I read a blog about this young filmmaker in the Philippines who made a short film, and one of the characters in… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
There is that potential of the expats coming back to the Philippines. But sadly they are no opportunities, no incentive for them… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I love my homeland, but it's an absurd country. Politics in the Philippines is like spectator sports! — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
If I were to go back to the Philippines, I would probably end up teaching creative writing at a university. I wouldn't… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
The Philippines, it has a politics of patronage. Family and favors, in addition to the old cliche of guns, goons and gold,… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
When you live in the Philippines or a country like that, you develop something of a very thick skin because you're confronted… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
I studied in New York. I fell in love with an Australian-born, half-Filipina girl. So we moved to Australia when she went… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share Image
“Here, need blurs the line between good and bad, and a constant promise of random violence sticks like humidity down your back.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
“He fidgets. Thinks. Observes his fellow passengers. Judges everyone, in the traditional Filipino sport of justifying both personal and shared insecurities.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
When I was young, I spent my days and nights trying to impress future generations. I spent them. They're gone. All because I was… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral,… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
“A father must take credit for his child, but never a child for his father.” — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
I surprise myself that I'm not dead in the gutter somewhere, surprised that I haven't given up. — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
“We liked to believe there is an alternate world, a better world, populated entirely by characters created by the yearnings of humanity--governing and inspiring… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
I have to believe that literature can effect change; otherwise, I would have no purpose in my life and would have wasted four years… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
I don't see myself as any different from all the other Filipinos who have gone abroad looking for opportunity, to be a nurse, a… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
Clichés remind and reassure us that we're not alone, that others have trod this ground long ago. — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
We referenced fictional characters as if they were people to learn from. As if real-life people were too nebulous, too private and unreal for… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
“There are only three truths. That which can be known. That which can never be known. The third, which concerns the writer alone, truly… — Miguel Syjuco Copy Share
