5

Power and Diaspora Missional Agency

In the previous two chapters, I presented two major causes that generate and perpetuate a sense of powerlessness for everyday people in the Philippines: structural evil and social imaginary. To verify these two factors, I referred to extensive literature and ethnographic research of Filipino American Protestants who were born and raised in the Philippines and then immigrated to Texas in the United States.

In this chapter, I focus on answering research question 3as described in chapter 1, “How do US-based Protestant Filipinos in Texas perceive, negotiate, and exercise power? Do they believe the missional calling to transform the lives in the Philippines? If so, how do they respond to it?” Therefore, this chapter explores the missional agency of US-based Filipino Protestants in Texas as the agents who can bring about transformation in the Philippines. They do not live in the Philippines. Hence, they are not influenced by structural evil in the Philippines anymore. Even though they live in the United States, they are still aware of Filipino cultural values and even maintain some of them as well. Nevertheless, their cultural values have been negotiated, complemented, and modified by American cultural values.

Furthermore, I argue that their Protestant faith serves as the groundwork on which they understand, perceive, and exercise power, in ways different from that of Catholicism. Whereas Catholic Churches are dominant in the Philippines, Protestants can be an alternative group of people who can speak of the need for change and present specific pictures of change. I discovered that their Protestant faith inspires them to strongly believe in the transformation of the Philippines through the transforming power of God, and to desire to be the divine vessel for that transformation of their homeland. In this chapter, I explain this religious aspiration for transformation through the concept of missional agency and describe some potential changes triggered by them with respect to a sense of powerlessness in the Philippines.

Some people might wonder why this study focuses on the agency of Filipino American Protestants for the transformation of the Philippines; they might think that the agents for the change have to be sought and found in the homeland first and the actual transformation should come within the local people, not from outsiders. In the never-ending process of seeking the transformation of the Philippines, US-based Protestant Filipinos are one of many other ways to accomplish this goal. Moreover, this group of people has been barely spotlighted as a potential agent who can bring about the transformation of the Philippines. This is where this study intends to contribute to academia.

In this study, I suggest Filipino American Protestants as the transforming agents for the Philippines. As described in chapter 1, I found the existence of the ladinos who had been not only the cultural brokers but also cultural change agents between two different cultures (Spanish and Filipino, American and Filipino) during the country’s respective colonial eras. Although they were originally not a ruling class, they rose to the upper class, and were even recognized later as the elite through their economic power, education, and socio-political networks. They found ways to navigate and make some changes to the power structures in the Philippines. Given the historical existence of the ladinos as culture brokers and culture changers, I argue that Filipino American Protestants represent the contemporary form of the ladinos, who brought about some alternative changes to power structures and social imaginaries in the Philippines. The potentiality of Filipino American Protestants as change agents centers on their bilingual capability with English and Tagalog (Filipino native language), high economic-educational status, professional careers, differentiated perception of power due to Protestantism, continuing connection with the mainland Philippines through some familial ties and organizational networks, and consequent dual identity between two different cultures (American and Filipino).

In what follows, I focus on Filipino American Protestants’ missional agency in order to explain how they provide some helpful ways for confronting and negotiating a sense of powerlessness in the Philippines. For this study, I first describe the background of Filipino Americans such as the history of Filipino immigration to the USA, the phenomenon of Filipinos’ global migration, and the characteristics of Filipino American diasporas.Then I present two theories, that is, Diaspora Missiology and Agency Theory whereby some substantial cases will be analyzed for how Filipino American Protestants exercise their missional agency.

The History of Filipino Immigration to the United States

Investigating the missional agency of Filipino American Protestants leads to the need to know first who they are and how they came to the United States. For this, I explain the history of Filipino immigration to the United Sates with the help of the timeline by Daisy C.S. Catalan435and Luis F. Clement.