In Sumatra,
where we
all started?
Look at these women smiling and thinking even as they 'express hope' (text by Don Northup, photo by US Navy Tyler J Clements, pbase.com/). They all look like Filipinas, don't they? Their attitude towards disaster is also Filipina-like; this photo was taken after the devastating tsunami last year (2005). Jose Rizal would not have been surprised. It was he who found 'many similarities between the customs of the Sumatrans and the Filipinos' which had led to the scientific theory (not Rizal's) that the Filipinos had come from Sumatra. He believed not that the ancient Filipinos came from Sumatra but that the Sumatrans and the Filipinos, among others, may have come from the same stock, and have developed a little differently for having been 'exposed to many foreign and powerful factors that have influenced their customs as well as their nature.' Rizal's letter to Blumentritt, 17 April 1890. Lovely people.