The waft of roast pig in the air reminds us it’s Philippines-­Canada Friendship Month, commemorating the 117th anniversary of the island nation’s independence. Events have been happening around the Lower Mainland for weeks. And Lafflines Comedy Club in New West is getting in on the act, too, by presenting the country’s best-known Filipino-Canadian comic, Ron Josol, along with fellow Filipinos Art Factora and Dennis Litonjua, as well as John Perrotta.

Josol has been entertaining audiences around the world since 2003, and before that throughout Canada. He got his start touring with mentor Russell Peters, before Peters became the comedy superstar he is now. In fact, Josol was with him when fame and fortune struck.

“He wasn’t popular; he was just a guy that was doing his thing,” Josol says over the phone from his home in Toronto. “I opened up for him for a year. I saw it from doing comedy clubs where he had to do 13 or 15 shows a week because there were too many people, to doing 1,000-seat venues to 2,000-seat venues to 4,000-seat venues to 20,000-seat venues in a period of a year and a half to two years. The day he blew up, he was broke. He was making $30,000 a year. I gave him money for a cellphone bill. And in that first year, he made, like, $3 million.”

Like any self-respecting comedian, Josol would love to reach that level one day. He’s moving to Los Angeles in July to give it the old college try. But hitting the big time is not the be-all and end-all for him.

When he was seven years old, Josol’s parents were in a car accident, leaving his mother a paraplegic. She passed away six months ago. That dose of reality put things in perspective for him.

“I really don’t give a shit about making it,” he says. “If it happens, it happens. What I care about most, because of this situation, is I just want to be happy. And what makes me happiest is doing comedy. If I make it big, I make it big. I’m not going to chase anything that will make me upset. I enjoy working out doing my comedy. Some days will be great, but I’m not going to do it to the point where if nothing happens, it’ll kill me. If nothing happens, I will be just as happy.”

Josol started out doing a lot of ethnic material, but his act has evolved over the years. There’s only so much one can say about one’s background. Now his set consists of quick-hitting jokes combined with conversational storytelling—and, of course, the odd Filipino reference for good measure.

“They already know me,” Josol says of his Canadian audiences. “When they know you, you don’t have to tell them you’re Filipino. I still love doing Filipino jokes. I know there’s a limit to where it can go, though. My first TV specials were basically comedy for dummies if you didn’t know what a Filipino was. I had to explain it a little bit. I had to start Filipino. Now it will come up, but it’ll come up in my terms and the way I want to do it.”

Ron Josol headlines Lafflines Comedy Club in New Westminster from Thursday to Saturday (June 18 to 20).