At the Peace Corps: Working for peace; finding love
Gie and Bruce Best's Story
Part 2 of 2
By Heidi M. Pascual
|
Gie and Bruce Best on their 25th
wedding anniversary. At long last, they
fulfilled Gie's father's wish for them to
be married in church in Gie's
birthplace. Although her father had
passed away decades ago, Gie
believed that her father was happy for
what has become of her relationship
with an American Peace Corps
Volunteer.
Many love stories have been told about Americans
stationed in war-torn countries falling in love with local
women. Unfortunately, many stories often follow the
script of "Miss Saigon," a play which ends tragically
because of societies' opposition to intercultural and
interracial marriages./The Philippines, which was home
to U.S. naval and air force bases in the main island of
Luzon after World War II, has many such stories.
Stereotypes of local women emerged soon after the war
ended. The term "hanggang piyer" (only up to the pier)
describes a Filipina left behind by her sailor lover. It was
uncommon to see a native girl and an American man
getting married in church. If people see an American
man with a Filipina, the common thought was: "She must
have been picked up at a bar in Angeles City or Subic
(the sites for Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base)."
This was the prevailing societal belief when Bruce Best,
a young American Peace Corps volunteer, met his future
wife, Eugenia Fule, daughter of a prominent politician
and a Peace Corps trainer.
"I met Gie at the San Jose Seminary," Bruce recalled. "We were in the group, but it was really several weeks after I got there before I even
talked to her, because I was learning Waray-Waray (a Visayan dialect), while Gie was teaching Tagalog. Gie wasn't my teacher, but I just
noticed her one day."
There must have been something in her that caught Bruce's attention although at that time it was unexplainable. "I don't know; for one
thing, she was really very beautiful," Bruce blurted with a huge grin, while Gie blushed. "She was stunningly beautiful. She stole my heart
immediately, although I didn't know she was older!" The couple laughed uncontrollably as they looked at each other lovingly. (Things like
this never escape my keen journalist's eyes.)
For weeks after that initial attraction, Bruce started strategizing about how to get closer to the elusive Filipina who seemed concerned
only about her work. He used lunch periods to "try to sit next to her or across from her" and converse a little with Gie.
With the help of a Peace Corps staff, a Filipina named Didith Cornejo, Bruce was able to invite Gie to dinner at last. "Didith was in
charge of the language instructors, and she was close to Gie," Bruce remembered vividly how his strategy worked. "So I started talking to
Didith about Gie, and I think that's the first time Gie even knew I existed."
Apparently, Didith told Gie that Bruce had a "crush" on her but she may go out to dinner with him only because it was part of the
acculturation process that Peace Corps volunteers should be exposed to.
Gie admitted that three other Peace Corps volunteers who came before Bruce also had expressed similar interest in her but she stood
her ground. "I never paid attention to that because I just knew what they wanted," Gie said. "If they wanted anything physical from me
before anything, it wasn't going to happen, and they wouldn't like that, right? And Bruce noticed that also -- that I always wanted to be in
my court, you know. I was not as sociable or 'always there' for the volunteers as others were. If I could, I'd excuse myself from the socials.
Socializing was indeed part of our job; but after a while, I could excuse myself."
Hearing this, Bruce asked Gie in front of me, jokingly but in all seriousness, "So, did you start getting interested at all ever? I wanna
hear this!" (laughter)
Gie admitted that she went out to dinner with Bruce, and before him, another Peace Corps volunteer, only because she was assured
by Didith that it was part of their job to educate the volunteers about Filipino culture outside of the training grounds. Becoming
romantically involved with a volunteer was never on Gie's mind at all.
But Bruce's intention was clearly different from those before him who had expressed interest in Gie. While the courtship started during
Bruce's three-month training in Novaliches, Bruce pursued Gie even after he was assigned to Tacloban City in Leyte. Although he was
352 miles from Manila, the two kept in touch through letters and a few visits to her home in San Pablo City, despite the opposition of
Gie's father. But Gie had fallen in love, and Bruce Best wanted to make Gie Fule his wife.
Note: Tacloban City is the capital of the island of Leyte, famous for General Douglas McArthur's landing to "free" the Philippines from the
Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.
Communicating through letters was nearly impossible because Gie's father intercepted all letters. When Gie learned of it, the
sweethearts began using PEMESCO, a private delivery service similar to UPS, even enlisting the help of a local delivery person to sneak
letters from Bruce. And it worked. Their love letters found their way into each other's hearts.
But Filipino customs dictate that a suitor must visit the love of his life in her home, preferably on a Sunday afternoon, presenting
himself to her parents and family and expressing his good intentions. With or without "gifts," Bruce must come. And he did./Bruce
recalled the difficulty he endured just to be able to visit Gie at her home in San Pablo City, province of Laguna. With his meager
allowance as a Peace Corps volunteer, Bruce couldn't afford an airplane ticket, so he had to travel by boat to Manila, a distance of 352
miles and about 22 hours at sea, then by bus from Manila to San Pablo City. It took 1 ½ days to see Gie and converse with her for an
hour or two, while her father or a family member remained close by, bringing in a glass of Coke every 10 minutes or so, for Bruce.
"I got on a boat on Friday night from Tacloban to Manila, overnight, and it stopped in different places," Bruce said, recollecting the
overloaded boat full of chickens and pigs. "You see them in the news all the time where they go down, and thousands of people drown.
They overload them." After his short visit, barely enough to get a glimpse of his sweetheart, Bruce got on the bus again to Manila and
returned to Tacloban City again, by boat. "I did that about three times. Those were the times when we really seriously talked about getting
married. And Gie said she would talk to her father about it."
At one of his visits, Bruce mustered the courage to ask Gie's father for her hand in marriage. "We knew it was a long shot, but I was
willing to try," he said, remembering exactly the mistake he had made in doing so. "I asked him directly. I should have had somebody in
between, a 'padrino,' somebody influential or something like that, and I could have, but I didn't know (the culture very well at that time).
"So then I asked him. Another thing, I noticed that Filipinos almost never say directly 'No.' Gie's father wouldn't say 'No'; but he said, 'Oh
well, why don't you finish your Peace Corps tour, go back to the States, and if you still want to get married (to Gie), then I will send her
over there.' So Gie and I knew the answer was 'No.' That's when we started planning our elopement."
"My father threatened to disown me," Gie recalled, as if the moment happened just yesterday. "He was not really against Bruce per se.
It was because of the stigma of Filipinas running around with Americans, that the local women were from Angeles. In fact, I experienced
that first hand after we were married. Some people would say dirty words to me -- and very bad, cuss words to Bruce. So I knew what my
father was talking about."
"And the worst thing was, I understood it, so I replied," Bruce added. "That was probably the number 1 reason Gie's father didn't want
Gie to marry me. Number 2, he had a piece of land for each one his children in a compound where his house was. And of course, he
wanted all of his children there. And so, he was convinced that if she would be involved with an American, that she would probably move
here to the U.S, and for sure he didn't want that to happen. Besides, I think Gie was his favorite."
But the power of love proved stronger than the threat of Gie's father. The sweethearts carefully planned their elopement with the help of
a number of close friends. On the appointed day, despite some "problems" (no available car, being lost on the way, the mayor who was
scheduled to marry them left because they were late, etc.) Bruce and Gie finally successfully executed their plan. They were "married" by
another town mayor who recognized Gie's last name.
The mayor said, 'Oh, you're the daughter of Artemio?'" Gie said she was worried at once. Bruce said, "It was to me, so funny. They
were cockfight partners. So he agreed to marry us. I believe, and this isn't entirely clear, but I'm pretty sure that he misdated the
document so that it could be discredited, or may be opened to question."
The two had their doubts about the validity of their "marriage," but it wasn't important at the time. They were at last together, and that
was what mattered.
After dinner in a nice restaurant along the South highway, a dinner that was paid for by one of Gie's friends who was involved in this
'escapades' of sorts, Bruce and Gie went to Manila on their way to Tacloban City. They stayed in Casa Pensione, in Mabini, a place very
familiar to Peace Corps volunteers. "When we got there, there was just one bed and we had to have them bring in a second bed
because we were not staying on the same bed," Bruce explained, because in the Filipino culture, he knew that without a church
wedding, they were not really married yet, and so he was not supposed to sleep with Gie yet.
"I thought it was embarrassing," Gie admitted shyly, and Bruce quickly added, "No, to me it was extremely important. It was one of
those Filipino values, and Gie was from a very conservative family. She's a very religious woman, and there was no question in her
mind that we were not going to be intimate until we were married in a church, and it's just not going to happen, and I knew that. We
spent that night there, two separate beds. Gie called her older sister Nini, because everybody I'm sure was worried; they were looking
for her, and they thought Gie was 'kidnapped.'"
Instead of leaving for Tacloban City, Bruce and Gie were picked up the next day by Nini and taken back to San Pablo City to ask
forgiveness from Gie's parents. Gie's parents gave them their blessing, but none of Gie's family came to Tacloban City when the two
got married in a local church there.
Gie's father wanted them to get married in a church in San Pablo City, but Bruce made a strong argument that he wanted the people
in Tacloban to witness their wedding so they would know Gie was really his wife and therefore respect her as such. It was only after the
church wedding when Bruce and Gie really got together as man and wife.
Bruce's relationship with Gie's father took a drastic turn when he realized that his daughter wasn't just "hanggang piyer" (up to the
pier only). Bruce truly loved his daughter, a belief that Gie's father treasured until he died a few years after Gie settled down.
In 1978, Bruce and Gie reluctantly decided to come to the U.S. to settle here permanently. Both loved the Philippines. "Gie didn't want
to move here, and I was very happy living in the Philippines and that was absolutely true," Bruce said.
He had left the Peace Corps three years before, had joined the staff of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Baños,
Laguna, and just earned his master's degree in agricultural economics from the University of the Philippines-College of Agriculture.
But the prospect of finding a good paying job for the young former Peace Corps volunteer seemed far away. At that time the couple
already had a son, Bowen Philip.
They moved to Bruce's hometown in South Bend, Indiana, found some work, had their second son, Brett, and eight years later, they
moved to Madison, Wis. when Bruce was hired by Ray-o-Vac Corporation. Gie soon became a certified career development specialist
and worked in education and career advising at the Madison Area Technical College where she retired a few years ago.
After 10 years at Ray-o-Vac, Bruce started his own business as a computer consultant, a job that requires him to travel a lot. "I guess
one thing I'd like to point out is -- clearly my experience living in the Philippines, living in another culture, working with people from other
cultures, and not just marginally but really getting to know other people -- has helped me in my career immeasurably because actually
in any business, you'll always be in competition with people from other countries and other cultures," Bruce said. "And I think that's a far
more important skill that I have than my technical or computer skills. Really; it's far more significant."
It has been almost 35 years since Gie and Bruce first met, but their love still continues to grow stronger every day. On their 25th
wedding anniversary, the couple went back to San Pablo City, to celebrate Gie's mother's 90th birthday. They ended up getting married
again, in full regalia, in a local Catholic church before Gie's family and relatives; just like what Gie's father initially wished after their
one-day "disappearance/elopement." One son gave the bride, Gie, away while the other was Bruce's best man. It was a very touching
moment in Gie and Bruce's life. Their children were in awe to learn about their parents' love story, when Bruce stood up during the
reception and spoke for 17 minutes about how he courted their mother.
"And to me that's the most precious thing," Gie said. "How we did it may sound weird to them, but it's my (culture's) value; and they got
to see how I would like that preserved, my convictions and I lived it."
"I think our story is a romantic story, but it's a cross-cultural story too," Bruce explained. "It's how different cultures can work together,
maybe learn from each other. They can be so different and be just fine, the way they are. We don't need to change each other. We just
need to try to understand each other."
The Best family on Gie and Bruce's
25th wedding anniversary held in San
Pablo City, Laguna, Philippines: (L_R)
Brett Wayne, Gie, Bruce, and Bowen
Philip
|
In last month's issue, Asian Wisconzine introduced to our readers Bruce Best and Eugenia Fule, and how the Peace Corps played a
most important role in their first encounter. They met at the Peace Corps-Philippines whose training in local dialects and culture was held
at the San Jose Seminary in Novaliches, Quezon City.
This installment is their love story.