- 10/28/2023
Zahra Bianca “Z” Saldua was second runner-up in the Miss World Philippines pageant in 2013 and living a beauty queen's life with hosting gigs and product sponsorships.
But after the war in Israel erupted on October 7, she suspended her commercial endorsements and devoted herself to the Palestinian cause. The child of an OFW and a Palestinian woman who met in Kuwait, Z is the product of two diasporas who said she joined beauty pageants to have a larger platform for what she cared about.
She's endured online hate for her views and suffers from what she says is "survivor's guilt" by living a safe, comfortable life in the Philippines, while the people she identifies with are being bombed. She explains to Howie Severino that her mission is to provide a human face to a misunderstood cause and explain the roots of a conflict that go back to 1948.
But after the war in Israel erupted on October 7, she suspended her commercial endorsements and devoted herself to the Palestinian cause. The child of an OFW and a Palestinian woman who met in Kuwait, Z is the product of two diasporas who said she joined beauty pageants to have a larger platform for what she cared about.
She's endured online hate for her views and suffers from what she says is "survivor's guilt" by living a safe, comfortable life in the Philippines, while the people she identifies with are being bombed. She explains to Howie Severino that her mission is to provide a human face to a misunderstood cause and explain the roots of a conflict that go back to 1948.
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00:00 Good day, Podmates! Howie Severino here again, reminding you that "Kakatalino" is a long attention span.
00:07 The war in the Middle East is still going on. Our guest today has relatives there because she is a Palestinian Mestiz.
00:16 She lives in the Philippines and is one of the Palestinian bosses here.
00:21 She is half Filipino and half Palestinian and she has had a colorful life journey as a beauty queen, host, and influencer while she speaks about the forgotten issues in the Middle East.
00:36 Ladies and gentlemen, our guest today, Zara Bianca Saldúa, second runner-up in the Miss World Philippines pageant in 2013.
00:45 She has a wide range of advocacies, but most recently, the plight of Palestinians.
00:51 Good day to you, Zara Saldúa. You've permitted me to call you by your nickname, Z. Hello, Z!
00:58 Hello, Howie. Thank you so much for inviting me to your podcast. It's a great honor for me.
01:04 And of course, I'm so happy with the stories you're sharing with our fellow Filipinos. And now, I'm one of them.
01:11 Thank you. The honor is ours, Zeno. Thank you for joining us.
01:16 You have an uncommon family background, of course, but in a way, it's familiar because you're a child of the Filipino diaspora and also, of course, the Palestinian diaspora.
01:28 Your father is Filipino and a former OFW in Kuwait, and your mom is Palestinian. How did they meet?
01:36 It's really funny. My mother was also part of the Palestinian diaspora who was in Kuwait at that time.
01:43 And then, they met at a place called Safeway. It's an American brand.
01:50 And then, my dad was like my mom's boss. And then, they had a little connection, they talked.
01:57 And my father was just really doing the Filipino way of making "ligaw," going to the house, really. Imagine.
02:06 And my grandparents were like, "Who is this man? Does he even speak Arabic?"
02:10 Which he knows a little of. My mother knew how to speak Filipino because she had a lot of Filipino friends.
02:18 She was with the OFWs. So, they had a little connection there. And then, they developed and they got married right away.
02:28 Interesting. So, they were both overseas workers. Your mom is not originally from Kuwait.
02:35 I know she's Palestinian, but Palestinians can be anywhere right now.
02:39 But was she also an overseas worker, considered an overseas worker in Kuwait at that time?
02:44 I don't think you can consider her an overseas worker because their stay in Kuwait was not really their choice.
02:51 It was my parents who were kicked out of the country. And then, they stayed in Jordan and Kuwait.
02:57 That's why you'll see my family members that are in Palestine, in Kuwait, and in Jordan.
03:02 They're a little scattered now. But if you ask any of them, they will say, "I'm Palestinian."
03:07 They won't say that, "I'm Kuwaiti," or "I'm Jordanian," because that's where they're originally from.
03:11 So, they're a mixed couple in the sense that they come from two separate cultures.
03:15 You said that your grandparents were Palestinian, and they reacted to your father's courtesy.
03:21 Of course, a very different culture. So, how was he received at first?
03:27 I mean, how was the culture of Palestinians? Are they welcoming towards foreigners? Or was it more wary?
03:39 To be honest, when it comes to interracial marriages, in Islam particularly, it's very promoted.
03:46 They really want you to have interracial marriages because it means that we really have a one nation.
03:53 And you get to understand each other's background.
03:56 But of course, when it comes to today, back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, some of them are a little bit more conservative than they are right now.
04:05 My grandparents were just shocked because in the Arab culture, especially if your child is a woman,
04:12 men don't immediately approach their families. It's usually family to family.
04:19 Like, back in the Philippines, it was family to family.
04:24 So, they were like that. And up to this day, there are a lot of people who have that culture of interracial marriages.
04:32 They don't immediately welcome you. It's not just a man-to-man relationship.
04:37 They still welcomed him into the house because surprisingly, not many people know about this,
04:42 but Arabs and Filipinos are two of the most hospitable races in the world.
04:48 And Arabs will say, "Just come to the house, have some coffee, have some tea."
04:52 They don't even ask you if you've eaten. They just put food in front of you.
04:56 So, they did that also to my father. He welcomed him into the house. He became friends with my uncle, who was their best friend.
05:04 So, my mom and my grandparents were also able to get the same feeling.
05:09 And they gave the blessing that they will get married.
05:12 I know what you mean about this Arab hospitality because I covered Iraq right before the war, the US invasion there.
05:21 And I didn't expect it, but I really experienced that hospitality.
05:26 I was a stranger, of course, a foreigner there, but I was constantly being invited into people's homes.
05:31 I was just shooting a wedding party outside the hotel. I was invited to be a wedding guest.
05:37 I can't imagine that even happening here.
05:40 I mean, the guests are included in the wedding, right?
05:44 Yeah, true.
05:45 Even my cameraman was invited to the wedding.
05:49 You're right. In fact, I found them even more hospitable than Filipinos.
05:56 And Filipinos are already very hospitable.
05:58 Yeah, that's true.
05:59 So, your parents continued. Where were you born?
06:04 I was born in Jordan.
06:06 So, they were able to reach the Kuwait war with Iraq at that time.
06:12 And then they left for Italy for a year. I was conceived in Italy, apparently.
06:20 That's why my second name is Bianca.
06:22 And then they moved to Jordan because my mother wanted to be closer to her family.
06:26 And by that time, my grandmother and grandfather moved to Jordan.
06:31 So, from there, that's where we stayed for most of my life.
06:36 I was there for 13 years.
06:37 My father, in general, in the Middle East, he was there for 25 years.
06:42 So, that's where my brother and I grew up.
06:45 So, where did you go to school?
06:50 I mean, obviously, right now, you speak English very well.
06:54 I'm assuming you also learned that in the Philippines.
06:56 But in Jordan, did you study in an Arab school or international school or what?
07:04 I actually studied in a modern American school.
07:07 So, it is an American school.
07:09 We had a lot of cultures there, a lot of races, a lot of people locally and internationally.
07:15 So, my English really came from that and watching a lot of American or Western-based movies.
07:22 And my Filipino was really bad at that time.
07:25 My first language is English and then Arabic and then Filipino.
07:29 When I moved here, it became English, then Filipino, then Arabic.
07:33 Because I don't really speak Arabic, right?
07:36 So, Filipino became my second language.
07:39 And I've heard you speak Arabic.
07:42 You said you don't really speak Arabic here.
07:48 But my family loves Arab food.
07:53 And you find them all over the place.
07:56 But are any of your circles Palestinian or Arab here in the Philippines?
08:02 Where you can actually speak Arabic with them?
08:06 Yeah, it's only after the pandemic where I started seeing these type of businesses pop up,
08:12 the Arabs, and they're my age.
08:14 Because before, the Arabs here were usually the same age as my parents.
08:19 So, of course, we don't really talk much.
08:22 And then, the mindset is different, the conversations are different.
08:26 But now, there are millennials, there are Gen Zs that I can talk to here.
08:30 And I realized that there are still a lot of young Arabs here that I got to talk to.
08:39 So, now we have certain groups.
08:41 Some of them are married to Filipinas as well.
08:43 So, I get to be really close friends with their wives and then them or their husbands.
08:48 So, it's nice because as a mixed child, I can see how my parents were when they got together.
08:59 So, I would be definitely relating to their children or giving advice as someone who is mixed.
09:05 So, back to Jordan, that's where you spent most of your childhood.
09:08 Is that right, Jordan?
09:10 Yes.
09:11 And where in Jordan? I've been to Amman, because that's where you land.
09:15 Okay, because that's where journalists go if they want to go to Iraq back then.
09:20 Then you travel across the desert by land.
09:23 So, here in Jordan, were you very aware of your Filipino-ness also?
09:29 Or was it mostly your Palestinian-Arab side?
09:32 It was really a very good mix because my father was very involved with the Filipino community.
09:38 He was the president of the OFWs there as a part of their club.
09:44 He was the one who organized the events and he was the one who emceed the events of Philippine Independence Day.
09:50 Which is funny because now I'm the one who organizes and hosts the events.
09:55 And my mother was a translator for the Filipino OFWs who had a hard time with the Arab workers there or the Arab bosses there.
10:05 So, she spoke English, Filipino, and Arabic.
10:08 She speaks Filipino better than my father, basically.
10:11 So, she was the one who translated for them.
10:13 Wow, really?
10:14 She even did Bisaya because there were a lot of people there.
10:18 So, how did your mother learn? She's pure Palestinian.
10:21 Pure Palestinian, yes.
10:23 She started in the hospital when she was in her teens.
10:26 And of course, there were a lot of Filipinos there at that time.
10:29 So, she learned.
10:31 And then, even in Jordan, she kept learning and understanding.
10:34 So, she was also kind of the mediator whenever there were problems with OFWs.
10:39 So, we were really at the center of OFWs in Amman, Jordan.
10:45 And then, when it came to my Arab side, I was very close with my cousins and very close with my uncles.
10:50 They love my father.
10:51 My father calls my grandparents "mother and father."
10:55 They really love him so much.
10:57 My cousin right now has a Filipino store in Amman.
11:01 And your cousin is pure Palestinian?
11:04 Pure Palestinian.
11:05 So, he has a Filipino store.
11:07 He speaks Filipino.
11:08 And all of his brothers and sisters know how to speak Filipino.
11:12 Even my uncles as well.
11:14 So, we're very close-knit.
11:16 I feel like I got the best of both worlds.
11:19 Well, that's amazing.
11:20 Even your Palestinian cousins can speak Filipino.
11:23 Yeah.
11:24 So, you spent 13 years in the Middle East.
11:27 So, I guess at 13 years old, that means at 13 years old, you moved to the Philippines because of the war.
11:33 Is that right?
11:35 Yes, it's true.
11:36 That was the height, I think, of when America started invading Iraq.
11:39 And we felt like a lot of our businesses there were being affected because when we were importing Filipino goods, a lot of the import was really being stopped because of the war.
11:53 And of course, we were also thinking about our safety.
11:56 And my parents were thinking, "Maybe we need to move to the Philippines so that we can explore the Filipino side."
12:02 But to be honest, we lost a lot of things.
12:04 We lost a lot of businesses.
12:05 We really had to start from scratch when we arrived here in the Philippines.
12:08 So, zero contacts, zero properties, very little money that was used just for the necessities.
12:16 So, that was our struggle.
12:19 You could be considered war refugees in that sense because you were exposed to the effects of the war in Jordan, in the Middle East.
12:28 Had you been to the Philippines before?
12:30 Several times.
12:32 We would come here every year or two.
12:34 So, it's not that I was out of touch with my culture.
12:37 It was really part of my being.
12:39 Actually, I was so proud that I was Filipino when I arrived in Jordan.
12:43 I would be like, "Look at the Philippines. We have a lot of mangoes, tropical areas, beaches."
12:50 Because there wasn't much in Jordan or it would be very expensive.
12:54 And I would show them pictures and the culture of the Philippines.
12:59 When the Philippines arrived here, it was the opposite. It flipped.
13:02 "I'm a Palestinian. This is our food. These are what we have."
13:07 It's like they're both home but I'm also a stranger in both of my homes.
13:12 Because I feel like I'm carrying two identities when I'm here.
13:15 Looking through your Instagram, it's full of happy images and content mostly about your successes.
13:27 You're a host and you also have sponsors.
13:32 You have beauty-related products.
13:36 And then this month, you got serious.
13:40 You started talking about politics, history, Palestine.
13:46 So, why did you start speaking up now?
13:50 I think, well, I've always posted about Palestine but mostly during Independence Days
13:55 or whenever something would happen, I would post about it.
13:57 But more so now because of what happened or what is happening until now.
14:03 It started on October 7 but it's only the hype that started on October 7.
14:09 These issues that I've been talking about have started way before October 7.
14:14 So, I thought it was very important for us to talk about these things, especially on social media, especially for the Filipinos.
14:20 Because a lot of Filipinos have a different perception of what's happening in Palestine.
14:26 And I just wanted to speak up.
14:28 I even told some of my sponsors, "I'm really sorry, I cannot post at this point.
14:33 I have to talk about this. If you want to pull out your sponsorship, I completely understand.
14:38 If you are willing to wait or if you're willing to give me a chance to post but not right now on my feed,
14:45 then I'd be really grateful. But at this point, this is all I want to talk about.
14:50 I don't have the mental capacity or emotional bandwidth to talk about anything else, anything else other than Palestine."
15:00 And when did you become conscious of this?
15:06 I think when I was a child, I didn't really grasp all of these stories that were given to me.
15:12 My grandparents would tell me about their experience during 1948 when they were ethnically cleansed.
15:18 And then, of course, my uncles and my aunts also told me about my culture.
15:23 But at 13 years old and below, I didn't really understand the whole picture.
15:29 So, as a teen, of course, my focus was like, "Oh, I'm losing all of my friends. I'm coming here to the Philippines.
15:35 I don't have any friends anymore."
15:36 So, I didn't really learn about what was happening in Palestine.
15:42 It was only until I was 20 years old when I started reading more and more about it.
15:47 And in my early 20s, I became more critical about it.
15:53 I really wanted to ask the hard questions because I kept hearing one side, which is the Palestinian side.
16:00 And then I started meeting friends from Israel. And I also started meeting people from the Israeli Chamber of Commerce and other people.
16:09 And I said, "Okay, you know what? I need to broaden my horizons. I need to really educate myself."
16:16 And I spent years learning more and more, but the past five years, intensely studying it.
16:23 When I say intensely, like really looking at all of the research coming from both the Israeli and the Palestinian side,
16:30 really looking at all of the news bits every day, following it up, really studying and reading books.
16:36 And now I'm 100% convinced, 100% with the Palestinian people, not just because I'm Palestinian, but because I did the work, because I did the research.
16:47 And I think it's more important now than ever to have that voice because of the genocide happening right now.
16:54 You mentioned October 7. What was your reaction to it?
16:58 What was the first news?
17:01 The first news, when I found out about it, I was really nervous more than ever because I said,
17:07 "Okay, maybe I'll use this as a way or as an excuse to finally get rid of the people in Gaza."
17:14 I was really scared for the people in Gaza because I knew that looking at all of the patterns of happening between Israel and Palestine,
17:23 I knew that Israel was trying to find a way to really take Gaza off and take complete control over it.
17:30 So that was the first thing that I thought of.
17:33 And then after that, I started reading more and more posts about how this could be a revolution.
17:39 It could be the great resistance that we've been waiting for as Palestinian people.
17:44 And I was like, you know what, this is hopefully the time that people will really know what is going on in Palestine.
17:53 And I just kept thinking about before October 7, in 2023 alone, there were more than 200 people who were killed and 40 of them were children.
18:02 And yet people were still focusing on the attacks, the Hamas attacks, but they never really looked at the context.
18:09 We're looking at years and years of context, but if they just wanted to go for 2023, those are the facts.
18:15 We have 200, almost 250 people who were killed by the Israeli defense forces.
18:20 And these were not only in Gaza, most of them were in the West Bank and even children were being killed.
18:26 So to me, I knew I was going to get a lot of questions from my friends.
18:32 I knew that my posts were going to be targeted by people who were pro-Israel or pro-Zionist.
18:39 And I was already getting prepared now, getting prepared now to speak for my people.
18:44 So that's why I became super serious on my social media.
18:48 Hamas went into Israel from Gaza and all these people were killed, over a thousand, almost two thousand people.
18:58 And as a Palestinian, as an outspoken Palestinian or Palestinian Filipino, you must have received a lot of comments, questions.
19:10 I mean, even probably well-meaning questions and maybe well-meaning comments and feedback.
19:15 And of course, there's a lot of emotion and anger.
19:18 How did you typically respond and deal with these questions and comments?
19:25 That's a really great question, to be honest.
19:28 A lot of people were asking me to condemn Hamas.
19:31 Like, do you condemn Hamas? And I'm like, OK, I really feel like no one condones violence.
19:37 Nobody wants bad things to happen to innocent people.
19:41 But whenever the question condemning Hamas comes up, it's always like I'm validating my humanity.
19:48 I'm always having to validate that I'm a human first and that I'm not like the others.
19:53 Like, oh, not all Arabs are like that.
19:55 Like, I don't think that I should always put myself in a position where,
20:00 "Ilangal maniwala kayo sa akin, babuti akong tao," because that should have been the default.
20:05 So that's one of the things that I had to deal with when I'm talking to certain people.
20:10 A lot of people who had well-meaning questions, of course, they were asking why it happened,
20:15 which is the perfect question to ask, right?
20:17 Like, why did Hamas choose to do this attack?
20:21 And then you get to talk about what's been going on from before October 7 all the way from 1948,
20:28 because people kept going through the history, go back and back and back and back and back.
20:32 If we even just look at recent years, you can tell, like, okay, oppressed people will try to fight one way or another.
20:40 That's already a fact.
20:42 For every action, there will be a reaction.
20:45 And that's how I typically respond to people who are asking about October 7 and who are asking about Hamas.
20:53 But to understand this context, you've mentioned 1948 at least twice already.
20:59 So for listeners who aren't familiar, what's your version of what happened in 1948?
21:06 1948 is known worldwide as the Nakba or the catastrophe.
21:10 This was the time when 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed.
21:16 When we say ethnically cleansed, it wasn't that they were killed, but they were kicked out of their homes
21:21 or kicked out of their communities or their towns.
21:25 And a lot of those who were kicked out in 1948 became refugees of Gaza.
21:31 70 percent of the people in Gaza are refugees from 1948.
21:35 And a lot of them became part of the diaspora of the Palestinians outside, right, my grandparents included.
21:42 And if people want to know what happened, well, the catalyst was in 1948.
21:48 So imagine these Zionist Jews.
21:52 We're not going to call them Jews, no, because there's a difference between Jews and Zionist Jews.
21:56 These Zionist Jews came into Palestine and then they were asking for help because they were also refugees from World War II.
22:03 They wanted to have a home, so they came in asking for assistance, asking to be welcomed to Palestine.
22:11 And the Palestinians did so.
22:13 And then after that, they came into the homes, they kicked out the Palestinian people,
22:17 and we started having the problems that you see today.
22:22 So if you look at it in the simple sense, we were colonized.
22:25 Yeah. But of course, a part of this context was that whole region had already been colonized.
22:31 I mean, before what you say is today's colonization, because it was controlled by the British, right?
22:37 And then, you know, this whole partition of Palestine occurred with, you know, UN support.
22:44 And of course, the Western countries who had won World War II, so they kind of had control over how the world was going to be divided.
22:51 So the British kind of said, OK, Palestine, you could have, you know, this part.
22:55 And then, you know, you Zionist Jews or Jews, you can have, you know, this part.
23:03 But there was a lot of disagreement in the Arab world about how that partition was going to take place
23:09 and whether there was going to be any partition at all.
23:12 Yes. I need to kind of dig a little bit deeper here in 1948.
23:17 When you say Palestine, because it was never really a country, right?
23:21 How would you describe it? Was it a territory, a region, a land?
23:26 When you say Palestine back then, what was it?
23:31 The reason why we have countries, it's a very Western state of mind, right?
23:35 You have to put states in it. That's why, like, that is what the Western has put.
23:41 But when it comes to Palestine, it was land.
23:45 It was what you see right now that everybody can point to and say it's Israel.
23:50 But actually, that entire piece of land, that entire region was colonized, like you said, by the British.
23:56 It became the British mandate of Palestine.
23:59 And then when they were decolonizing it already because already there were talks with Palestinian people saying that we wanted our own independence,
24:07 they promised it to another group of people who are not even from the land.
24:10 So it's like moving the ownership from British colonizers to Zionist Jewish colonizers,
24:20 which is also what a lot of Arabs around the region, they didn't want because it was at the expense of the people who were already living there.
24:29 If it were to be like, OK, you know what, you can come and live with my, live with us.
24:34 That's no problem. It's like accepting refugees.
24:36 The Philippines have accepted refugees before, but it was not at the expense of other Filipino people.
24:42 So that's the main concern of a lot of the Arabs and the Palestinians there, because why would we give up our land without any consent?
24:52 Why would we give up our land while you are also killing our people?
24:56 Because in 1948, it wasn't just here's a piece of land.
24:59 It wasn't just that we can also look at the massacres of Tantura, where there were several people who were killed by the Zionist Jews.
25:07 There has been a documentary already that has been published by Israelis that are talking about the massacres to reach to the 1948 partition to divide the land for Palestinians and for Jewish people.
25:20 So it wasn't just just talks that angered many Arabs and Palestinians.
25:24 It was the fact that it was forcibly taken, forcibly taken not just by talks again.
25:29 It was forcibly taken through massacres, through ethnic cleansing, through the genocide of the people.
25:34 So that was that's something that has been taken out of the context or out of out of conversations when it comes to the history.
25:45 OK, but, you know, fast forwarding now to 2023, there's been this bloody history and bloody origins of this whole situation.
25:53 But Israel is a reality.
25:57 I mean, in Anjanayan and Arab states around it have kind of at least many of them have reconciled themselves to the reality of Israel and make normalization of relations and all of that.
26:10 So what do you would be a more perfect world there?
26:14 What can you envision? Like what kind of world, for example, when you have grandchildren?
26:18 I mean, what kind of Middle East would you want for them?
26:21 When it comes to the solution, I think that's the root question.
26:27 No. What is the solution here? What how can we make this a peaceful resolution for the people who are living there?
26:33 It's really more about a free Palestine and free Palestine means not the eradication of Israel, but really giving them back their rights, their human rights, giving back also their justice.
26:46 Because right now they are experiencing apartheid. They are experiencing a military occupation.
26:53 They are experiencing more and more settlers who are annexing them because there is continuous annexation, which is illegal, according to the United Nations, for the Palestinians.
27:02 So we will say, in my opinion, the perfect world is a free Palestine, liberation of the Palestinians who are already dispossessed, who don't have a state because it's not a state.
27:14 People will argue that they have their own land in the West Bank and in Gaza, but it's being controlled by Israeli military.
27:22 And it's a liberation also for the people who have suffered almost a century for being occupied and living under the Israeli rule.
27:32 So a lot of people will say, okay, there are only two solutions there. Two-state solution or one-state solution.
27:38 But the two-state solution is difficult because right now, we already agreed, right? In 1967, there is a partition plan, which is to have the two-state solution, Gaza Strip and West Bank for the Palestinian people and everything else for the Israelis.
27:53 Okay, fine, let's say that's already there. But the thing is, if you look at the maps right now, there are increasing settlements which are being subsidized by Israeli government.
28:03 They have paid people to live in that land, and it has already been condemned by the United Nations.
28:10 It has been condemned by the Geneva Convention. It has been condemned by the World Court already.
28:16 But yet, they still do it because they have the backing of the United States.
28:19 And the settlements are built there on purpose so that Palestinians can come together.
28:25 And you'll see the apartheid because Israelis can get citizenship, full citizenship.
28:29 Palestinians cannot. They have access to resources like water, but Palestinians get access to water once a week.
28:36 The Israelis have checkpoints. Palestinians have restriction of movement.
28:41 So the intentions are already clear in the West Bank, no, the two-state solution is not going to work because that's not what they want.
28:49 So sabihin natin, sige, one state na lang tayo. We'll all live under one state.
28:54 Sabihin natin, one state is going to be Israel rather than Palestine.
28:58 But that's also against the Zionist dream because they have always said that Israel is for the Jewish and Jewish alone.
29:06 They claim to be a democracy. So, okay, democracy.
29:10 That means they need to give all Palestinians who are living in the West Bank and Gaza full citizenship and voting rights.
29:17 But that means that the current population of Israelis and Palestinians would be equal.
29:24 And if Palestinians were able to vote against the Israeli parliament, then they wouldn't want that to happen.
29:31 Currently, two million out of nine million of Israelis are Palestinians, actually.
29:35 Now they were just given semi-citizenship. So they want to block that.
29:40 That's why one state under Israel or a two-state solution, it won't work right now.
29:47 What we want is, like we said, a free Palestine for them to have their own justice and to be able to fight for their own freedoms.
29:58 But aren't there Arabs and even Muslims who are currently sons of Israel?
30:07 I mean, I've been following an Arab-Israeli news anchor who's been outspoken about these issues as well.
30:15 It's emphasized that she's an Arab-Israeli.
30:18 So not all citizens of Israel are Jewish.
30:23 That's true.
30:24 So technically, Palestinians can become full citizens of Israel. Is that right?
30:29 Well, if you really want to be technical with it, they have citizenship, but there's also a color base.
30:36 So it's still under an apartheid. You can have Israeli citizenship, but it will be a color green rather than a color blue.
30:42 And you still have certain limitations. So it's not really that they are given full citizenship.
30:48 I have friends who are Palestinians, but they have an Israeli citizenship and they tell me they can't do X, Y, Z.
30:53 They can't be in certain, they can't have certain jobs. They can't do certain things.
30:58 They are still limited. But again, it's not that Israel is under an apartheid.
31:06 It's the greater Israel or the occupied territories like West Bank and Gaza that are under the apartheid.
31:13 So that has to be put into perspective as well.
31:15 So this vision of a free Palestine, what would that be composed of?
31:25 Would that be Gaza plus West Bank or at least West Bank that's not occupied already by Israelis?
31:34 Where would this free Palestine state be?
31:38 It would be in the same lands. It would be taking out the blockade between Gaza and the rest of Israel.
31:45 It would be taking out also the blockade in West Bank because there is also a blockade there between the settlements and then the rest of the West Bank.
31:53 So that's number one. That's number one. And then giving back the freedom or giving back just the justice.
32:00 Because if you look at the statistics alone, it doesn't compare to any other democracy.
32:07 If you want it to be a full democracy, then give it back to every Palestinian people.
32:12 If the question is, do we give back the land? Do we give back the country to Palestinian people?
32:17 That would be ideal, to be honest, because like we already mentioned, the intention of the Israeli government,
32:23 especially now under Netanyahu's leadership, it's not for the Palestinians to have their own justice.
32:30 They're really making life so difficult to the point where you have to leave or you have to suffer.
32:35 Those are the two things. And we can see the suffering. We can see the blockade. We can see the open air prison.
32:40 We can see like to date, since October 7, almost 2000 of people in the West Bank have been put in jails for no apparent reason.
32:52 There was an increase in night raids, increase in mass incarceration.
32:55 And we even have 1000 children, children meaning 18 and below, who have been put in jails because everyone is so distracted with what's happening in Gaza
33:06 that nobody looks to the West Bank and sees the actual apartheid going on.
33:11 So when people are afraid of giving back the land to Palestinian people because people think,
33:17 "Okay, baka kasi pag binalik natin sa Palestinians, re-dress bakan nila yung mga Israeli or yung mga citizens ng Jews."
33:27 Why is it always perceived that there will be bad things that are happening?
33:32 And also, look at what happened in South Africa. It was given back to the South Africans.
33:39 Apartheid no longer exists. And it had to be given back through violence because they did have that in South Africa.
33:50 But now it's under the South Africans' rule and not under the colonizers. So why can't we have that same vision?
33:57 Usually when apartheid is mentioned, it's in the context of South Africa. But you're saying that something similar, a similar system exists now, currently, in these territories where Palestinians live.
34:15 So basically, para sa mga Pilipino, ano ba yung apartheid? Wala tayo masyadong experience dyan.
34:22 Maybe there's some discrimination against some ethnic groups, but it's not built into the law, unlike in South Africa or even in the United States, nung nagkaroon ng segregation, racial segregation.
34:33 So what is apartheid?
34:36 Apartheid is definitely, let's make it simple, it's treating a certain race differently than your own race.
34:43 Yun na yun. Yun yung pinaka simplified definition para sa lahat ng mga nanonood or nakikinig na yun.
34:51 So kunwari nasa Pilipinas tayo, bilang Pilipino, lahat ng mga rights ko ay intact. Walang pwedeng pumigil sa akin, lahat meron ako.
35:02 Pero kapag ikaw ay isang dayuhan na pumunta dito sa Pilipinas, iba yung rule sa 'yo, iba yung rule sa akin.
35:08 Lalo na yung basic rights, yung basic human rights, magiging iba.
35:13 It's not just cultural, there's actually policy.
35:17 In the West Bank, you can see that there are roads specifically for Israelis and roads specifically for Palestinians. So that's segregation already.
35:27 There's also work permits that are given to the Palestinians in order for them to work and they are put into these checkpoints which are inhumane.
35:36 Hundreds of people that are put into these small little checkpoints and they have to go through but Israelis don't have to do that.
35:42 So there's already a difference in how we treat Palestinians and how we treat Israelis.
35:48 That's policy already. So that's already part of the apartheid. Kasi hindi lang sya cultural, hindi lang sya religious.
35:55 So it's already really embedded in the law. Even in incarceration. Israelis have the right to an attorney.
36:02 Israelis have a right to trial. But right now, Palestinians don't even have the right to go to trial anymore.
36:10 There are children as well who are being put into jails without even attorneys or even parental guidance at all.
36:20 So all of this can be, actually all of this has already been condemned by the United Nations and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Group.
36:29 It's just that it's now being amplified because of October 7.
36:36 Before that, people were just like, "Ganun talaga may conflict lang sila, may away lang sila." But it's not.
36:42 It's really an occupying or a colonial power that is being in charge of these Palestinian people.
36:48 So you've pointed out problems in the media coverage. So ano yung main critique mo sa coverage ng media ng itong mga issues dyan sa Middle East?
36:59 I think that it's not accurate or there is no proportionate response that they have given from the media to Palestinian people.
37:11 They don't represent the Palestinian perspective. There are also language in the media that dehumanizes Palestinians.
37:18 Kasi tignan mo naman yung mga headlines natin, "X number of Israelis are killed while X number of Palestinians died."
37:25 So "died" is a very passive word rather than "killed" which is a very aggressive adjective to say.
37:32 So iba talaga pagdating sa media, ang tingin nila sa mga Palestinians ay parang deserving na sila na mamatay.
37:38 I'm not saying all media, of course, but a lot of the Western media is like that.
37:42 Not enough Palestinians are being heard. And when there are actual Palestinians who are finally invited to speak,
37:50 the first thing that they are asked to do is, or asked, is, "Do you condemn Hamas?"
37:55 rather than having to explain to you our actual experiences, what we are seeing, what we are hearing, what we are experiencing in general.
38:06 I mean, even the media, they started to talk about these headlines that have happened ever since October 7.
38:13 We had the worst news, which is 40 beheaded babies, but yet, even the Israeli defense forces claimed that this never happened because there's no evidence.
38:24 But the Western media continued to post about it until they had to retract it later on because it just made sense to them.
38:32 Like, "Oh, Arabs? I'm sure they beheaded the babies."
38:36 They never even bothered to verify these claims before actually putting it on the headlines.
38:42 So this is the kind of representation, or misrepresentation, rather, that we are fighting on top of the propaganda that we're already trying to fight against on social media.
38:54 If you look at the news and if you look at social media, the news is all mostly pro-Israel.
39:01 They talk about Israeli voices, Israeli stories, Israeli victims, but most of the things that you see are on Instagram, on TikTok,
39:11 that are actual footage of the people of Palestine, of Gaza, that are being treated the way they are right now, that are being killed right now.
39:21 For me, that's what's really happening in the portrayal of the media.
39:25 If I may criticize the Filipino media, if I may do so, I'm going to be putting myself in hot waters, but here it is.
39:33 I think Filipino media, especially the news, if it's an international news, they don't really have a lot of people who investigate it themselves.
39:40 They always base it off of other international news outlets.
39:44 To be fair, we don't really have as much resources as these international news outlets.
39:51 We don't have a lot of reporters who are on the ground right now in Gaza, so we rely on these international media outlets.
39:58 Maybe that's one thing that I can also say, particularly when it comes to our local news outlets here in the Philippines.
40:07 That's fair enough. But on the part of government, which you'd expect to be a bit more diplomatic,
40:16 you've seen the recent tweet by Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Teddy Locsin, which he deleted right away.
40:26 But it spread first, and of course, he got a screenshot.
40:30 You know what it said, right? I don't even want to repeat what it said because the thought is so grotesque.
40:39 It's not worth repeating, but it's offensive no matter who you are.
40:44 I don't think I'm being partisan here by saying it was offensive.
40:49 But you've said in the past and you said during a few minutes ago that you've had to insist that we're also human.
40:58 There's a lot of dehumanization going on.
41:02 Would you say that was an example, this tweet by Locsin? Where was that coming from, do you think?
41:08 Of course, we know that he tweets like that. That's his brand. That's really his brand, no matter what the issue is.
41:19 He crossed the line there, but what's your reaction to that?
41:26 To be honest, it's not enough that he's a Philippine ambassador, he's also a former DFA secretary.
41:33 So that says a lot about his words, right?
41:36 It's hard to hear that from a Filipino, especially when a Filipino has power as an ambassador representing the Philippines itself.
41:48 Yes, like what you said, he's known for having tweets like this or having comments like this.
41:55 But this just goes to show that recklessness has no place anymore in social media.
41:59 You can't just be reckless and saying whatever you want and thinking that it's not going to be called out,
42:04 especially now in this generation where every little thing can be criticized, more so if you're a political figure.
42:11 So he said, "What I heard was that it was taken out of context, that it was made under…"
42:16 He said he was being sarcastic.
42:18 Sarcastic, yes, that's the sarcastic tone. But it goes to show that you have to use your voice responsibly.
42:26 This is not just for him, this is for every other person who wants to talk about these issues.
42:31 You need to make sure that you know your power and what effect it can have on these people.
42:41 Imagine there is an increase in Islamophobic attacks already in the United States because there's continuous dehumanizing rhetoric.
42:49 Just like what's happening with Ambassador Loxine.
42:53 Even if what he's saying is accidental or sarcastic, there are people who will react and there are people who will be hurt
43:01 because they're using their words as an excuse to hurt these other people, whether it's Palestinians or even Muslims in general.
43:09 So that's what's happening.
43:11 Another intro to Palestine question.
43:16 Is there a difference? What's the difference between Palestinian and Arab?
43:20 It's a very naive question, but maybe some people listening are wondering.
43:25 Yeah, sure, sure. So that's a good question.
43:28 Basically, all Palestinians are Arabs, but not all Arabs are Palestinians.
43:34 So bring it to the context of the Philippines.
43:39 All Filipinos are Asians, but not all Asians are Filipinos.
43:42 Let's make it even more local.
43:44 All Bisayas are Filipino, but not all Filipino are Bisaya.
43:48 That's just how it is.
43:50 So yes, we are part of the same.
43:52 So it's a kind of a sub-ethnic group or an ethnic group within the Arab population or within the Arab world.
43:59 In the same way, when I went to Iraq, even within Iraq, it was very diverse culturally.
44:07 There were Kurds.
44:09 You know, Loxin is an ambassador.
44:13 He has a platform, an official, very powerful, influential platform.
44:17 But you too, I mean, you're not in the government, but you're a beauty queen.
44:23 I mean, that's your branding. You're not just an outspoken Palestinian Filipina, but you're a beauty queen.
44:32 Usually, you're preceded by that.
44:34 Do you think there's a responsibility?
44:37 For people like you who became celebrities, beauty queens, artists, people in show business,
44:44 to have this kind of advocacy?
44:47 I mean, you don't hear former beauty queens speak like you, especially in such an informed manner.
44:57 I have to say, you're very informed.
44:59 I know that beauty queens are instructed to have advocacy.
45:02 So in the question and answer, they can sound intelligent or they can speak intelligently about something.
45:08 But you, you've really devoted time to studying this.
45:11 Is there a connection?
45:13 Did you feel that you needed to advocate because you had a platform?
45:16 So I am currently also doing coaching for other beauty queens as well,
45:21 internationally and locally, for Q&A and for their advocacies.
45:24 But I really joined the beauty pageant industry because I have advocacies.
45:29 It's not the other way around.
45:31 It wasn't that I became a beauty queen first and then I got an advocacy.
45:35 That's why I became a beauty queen because I said, "My voice is still small.
45:39 I want to be able to influence more people."
45:42 When you're a beauty queen, it's easy to get people to believe in you.
45:47 Getting sponsorships or getting support from people to help your advocacy.
45:52 At that time, I was creating a blood drive for 300 blood bags and giving it to the Philippine Blood Center.
46:02 And I noticed that before I became a beauty queen, it was very hard to get support.
46:07 When I became a beauty queen, it was very easy.
46:09 They saw that I had a corona and a sash.
46:12 "Here's my money. Please help what you need to help because you're credible now."
46:16 So for me, that was my journey into becoming a beauty queen.
46:20 I think in this day and age of 2023, it's no longer about trying to be trendy,
46:26 trying to just be beautiful.
46:28 We can even see it in the trend of beauty queens all over the world.
46:31 They're asking harder, more difficult questions.
46:34 They're asking for proof of your advocacy.
46:37 It's no longer just, "You're beautiful. You're in."
46:39 You have to care deeply about something to become a beauty queen, in my opinion.
46:44 I think the more successful beauty queens are the ones who actually have something to say,
46:49 who actually have something that they care about.
46:54 And they're the ones who have longevity.
46:56 The others, they stay for a while, but you don't see them as loud or as involved.
47:01 You might see them in a few ads or on social media, but you won't see them on the news.
47:06 You won't see them being involved with the Filipinos.
47:10 And I think that's what we need to see more and more.
47:12 Even artistas, to be honest.
47:14 I've unfollowed a lot of American artists because of the way that they support what's happening right now.
47:24 So for me, you know you have this platform.
47:30 You know you have this influence.
47:33 If you're not well-versed or if you're not educated enough, you should be.
47:39 Because you have that effect on people.
47:42 So this is a day and age where it is time for us to get back to our humanity.
47:47 We are behind social media all the way, but we are just being distracted by the content of laughs and dances and trends,
47:56 but no longer in the stories of the people.
47:59 That's why I love documentaries so much because they are about the human life and they are about the human stories.
48:08 And my vlogs, if you'll see, are the things that I posted about.
48:13 I've been trying to post more about businesses of the Filipinos in Las Pinas and in other areas because they have that story to tell.
48:21 It's no longer just, "Hey, come here because they have a promo."
48:24 But more about just supporting local businesses as well.
48:27 So that's one of the many advocacies that I have, including the Palestinian cause.
48:32 So hopefully more and more people will acknowledge the fact that they need to be the driving force on social media.
48:41 You've spoken of having survivors' guilt.
48:45 I mean, as a Palestinian outside of Palestine, kind of watching from the outside what's going on there.
48:52 What do you mean by that? Survivors' guilt?
48:55 Survivors' guilt is, I see a lot of people who are from my land, my people, my blood, right?
49:05 Not just my family, but the people who, where I come from.
49:10 When there is hurt in the Philippines, then I would hurt with the Filipino people, whether I'm there or I'm not.
49:17 It's the same thing with Palestine. They are hurting right now.
49:20 And I feel so bad that I'm not there doing actual work.
49:24 I feel so bad that I have this privilege of living a safe life with my family, with my friends.
49:32 I don't have to worry about if I sleep tonight, will I be awake tomorrow morning?
49:38 I don't have to worry about where I'm going to get my food and water.
49:41 But the people in Palestine have that every single day.
49:46 I have to look at my friends, message them, and ask them not, "How are you?" but, "Are you alive?"
49:53 That's the question. It's unfathomable that we got to this place where my question is, "Are you still alive?"
50:02 It's painful to think that today they are alive, tomorrow they might not be.
50:08 So I feel that survivors' guilt.
50:10 But it's very small compared to everything else that we're experiencing as the Palestinian people in diaspora
50:17 because we also feel like we are unheard. We're experiencing gaslighting, victim blaming, or victim shaming.
50:24 We're also experiencing a lot of people who are just currently attacking us.
50:28 Someone took my posts and my profile and posted it in a Zionist account.
50:36 And then now I'm getting bombarded with a lot of hate on social media,
50:41 whether it's on my comments, which I delete right away, or on my messenger.
50:47 They message me every day.
50:49 So this is just a fraction of what the Palestinians are experiencing.
50:53 And I feel bad even complaining about it because I really am not.
50:57 This is nothing compared to what they're experiencing.
51:00 If I may ask, generally, what's the theme of these messages?
51:05 Is it just venom? Is there an argument? What are they saying?
51:11 A lot of them are just saying, "Go back to Gaza then. Go get killed with them."
51:17 Some of them are just saying, "You're a liar. You're a fake person.
51:24 You made this profile but it's all fake. You spot fake things. You spot propaganda."
51:28 A lot of people are just telling me nasty things, honestly, racist things as well.
51:34 And they disregard the fact that I'm Filipino.
51:37 They just go straight to the fact that I'm Palestinian and say really bad things.
51:43 These comments are coming from Filipinos?
51:45 From Filipinos. I get less aggressive ones, more questioning.
51:50 But these ones are coming from Zionists, Israeli or internationally.
51:55 Even one that I saw that's coming from Portugal.
51:58 But the ones that are coming from Filipinos are really like,
52:03 "Don't you know that Arab people are bad people?"
52:06 That's one of the things I get.
52:09 Or the Muslims, they're all suicide bombers.
52:12 Those are the painful things I get from Filipinos.
52:16 I'm a fellow Filipino.
52:17 So I think that maybe they're very ignorant.
52:22 I don't blame them because that's what we see in the international media.
52:27 A lot of them don't come from outside.
52:31 A lot of them don't travel at all.
52:35 They're not like you and me who are able to see other people, other Arabs,
52:39 and say, "No, the Arabs are not like that."
52:42 So I don't hate them. Yes, it's hurtful.
52:45 A lot on TikTok.
52:48 Before, I did a series about what's going on in Palestine.
52:51 And a lot of them were Filipinos who commented that they have "hamas,"
52:57 that they have this.
52:59 It's like they're using "hamas" as an excuse to genocide or to kill other Palestinians.
53:05 So those are the hurtful comments that I get.
53:08 You've said in the past, long before October 7,
53:13 that you want to go to Palestine.
53:15 Do you still want to go?
53:17 For sure. 100%. 100% still want to go.
53:21 What would you do?
53:23 Mainly just get more and more content and show what the Palestinian people are all about.
53:29 Maybe talk more to the Palestinians who are there and ask them what they need.
53:33 What is it that they want me to share with the rest of the world?
53:37 Because honestly, they don't even ask for aid anymore.
53:40 They just ask for help to get their stories out there.
53:43 My brother went to Palestine, as I mentioned, and I'm so jealous
53:46 because he got to meet with these Palestinians and got to see what life is like.
53:50 And now he's even more convinced in talking about it.
53:52 That's why he's so passionate also about sharing the Palestinian history
53:57 and Palestinian cause and what's going on right now.
54:00 Is this Chester?
54:02 Chester.
54:03 Chester Sheldua?
54:04 Yes, Chester.
54:05 Your brother's a professional PBA basketball player.
54:09 Yes.
54:10 So he also has a platform.
54:12 So he feels as strongly as you.
54:14 He does.
54:16 He even has been there.
54:17 And as a Filipino, he actually has an American citizenship because he was born in the United States.
54:23 So when he got there, it's easier for him to travel.
54:27 When he got there, he was interrogated for six to seven hours by the Tel Aviv airport.
54:33 The people there, just because his middle name.
54:36 Six to seven hours.
54:37 Six to seven hours.
54:38 Yeah, I was calling him every hour.
54:40 What's happening?
54:41 Because we were afraid that he was going to get deported just because of the fact that my mother's maiden name is on his passport as well.
54:47 They took his phone.
54:49 They asked his lineage.
54:50 They asked, "Sinong yung lolo mo? Sino yung lolo ng lolo mo? Sino yung tita mo? Ano yung pangalan? Saan ba sila nakatera?"
54:57 These are questions that you don't really ask in immigration.
55:00 You usually just say, "What's the purpose of your visit?"
55:02 And then, "What do you have in your items or in your person?"
55:08 So, it's crazy.
55:11 Wow.
55:13 Mabigata.
55:15 And there's a lot to unpack.
55:17 It's been painful in some ways, but enlightening.
55:20 So, thank you for sharing today and for speaking up.
55:24 Mabuhay ka.
55:25 Thank you so much for having me, Howie.
55:27 I really appreciate your time and for giving me a platform to speak about Palestine and also the things that I've been doing as a Palestinian Filipino.
55:36 Okay. Maraming salamat, Zara Z. Salduhan.
55:41 Hi, I'm Howie Severino. Check out the Howie Severino Podcast.
55:45 New episodes will stream every Thursday.
55:47 Listen for free on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and other platforms.
55:52 This podcast seeks to be a platform for diverse voices on important issues.
55:58 We will be featuring other perspectives on the conflict in Israel in the coming weeks.
56:05 [♪♪♪]
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