The day an Igorot woman met King Charles
MANILA, Philippines – Averil Pooten-Watan was told she was to give the King of the United Kingdom a quick and firm handshake. Make sure to let him move along, she was told. That was part of protocol.
She practiced her curtsy beforehand, bought a box of champorado mix, a pack of Ding Dong, among other items, for a hamper that was supposed to showcase all things Filipino.
Watan was born to two Igorot parents from the Mountain Province, but grew up in Walthamstow, east of London. At 46 and now a community leader in Waltham Forest — a borough of sanctuary that welcomes migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees — she is actively working on the integration of Filipinos in the UK.
On Friday, December 20, she wore a tapis and fell in line with 20 fellow community leaders inside the Waltham Forest Town Hall.
When King Charles III came, she bowed her head, shook his hand, and said, “Hello, Your Majesty.”
Watan introduced herself to the King as the chair of the grassroots organization Igorot UK charity.
“And then he said, ‘Oh, I have to say, this country would be nothing without the Filipinos, especially in our national health service,'” Watan recalled in an online interview with Rappler.
“‘You do know that I’ve recently been receiving treatment myself…and I’ve had the most excellent care from a Filipino nurse.'”
Charles, 76, had been getting cancer treatment.
They chatted for a few minutes. The King mentioned the variety of palay in the Philippines, and Watan showed him the box of champorado, a chocolate rice porridge that is a favorite in many Filipino households.
She could read from the King’s body language that he was genuinely interested. She described him as a sincere person who radiated warmth.
“He stayed for quite some time, he didn’t just shake my hand and move away.”
That morning in December, King Charles III and Queen Camilla alighted the Bentley state limousine in front of town hall. A children’s choir was singing “My Favorite Things.”
The visit, which took place five days before Christmas, was a stark contrast to the riots that erupted in parts of the UK during the summer. The riots started after three girls were murdered in a stabbing rampage in July.
False posts blaming a Muslim immigrant for the murder fueled Islamophobia and anti-immigrant sentiments. Crowds swelled in the streets, like in Walthamstow, where people mobilized for anti-racism demonstrations.
Watan described the show of solidarity in August: “There was a particular immigration office that was going to be targeted. And, as a result of that, within a couple of days, the local community here in Waltham Forest, grassroots community, neighbors, friends, came together to resist any sort of political hate. The far-right groups never did come to Waltham Forest, didn’t come to Walthamstow. But the display of solidarity that came out of that was quite phenomenal — over a thousand people in the center of Walthamstow.”
It was a turning point, said Watan. The attacks soon stopped. “I think the Royal Household was really interested in thanking the local community here in Walthamstow for reaching and standing in solidarity.”
A few months later, Watan received a message from the mayor of Waltham Forest, inviting her to meet King Charles III at a reception. She thought it wasn’t real. Then a follow-up email came, asking her to prepare a Filipino hamper.
“That’s when I thought, ‘Oh, okay, this is it, it’s actually real. They’re gonna come.'”
Years before she met the reigning monarch, Watan said she found it difficult growing up in the UK as a second-generation Igorot. In the 1980s, when she was just a kid, there were only a handful of Filipinos in the area.
“We didn’t have a critical mass. It was just a few Filipino families,” she recalled.
In the early 1970s, her mother went to the UK to train as a nurse at the Claybury Hospital. She was part of the massive recruitment drive for the National Health Service. This wave of working immigrants came two centuries after the British briefly occupied Manila.
Her father came from Sagada, Mountain Province, while her mother was from Besao, the lesser known (but nonetheless as beautiful) sleepy town near Sagada and Bontoc. After getting married in the Philippines, her mother went back to the UK in 1978 with the husband in tow. It was the same year Averil Pooten-Watan was born.
“My parents were really, really intentional about making sure that we knew that we were Filipinos, that we were proud to be Igorot,” Watan said of her and her younger sister’s upbringing abroad.
Now in retirement, her parents came back to the Philippines and settled in Baguio. “They really are living the immigrant dream.”
Things have changed in the past decades, and the Filipino diaspora had only grown bigger. There are now more than 200,000 Filipinos in the UK, with many working in healthcare, education, hospitality, among other sectors. At least 200 Filipino community groups and societies based in the UK and in Ireland are registered with the Philippine embassy.
Over 1,000 Filipinos are living in Walthamstow now, Watan estimated. That’s a far cry from when they first settled in London.
Her family is part of this growth in Filipino population. In 2004, she married another second-generation Igorot, Mark Sapaen Watan, who hailed from San Francisco. Together, they are raising two girls.
While the numbers grow, Watan said they continue to work in integrating the Filipino community in UK. She looks at how Indian, Pakistani, and Chinese communities mobilized themselves. Filipinos need more representation, she said, in mainstream media, politics, and business.
“We’ve been here 50 years. We should be there.” – Rappler.com