Manila University’s Development Studies program.

He is also fellow-at-large at Hong Kong University’s Centre for Criminology and from 2025 to 2026, he is a Takemi Fellow for International Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Lasco is a recipient of the National Book Award for Essay and has been named a TOYM (The Outstanding Young Men) honoree.

ROSE CRUZ CHURMA established Kalamansi Books & Things three decades ago. It has evolved from a mail-order bookstore into an online advocacy with the intent of helping global Pinoys discover their heritage by promoting books of value from the Philippines and those written by Filipinos in the Diaspora. We can be reached at kalamansibooks@gmail.com.