On a warm afternoon in May, a simple gathering on Margaret Island had slowly turned into a small Filipino feast. We were there for a friend’s birthday. Around the picnic blankets were the usual signs of a celebration: cake, drinks, bags of snacks, and people taking photos for their Instagram. There was also champorado, the chocolate rice porridge many Filipinos grow up eating, and lumpia, thin and crispy fried spring rolls filled with meat and vegetables. More food appeared as people arrived, and much of it was cooked at home and brought along to share.
Written by Kate Berbano
Not everyone at the picnic was Filipino. Some of our international friends were curious about the food and wanted to try it, so plates were passed around, and explanations followed. Soon, it became the kind of gathering I had grown up recognising, where everyone insists that everyone else should eat. It also brought to mind a familiar Filipino dilemma: when only one piece of lumpia is left, somehow nobody wants to be the person who takes it.
The setting was unmistakably Budapest. We were sitting on Margitsziget, in the middle of the Danube, surrounded by other groups enjoying one of the city’s favourite green spaces. The Philippines is thousands of kilometres away, but over my first year in Hungary, I had started noticing little pieces of home like this scattered across the city.
Little pieces of the Philippines
I felt it again one afternoon when I walked into Pinoy Basket, a Filipino grocery shop in Budapest, and almost immediately heard a cheerful “Magandang hapon po”, or “Good afternoon.” Inside were flavours and products familiar from home, the sort of things that might barely warrant a second glance in a supermarket in Manila but suddenly carry more meaning when found in Hungary.
Eleaverne Shayne Ruebe, president of the Association of Filipino Students in Hungary (AFSHu), describes the feeling simply: “Sometimes, it’s really the small things that make you feel at home.” Food is part of it, but so are singing, jokes, gestures, and familiar expressions. “When we’re in the Philippines, we don’t really stop and think about being Filipino or about our culture because it’s simply everywhere,” Ruebe said.
Living abroad changes that. Ruebe said Filipinos can suddenly find themselves representing their culture as friends become curious about their food, traditions, and language. The familiar becomes more noticeable when it is no longer everywhere.
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A church filled with familiar voices
I noticed this most strongly after I began attending the Filipino Sunday Mass at the Inner City Franciscan Church on Ferenciek tere shortly after arriving in Hungary last year.
The church is often packed, sometimes leaving people standing at the back. The Mass is celebrated in Filipino, familiar hymns fill the church, and the choir has the kind of voices that can make you stop what you are doing just to listen. During the sign of peace, people turn to greet one another, even when they have never met before.
Fr. Phoebie Romero Fababair, the Filipino Franciscan priest serving the community, said this connection extends beyond Sunday worship in Budapest. Tagalog Masses are also organised in different parts of Hungary, where churches have often been filled with Filipinos. For Fababair, the Church also has a role when people are adjusting to life far from home. “The Church is not merely a structure or a building, but is, above all, the people themselves,” he said.
Whena Matillano is one of the Filipinos who found community there. A factory worker who has lived in Hungary for almost four years, she said the Hungarian winter was difficult when she first arrived. Homesickness was harder, particularly missing her family and children in the Philippines.
For about two years, Matillano said she frequently cried because she missed them. In August 2025, she joined the Filipino church choir. “Mas gumaan ang lahat,” she said in Tagalog. “Everything became lighter.”
Matillano now joins Fr. Phoebie and other community members when they travel for Masses outside Budapest. She said the friends she has made through the community have helped her cope with homesickness, stress, and anxiety.
Making a home in Hungary
The community extends well beyond the church. There are groups such as the Mabuhay Filipino Community and Bayanihan Filipino Association that organise cultural and social gatherings, while AFSHu opens a network for Filipino students. Last December, Mabuhay and Bayanihan each held Paskong Pinoy, or Filipino Christmas, celebrations, which brought together workers, students, families, community leaders and Hungarian friends.
The Philippine Embassy in Hungary provides another meeting point. Independence Day brings Filipinos together each June, while this year’s Fiesta sa Nayon gathered community members from across Hungary alongside Hungarian and international guests. The Embassy’s Labor Office near Parliament also provides support to Filipino workers.
Although Budapest is at the centre of this story, Filipino communities have also developed in cities including Debrecen, Pécs and Szeged. Recent Philippine Embassy figures put the Filipino population in Hungary at at least 15,000.
For Ruebe, being part of that community does not mean remaining within it. She said Filipino students also build relationships with Hungarians and other international students, learning from different cultures while remaining connected to their own. I have seen that exchange in my own university life. At Corvinus University of Budapest’s Cultural Day, I wore my best Filipiniana, traditional Filipino clothing that felt far less ordinary when worn thousands of kilometres from the country it represents. Around us, Filipino food and culture were being shared with Hungarian and international students.
However, building a life in Hungary also means taking part in the traditions here. On 20 August, I stood among the crowds at Batthyány tér as Budapest celebrated Hungary’s national day. Among the thousands waiting for the fireworks and light display over the Danube were groups of Filipinos, some holding phones and selfie sticks above the crowd to record the spectacle. At one point, I watched a group look after a companion who had become dizzy and nauseous in the crush of people. It was a small scene, easily missed among the thousands gathered along the river.
Over the past year, I have come to recognise the Filipino community in Budapest through moments like these: a Sunday Mass at Ferenciek tere, a “Magandang hapon po” inside a grocery shop, a Filipiniana worn to university, fireworks watched over the Danube, and food passed around a picnic blanket on Margaret Island.
None recreates the Philippines exactly as it was left behind. Instead, they are pieces of it carried into a life being built somewhere new. When Filipinos gather around food, though, there is always the possibility of one familiar dilemma: a single piece of lumpia left on the plate, and everyone suddenly becoming too polite to take it.
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