Filipinos are generally clean people. Every Filipino child is trained from his early years to keep his person clean. At home and in school, children are taught the need for maintaining cleanliness all the time.

Among the subjects being taught in school are Physical Education (P.E.) , Values Education and Home Economics and Livelihood Education (H.E.L.E.) where girls are being trained early on to do household work making them capable of keeping house clean and tidy even when parents are away. To Filipinos, the degree of cleanliness of your surroundings reflects on the kind of person you are. So everyone tries to make their houses and yards clean to avoid people seeing them in a negative light. Mothers teaches their children diligently about personal hygiene, menstruation and the proper way of keeping their bodies clean at all times.

It is quite noticeable how even among the poorer sections of cities, in the slums and in squatter areas, taking a bath is a daily ritual. Lack of private homes with bathrooms has not kept dwellers from bathing themselves even if they have to do it right along the streets in front of their houses. In very poor areas where there isn’t enough water supply, people go to great lengths fetching water several times with a pail from a public pump just to be able to bathe themselves. This is why even if Filipinos use spices in everyday cooking like other race do, we do not end up smelling “spicy”.

It is also quite remarkable that using public toilets for doing “personal business” is considered taboo in the Philippines. Filipinos seldom used public toilets for defecation. Only in very unavoidable circumstances will they resort to such. This is because public toilets are not properly equipped with the basic needs for keeping oneself clean based on Filipino standard, mainly, clean running water, soap, linen towels, pail and dipper.

The Western practice of wiping themselves with tissue paper after doing their business is not considered enough for Filipinos. It is common practice for Filipinos to always wash the private areas of the body with water, soap making sure there is no residue or smell left, and then they dry themselves properly with cloth towels every time they use the toilet. And to answer a query in one of the forums, we do remove our clothes first before we do our business and so it doesn’t get wet when we wash. Sometimes you have to sacrifice convenience for a better purpose. Wiping oneself with a tissue only apply when one uses public toilet for peeing. Since one cannot be sure that water in public toilets are clean, we try to avoid using them, hence we avoid doing business in public loos.

A funny thing happened when my husband (he’s British) first came over to the Philippines and saw the dipper inside the comfort room. He asked me, “Why is there a frying pan in the loo?” It’s obvious he’s never seen a dipper before nor used one. It was also a horror for me when I first went to Europe and find the toilets there carpeted from corner to corner and in some (like ours), the toilets and the showers are on separate rooms. This could only mean I cannot do what I use to do. It is difficult to give up a habit that you’ve been doing your whole life especially when it’s not a bad habit at all. But my husband and I were able to find a way without sacrificing my standard of cleanliness.

It’s true and I’m proud to say that Filipinos always maintain cleanliness at home and their immediate surroundings. However, Filipinos also have the tendency to disregard cleanliness rules once they go to public places. If Filipinos are clean, why is Manila dirty? A good explanation can be found here.