<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the earliest stories I learned in school was the Filipino legend of the first man and woman. A bamboo splits open, and out come Malakas<\/em> (Strong) and Maganda <\/em>(Beautiful). The story was meant to teach that strength and beauty are important traits, but I was seven years old. So naturally, I took it to mean that men should be strong, and women should be… aesthetically pleasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It didn\u2019t occur to me that this was an odd distinction. I married my first husband largely because he could flex his pectoral muscles, and I can recite all the Miss Universe winners from the Philippines in record time (unless my tongue trips over Pia Wurtzbach!)<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are a nation obsessed with beauty pageants. We don\u2019t just watch Miss Universe; we analyze evening gowns like CSI scientists and dissect final answers as if they determine the fate of global diplomacy. (To be fair, there\u2019s always one contestant advocating for world peace.)<\/em> And we have every right to be invested\u2014four Filipinas have won the crown (five, if we\u2019re counting Miriam Quiambao, as we should)<\/em>. My own mother discouraged my sister and me from learning to ride bikes for fear of leg scratches affecting our hypothetical pageant futures. So why did I grow up practicing my pageant wave more than my deadlift form? Why did I sometimes wish I wore a sash and tiara instead of earning medals in school? And why do I still worry about how many kilos I weigh vs. focusing on how much kilos I can carry?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then came Hidilyn Diaz, the Filipina who made history by winning our country\u2019s first-ever Olympic gold. Not in boxing, where we traditionally pinned our hopes\u2014but in weightlifting. A woman lifting more than double her body weight, proving that strength isn\u2019t just for men. But her victory wasn\u2019t just about breaking records; it was about breaking stereotypes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We love calling women strong\u2014but usually in the emotional, martyrdom kind of way. \u201cShe\u2019s strong because she endured.\u201d \u201cShe\u2019s strong because she overcame adversity.\u201d And while that\u2019s more than valid, let\u2019s also celebrate strength in its literal, physical form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Personally, I aspire to be called strong not just for weathering life\u2019s challenges, but for actually being strong. I want to lift heavy things. I want to be called a strong woman but also a Strongwoman\u2014not just in spirit, but in body. Because if beauty comes from the inside out, then strength should come from the outside in. I want to be strong not to break Olympic records, but so I can lift my grandkids as they grow and carry my luggage when it\u2019s full of pasalubong <\/em>shopping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They say, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Fine. But strength? Strength is in the effort of the doer.<\/strong> And that\u2019s something we can all work toward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s time we embrace a new version of the story\u2014one where Filipinas aren\u2019t just Maganda, but also Malakas. Where little girls grow up knowing they can be as strong as they are beautiful. Where women lifting weights are celebrated just as much as women winning crowns. Because strength and beauty aren\u2019t opposites\u2014they are complements. Exactly as the original legend intended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here\u2019s a modern take on Si Malakas at Si Maganda: When the bamboo splits open, out comes a woman. She is strong. She is beautiful. And she is lifting that bamboo over her head\u2014because she can. Meanwhile, the man? Well, he\u2019s there too\u2026 spotting her and cheering her on, because real strength means lifting each other up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the earliest stories I learned in school was the Filipino legend of the first man and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,10,13],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[9],"class_list":{"0":"post-415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-menopause","8":"category-muscle","9":"category-personal"},"authors":[{"term_id":9,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"jvinculado73","display_name":"Jasmin Vinculado","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1a.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/1a.jpg"},"author_category":"","first_name":"Jasmin","last_name":"Vinculado","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.secondspringph.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}