Filipinos are the modern Greeks. We live in an archipelago so feudal we would give the Greek city-states of yore a run for their money insofar as subtle influence is concerned.

Our golden age was literally golden, with our tribal chieftains and nobles ruled by a strict code of honor and our people bedecked in hammered gold and varicolored pearls. We spoke and still speak many languages and have our own ancient and artistic cultural identity that will not be overwritten by any foreign influence.

We still, after four hundred years of colonization, retain many traces of that heritage, of our ancient beliefs and customs, of our ancient, perhaps genetic, personality as a people. It shows because it is the way we breathe and think, it is an imprint no amount of westernization or easternization can erase.

So it was with the Greeks. Many historians agree that, had the Greeks been as organized and unified as the Romans, they would never have been subjugated by the glory that was Rome.

But was Greece truly subjugated, or did it accomplish a very subtle kung fu reversal? The Romans, whose martial power was a force of nature, became Hellenized – and this was after Alexander the Conqueror (Alexander the Great of Macedonia) Hellenized the eastern hemisphere and the Ptolemies continued Alexander's work after his death.

The Greeks did indeed become slaves under the mighty Roman Empire. They were the valued slaves who were teachers, craftsmen, artisans and artists of rich and noble Roman households.

Slaves though they were, the Greeks were prized, fetching top-shelf prices at the auction block and receiving better food and lodging than slaves of other ethnicities. They also passed on their philosophies, culture, writing forms, art and pantheon of worship to the Romans.

So who were the true conquerors in this scenario? The old gods of Rome, the lares and penates, were maintained, but great Roman temples were built and dedicated to renamed Greek deities. The literature of Greece's celebrated writers – Aeschylus and Euripides among them – was copied by Roman poets like Virgil and Ovid.

It seems clear to me that the empire that built the Via Appia and the great Aqueducts had the physical might and great intellect, but I believe the Greeks had the heart, the soul and the strength to assimilate and adapt – perhaps the term to use is synchronize – their masters to their way of thinking and being. Here, in my eyes, the Greeks won the battle though they lost the war.

Now, on to the modern day and the Filipino - the teacher, nanny, engineer, builder and caregiver of the world.

We are just as fragmented, perhaps even more so, than the Greeks were when the Romans picked the bones of the Greek city states clean.

But we are the world's largest exporter of labor to the maritime industry. There is no merchant ship without a Filipino serving on its decks.

We supply OFW host countries with our nurses, doctors, caregivers, teachers, nannies and househelp. There is even a Filipina who serves as the chef in charge of the White House kitchens.

Our peacekeepers help maintain order in the world's war zones: East Timor, Afghanistan, the Ivory Coast (Cote d'Iviore), Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Beirut, Sudan and, until they were pulled out, Iraq.

Come to think of it, the King of Saudi Arabia recently acknowledged that his kindgom's prosperity was largely due to the fact that Filipino engineers and laborers worked the desert oil rigs of the kingdom. In thanks, he pardoned nearly 700 OFWs languishing in Saudi jails (the movie dialogue "ibalik n'yo ako sa Pilipinas" comes to mind here).

Our best writers, NVM Gonzales and Bienvenido Santos among them, taught English to the natives who spoke the language in the United States. They taught literature and they brought their Filipino perspectives into the classrooms of the world as traveling lecturers - and they still do to this day, from pre-school classrooms to postgraduate class auditorium lectures.

There are Filipinos in Europe and the US, and many Filipinos have served and continue to serve as officials and staffers in vital agencies of the United Nations.

Many multinational companies have largely Filipino staff because the Filipino is known to be an excellent, efficient and resourceful worker who speaks good English, the lingua franca of the world market.

Our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal has monuments in Rizal Park in Manila, Germany and China, among other places. His works and the works of many Filipino writers who came after him have been translated into many languages, putting Filipino concepts and thought out there in the world consciousness.

And how can we forget the 1986 Edsa revolution that put the Philippines fully in the global political arena? We were the first country to overthrow a dictator without bloodshed, with song and flowers, sharing and prayers, unarmed and fighting fear. For that, we set the bar.

Yet our country, like the Greek city states, seems to be in the middle of a self-destruct sequence. Our people, on the other hand, are blessed with talent and skill, with heart and soul - plus a good command of English and a quick adaptability that enables them to gain fluency in other languages besides English and to adapt to foreign circumstances.

No matter. I am sure that all our teachers, doctors, lawyers, nannies, caregivers, peacekeepers, technical workers, accountants and artists have Filipinized the world and that everything that is Filipino will remain, even after us. For sure, we will not become obscure as the Olmec people of South America, whose cultural artifacts and mummies have been unearthed, but whose language and rich culture are lost.

Rather, the Pearl of the Orient Seas stands on the brink of either nationhood and true self-determination or on the edge of doom. Either way, we will be remembered long after we have passed on, I hope, in the manner that the ancient Greeks are still very real to us, millennia after they succumbed to slavery.

Whether our country moves forward or crumbles like the Greek city states, however, is up to us. Personally, I'd prefer to stand up, stand proud and get to work to bring our country to the First World.

Memory is a fine thing, but a lasting legacy must be more than just stories written in historical context. Legacies must be alive, dynamic and must continue to progress. I want the Philippines to be a legacy, to Filipinize the world in a good way – good for the Philippines and good for the world.