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February - The Month of Hearts

When I moved from England to the Philippines in October 2000, I was soon to find that the Filipino people were not only very warm and friendly, but also great romantics. Radio and television were often dominated by love songs, ballads of the heart that are so popular here. The bookshelves are full of romantic love stories, and reading pocket books about love is a very popular pastime amongst young girls especially. In other words, romance rules.

A few months after I arrived it was February. By then I knew that love just meanders like a stream in the Philippines, overflowing once in a while like rice fields in a storm; ebbing and flowing like the tides, with an occasional storm lashing the shores with emotional waves. People with open hearts, susceptible more than most to the extremes of pain and joy brought by love.

In my first January I had learnt that February is known as the month of hearts in the Philippines, although it seemed to me that every month was like that. Valentine's Day on February 14th was just a peak on the romantic mountain, always in view from wherever you were and from every angle; only obscured by cloud when someone's eyes were doused with the anguish of a missed or lost love.

Valentine's in the Philippines was not quite like back home in England, where Valentine's Day itself was the only day in February that had romantic connotations, and where Valentine's messages, wishes and cards were normally confined to a partner, a secret love, or to a friend as a joke to get them guessing.

Here in the Philippines, my first Valentine's text message arrived at the end of January, taking me aback somewhat, as I had not yet learnt that just friends would send Valentine's messages to each other, to wish them a wonderful Valentine's Day. Heart graphics, short poems and Valentine prose pass between cellphones by the millions.

As Valentine's Day itself approached, the intensity of romantic messages grew by the hour. Advanced Happy Valentine's Day messages peaked on the 13th of the month of hearts, and then as midnight passed it switched to "Let me be the first to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day".

Most of the messages were not of love but about love, and about enjoying the most romantic day of the year. Children would wish their mother or father a Happy Valentine's, and their siblings, and schoolfriends. Mixed in with all such messages were the core love messages, where romantic love was the inspiration, the desire and the motivation.

Just as in England, Valentine's Day is a time for special dates, dinners, and flowers, especially roses, but only the better off can afford such things. That does not stop the poor embracing Valentine's Day with the same warmth as others, a time for true love, dreams and wishing not to be alone on the 14th February.

My first Valentine's Day in the Philippines? An arranged date my girlfriend and I had to call off due to her (non romantic) commitments. Lots of messages, going on through the evening, and narrowing down to my girlfriend, plus one girl friend who just did not want to be alone on Valentine's Day. By 10 pm she said she was going to go out to find a guy, she really did not like being without a Valentine's date. She didn't, of course, but just stayed at home wondering what the next month of hearts might bring.