By Antonio V. Figueroa
The German Evangelic Church, in the sixties, donated a multi-million building and equipment to the Brokenshire Memorial Hospital, a Protestant hospital in Davao City. Part of that assistance came from the German Federal Government.
In 1969, the port of Davao got a share from the DM 12.5 million grant the German Government extended under a financial cooperation for the rehabilitation of ports.
Another funding amount DM 2 million was earmarked for the preparation of the Master Plan Study of the port of Davao (Sasa wharf), which was prepared from June June 1979 to December 1980.
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In terms of exports, the famous Chocolate de San Isidro produced by farmer cooperatives in Davao del Norte is now exported to the Netherlands and other European countries, including Germany and and Belgium.
And who would forget the iconic Mongol pencil that took the Philippines by storm during the American period? It was originally manufactured by Eberhard Faber GmbH, founded in 1922 in Neumarkt, near Nuremberg, Germany. The pencil factory was taken over by Staedtler, a stationery company with global reach, in 1978.
The US operations of the popular Eberhard Faber writing pencil were founded in New York City in 1861, on the site where the United Nations building now stands, by John Eberhard Faber (Dec. 6, 1822 - March 2, 1879). This was acquired in 1994 by Faber-Castell USA before it was purchased by Newell (Sanford) and rolled into the Paper Mate brand.
In transport, as Davao's traffic jam moves from bad to worse, German imprints are present also in costly, high-end cars, that negotiate, even if irregularly, the city's thoroughfares. Who can deny the pricey BMW (Bavaria Motor Works), Volkswagen (People's Car) and the Mercedes-Benz (built by German manufacturer Daimler AG) brands that have caught our fancy?
In the mall freezers, names like frankfurter (a small, cooked and smoke sausage of beef or pork named after Austrian-born Felix Frankfurter, a U.S. jurist, 1882-1965); bratwurst (a fine German pork sausage, typically fried or grilled), and wiener (a small, thin hot dog made of veal and pork) surely will remind you of their origin - that is, German-speaking territories.
As a Catholic country, the Philippines has much in common with Germany, a predominantly Protestant country, when it comes to the spread of Christianity. Two of the three religious congregations founded by St. Arnold Jannsen have established branches in Davao City.
Jannsen, born on November 5, 1837 in Goch, Germany, was ordained priest on August 15, 1861. He founded three religious congregations, namely: the Societas Verbi Divini (SVD, 175), the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit (SSps, 1889), and the Sister Servants of the Holy Spirit of Perpetual Adoration (SSpSAP, September 8, 1896).
The SVD priests took over the management of the Saint Francis Xavier Regional Major Seminary at Catalunan Grande, Davao City, in the 1980's from the Foreign Mission Society of Quebec (PME Fathers), while the SSpSAp, also known as the Pink Sisters, holds court at the Holy Spirit Adoration Convent, along Seminary Road, Catalunan Grande, Davao City.
In the field of Education, the German language, has been institutionalized at the state-funded University of Southeastern Philippines (USEP) at Obrero, Davao City. One of the institute's most visible professors is Professor Klaus Döring, an expatriate journalist, court translator and interpreter certified by the German, Swiss and Austrian embassies in Manila, a businessman who has made Davao City as his home since 1999 and since June 2017, taking office as German Honorary Consul to the island of Mindanao.
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