Junior de Los Brincos

Junior Antonio Morales Barreto is a Filipino singer and actor who became popular in Spain with the hit music group Los Brincos during the 60s. He went home to the Philippines to record a few Tagalog albums and star in a few movies directed by Ishmael Bernal. His nickname during the 70s and 80s in the Philippines was AMBoy, which stands for the initials of his name: Antonio Morales Barreto. He is the father of current hitmaker Shaila Durcal and popular actress Carmen Morales.

I was reading this editorial in the Inquirer. I think language and the ability to speak multiple languages is a joyous thing, because it expands your world and knowledge, and it's like you get to see things that other people can't sometimes because you can delve yourself into different cultures and see things differently than one would expect.

It's like how there's sometimes division in the Philippines. Sometimes, some Filipinos can't understand why Spanish would be important to deep understanding of the entire Filipino culture and all of it's different matrixes, but those Filipinos who do speak Spanish do understand it. Sometimes, people from certain places can't understand why other dialects are just as important as Tagalog, but those who grew up with a different perspective might understand it better.

Some Filipinos continue to view anything in Filipino culture as separate from anything in Spanish or Latin culture, forgetting that many things that are Filipino are in fact mixed with Latin culture in nature. Filipino is the molding of the Malay, Spanish, and Chinese culture, and the Filipino people are the molding of Malay, Spanish, and Chinese ancestry, not "Filipino, Spanish, and Chinese" ancestry. Filipino is the melding of three into one single mestizo: the Filipino culture. If you take away one element out of the three, the Filipino culture would be not complete. Just think about it.

In short, language demolishes bridges and brings people closer together.