

903 Quezon Boulevard Quezon CityĬOPYRIGHT 1990 by The Family of the Late TEODORO A. AGONCilLO Department of History University of the Philippines

Respect for the elders is one Filipino trait that has remained in the book of

For it is the mother that reigns in the home: she is the educator, the financial officer, the laundrywoman, and the cook. The father is the head of the family, but while he rules, the mother governs. The Filipino family ordinarily consists of the grandparents, the parents, and the children. The family has been the unit of society and everything revolves around it. This hospitality to a fault has been misunder¬ stood by many foreigners, particularly by the Spanish adventurers of the previous century, who thought that such show of profuse hospitality was a form of inferiority and obsequiousness. All peoples the world over are hospitable in their own way, but Filipino hospitality is something that is almost a fault. One patent Filipino trait that imme¬ diately commends itself to the foreigner is his hospitality. AGONCILLC The common traits are probably basical¬ ly Malayan and characterize the Filipinos as a people.
