Ken Ilio's Tanikalang Ginto Blog

Filipinas on a stroll in Barcelona

Well, sort of.

I spent ten days in Barcelona, Spain over the Christmas break. This city of about 1.5 million inhabitants is wonderful and beautiful. Things seemed to be familiar – especially the food, lots of seafoods prepared in a taste not so different from how Filipino food tastes like. Most of Barcelonians are like mestizo Filipinos – not many blonde blue eyes here – so it’s like just looking at Filipino mestizo movie stars all the time, especially movie stars and entertainment figures of the 60’s and the 70’s – like Amalia Fuentes, Susan Roces, Eddie Gutierrez, Romeo Vasquez, Gloria Romero, Jose Mari, Marlene Dauden, Robert Ocampo, Liberty Ilagan, Mila Ocampo, Nino and Aga Mulach, Snooky, Dolphy, Carmen Rosales, Luis Gonzales, Leopoldo Salcedo, Bert Leroy Jr, Pepito and Ramil Rodriguez, Loretta Marquez, Blanca Gomez, Daisy
Romualdez, Rosemary (Sonora), Ricky Belmonte, Tita Munoz – it’s incredible. In fact, the most popular Spanish entertainment figure right now and voted by Hola magazine readers as the most elegant woman in Spain is a mestiza Filipina, Isabel Preysler as seen in a Porcelanosa poster below. In the holiday issue of the magazine, her family is featured prominently. (She is the former wife of Julio Iglesias and mother of Enrique Iglesias, Julio Iglesias Jr. etc.)

Isabel Preysler

An up and coming singer heavily advertised on TV is of Filipino extraction (Shaila Durcal who is the daughter of Junior Morales, once a heart throb in movies in the eighties. He was also a big singer in Spain.) …

AND …

wherever I went, I bumped into Filipinos … they are everywhere in Barcelona, they practically run the city.

Benjie (at the back), a Filipino waiter at a cafe near Placa Catalunya

There are about 15,000 Filipinos in Barcelona, that’s about 1 per cent of the population of the city. Most of them are working as caregivers for rich families. In fact, in the plane from Frankfurt to Barcelona, there was a new batch of Filipino women, about a dozen of them, on their way to Barcelona to take jobs as domestic workers and caregivers. In addition, Filipinos work as waitstaff, cooks and kitchen helps in many of the restaurants and hotels in the city. If everybody takes a vacation at the same time … the consequence could be staggering.

Filipino vendors at a snack kiosk on the waterfront near the statue of Christopher Columbus in Barcelona

However, of course, many have assimilated and have gotten jobs other than in the domestic and service industries, many have married Spaniards and have gotten out of the Filipino Barrio (see below) … and many have put up their own businesses.

Filipinos working and living in the Raval District of Barcelona

There is a ‘Barrio Filipino’ in the Raval District of the city where many Filipinos live. There are several Filipino restaurants with one, Fil-Manila, situated near the main tourist drag. I counted about 6 restaurants in the area and I’ve eaten in two – Fil-Manila on Carrer de Les Ramelleres near the Ramblas and the other is Myramar on Carrer de Valldoncella near Carrer de Joaquin Costa.

Fil Manila Restaurant owned by Eddie Boy and Precy Romero on Carrer de Les Ramelleres

Fil Manila menu board

Philippine flag near the entrance of Fil Manila

Inside Fil Manila Restaurant; Precy Romero, the owner is at the back

Myramar Bar and Restaurant from Carrer de Joaquin Costa. It’s located on the middle of Valldoncella a few meters from the corner of Joaquin Costa

Myramar front

Myramar is right smack on the middle of Barrio Filipino, very hard to find, and is basically the neighborhood bar of the street, their clientele is varied.

Inside Myramar

There is also at least one Filipino grocery store – you know it is a Filipino store because there is that ubiquituous poster or sticker advertisement for TFC – and many Indian or Pakistani shops carry Filipino products (they say so on their doors) and/or advertise cheap calling cards to the Philippines.

Indian store advertising Philippine products for sale

There are also several Internet cafes in Raval and a few of them are full of Filipino clients chatting with loved ones back home. It’s amazing.

Europhil, a Spanish money remittance company originally established to serve the Filipino community and their remittance needs that has now expanded their services to many immigrant communities throughout Europe
Two of the Filipino connections that are prominent in the city that I saw are (1) the Hotel 1898 that used to be the headquarters of the Compana de Tabacos de Filipinas

Marker on the front wall of Hotel 1898 right on the Ramblas

and (2) the bust of Jose Rizal in one of the meeting rooms of Casa Asia.

Jose Rizal at Casa Asia

I am sure there are more.

There is a Tagalog mass on Sundays in one of the churches and the community has, according to a Filipina guard at the Picasso Museum, a center now.

And finally, although the connection between the Filipino San Miguel Beer and Spanish San Miguel Beer is only historical, I still find it a source of pride to find San Miguel in Spain.

Una mas! Isa pa nga!