I wasn't always proud of being Filipino. This happened a long time ago. I was 13 and obsessed with Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Spandau Ballet and all the other British invasion bands of the New Wave Eighties. I remember writing in someone's "slumbook" -- right next to "Define Love" and "My favorite color" -- "My ultimate dream" was to be BRITISH. Most likely by marriage to any of the guys in the aforementioned bands. I adapted British spelling and turned my z to s's as in civilization, and added u's to my o's as in colours, much to the consternation of my grade school teachers. The funny thing was that I wasn't alone. The lot of us were starry-eyed, angsty adolescents stuck (or at least feeling so) in Manila. We were martial law babies -- all of us -- blind to the problems that our country and our people were going through at the time, but who can blame us? We had our music, we had our crushes, we had our dreams. We had "important" things on our minds.

I didn't really think much about my citizenship back then, let alone nationalism. I had not traveled outside the Philippines then but I felt sure life was better elsewhere. Don't we all go through that stage? (Aren't some of us still stuck in that stage?) That time when all we know for sure is that we don't like where we are, we are unhappy with who we are. They say the grass is always greener

By the time I was in High School, my peers and I lived through the 1986 EDSA Revolution and everything changed. I was still that angsty teen but slowly I was getting comfortable in my skin. My brown skin. Buy Filipino. Tatak Pinoy. American Junk, get it out of my system, American Junk.sang the APO. Iba talaga ang Pinoy etcetera etcetera. Nationalism was on the rise.

But so much for my personal history. What matters is now.

I am proud to be Filipino and wear my cultural pride on my sleeve. Although I am not proud of the corruption or the other silliness that goes on in our fair country, I never hesitate to tell people that what and who I am is Filipino. In two years I will probably swear my allegiance to America, but this will not make me love my country of birth less. It will be a matter of practicality because I live in America now, I am married to an American and have a Filipino-American son. Naku, besides it will be such a relief to carry the blue passport instead of the green one and skip the hassles and prejudices that come with owning the Philippine passport.

And now comes the happy news that once again, Filipinos can possess dual citizenship. I remember back in grade school, when as I mentioned earlier, it wasn't quite fashionable to be Pinoy, I had a friend who basked in her being French-Filipino. On forms that asked about nationality she always carefully wrote down French-Filipino. Little did she know that when she turned 18, and she was positive she would elect French citizenship (because that was how it was -- you had to choose), choosing other-citizenship meant that she had to go through the process of getting an ACR (Alien Certificate of Registration) number and paying the corresponding higher fees for everything. Suffice it to say, she ended up just putting Filipino on her forms. She was after all, born and raised in Manila.

Hooray -- Now that same friend and other mestizos may possess dual citizenship because the Senate recently approved Senate Bill 2130 granting Dual Citizenship and the Special Asset Management Companies Act. The new law states that "Filipinos who have already acquired foreign citizenship need only to present evidence that his or her father or mother is Filipino to be able to acquire dual citizenship." Hooray for my own children, hooray for the PBA players. Hooray for Filipino-Americans who want to retire in the Philippines.

In the words of principal author Senate President Franklin Drilon, yes, the same dude that raised a stink at a US airport when asked to take off his shoes for inspection (but we don't want to talk about that now) --"Once a Pinoy, always a Pinoy."

End.