Month: December 2010

The phenomenon of Overseas Filipino Workers, OFW in short, which disperses more than 10 million Filipinos all over the world, most of them away from their families, has created another phenomenon: children growing up without the care of their mothers who are taking care of other people’s children.

This sad situation has created also another kind of job in the Philippines : mothers taking care of children of mothers who go abroad to take care of other people’s children.

One of the outstanding entries in the this year’s Philippine Expat/OFW Blog awards was Niña Simon’s “My Mom’s Quasi-orphanage” . It won the Nokia award for Philippine-based blogs that also deal with overseas Filipino workers.
Simon’s blog is http://pinaywriteroraldiarrhea2.blogspot.com.

Here’s her winning article which PEBA has allowed me to reprint here:

My mother has never been out of the country.

She has never been on an airplane.

But she has been a surrogate mother to so many children of OFWs that it seems her burden has been heavier than those who have left their kids.

My Tita Loida is a domestic helper in Hong Kong. She left her young daughters in my mother’s care.

My Tito Pako is in Italy. He met his wife, a Bulaceña in Italy. They have two kids. My mother constantly checks on their children who are in Bulacan.

My Tita Clemen is in Dubai. My uncle died while she was away. She left her two sons in my mother’s care.

Batangueños are known for being extremely clannish. This is true for most Filipinos here and abroad. In the beginning, poverty was the reason why people left the country. Now, they can’t seem to find a reason to come back. I fear that some of them have forgotten why they left in the first place.

People like my mother bridge the gap between those who are left behind and those who are in another land.

For the longest time I have heard about and seen relatives leave Batangas, Isabela, and Laguna to try their luck in earning more money for their families. In the beginning it was the men. They braved the desert, the haughty Europeans, and the discrimination that came with doing manual labor. This was considered the right thing to do for men since they needed to be the provider for their families. People perceived that the fathers were doing their paternal duty in leaving their wives and kids in the Philippines.

Then came waves and waves of mothers leaving their toddlers. I suddenly had two female cousins living in our house most of the time. People didn’t like this new trend. Fathers that were left behind could barely function with work and housework in their hands. Somehow it was the woman’s fault if the family didn’t survive this change. She ruined everything for leaving them behind.Even if their husbands were the ones who didn’t keep his vows, somehow people chewed out the woman instead of the man. ‘He was lonely’, they would say. I couldn’t help but shake my head when I heard that.

My mom raised us alongside my ‘adoptive’ sisters. I often hear her roll call for the people who needed to be at our table for meals and it often included the girls. If that wasn’t the case, she would check up on them to make sure that they had eaten. When their father went home later and later into the night, they had to sleep over at our house from time to time.

They grew up with toys, pictures of their mother in Hongkong, and my mother’s constant nagging. I think she took it personally when the eldest girl ended up repeating her mother’s situation, having a child while she was still young. She felt like she failed to raise her well. In our family, the welfare of the daughters, their mistakes, and their triumphs are perceived to be based on the alpha female in their lives. I saw how hard it was for my mother that she had not done a good enough job in instilling traditional values into my cousin’s heads. As her eldest daughter, I had to suffer the nagging and the suspicious looks. I think I managed to dodge it jokingly, enough to ease her fears.

My mother’s youngest brother had been conned by a trusted family friend before his wife managed to get a chance to go to Qatar. While she was there, my uncle died in his sleep.We would later find out that he had a legitimate job offer in Canada. She went home for the funeral but had to go back abroad so she could earn enough for their two sons’ education. Once again, after the blow that hit her when my cousin got pregnant, my mother was a surrogate mother again.

Because my cousin’s were in the same bed as their dad when he died, the kids didn’t want to sleep in their old room. My younger cousin who couldn’t sleep unless he had his hand on his dad’s ear clung to my mom more, to my little sister’s chagrin. They slept in our second floor room with my father, mother and sister. It was a good thing that by that time I was in Makati, my younger brother was in Diliman, and the youngest son was in Los Baños. When we all go home from our separate locations one had to take dibs on a bed or end up sleeping on the couch. The legitimate kids ended up feeling like we were the guests in our own home. But I didn’t care, at least not all that much, because my mom told me, ‘Who else would take care of them?’

My mom doesn’t mind disciplining, feeding, and loving my cousins. What I have seen as an adult that I missed when I was still a kid, was that my mom hated it when the parents thought that she was not giving their kids the money that they sent over. My mother had a mantra, ‘Never spend other people’s money.’ Both my parents believed that so much that their bosses trusted them with money matters completely. I started realizing that my mother was slowly becoming the victim in the situation. She didn’t want to look like the enemy, but there was a time that she had to tell the boys the awful truth. Their mother, my aunt, had found someone new, she didn’t have a job and there was no money coming in.

I don’t know how hard it is to be far from my homeland. I have heard my friends, my relatives and former lovers talk about how difficult it is to be in a place where there is nothing else that they can do but work, eat, and sleep. I am an advocate that they are heroes in their own right. But let’s not forget that there are those who decided that they can work here, care for the young here and fill in the gaps here in the Philippines.

I believe both deserve our gratitude.

Dalawang insidente sa Muslim Mindanao ang nangyari noong Sabado na dagok na naman sa seguridad ng bansa at nagpaala-ala sa atin na marami sa atin ang hindi na aabot ng diwa ng Pasko.

Una ay ang pagbomba sa simbahan sa loob ng kampo ng Philippine National Police sa Jolo at ang pangalawa ay ang pagtakas ng apat na suspek ng pambubumba sa detention center ng PNP sa Zamboanga city.

Kung sino man ang may kagagawan ng pagbubomba sa simbahan, maitim ang kanyang kaluluwa.

Nakakabahala din ito dahil kung itong lugar na dapat protektado dahil nasa loob ng kampo ng pulis ay napasukan ng terorista, saan pa ang lugar na ligtas ang ordinaryong mamamayan?

Wala naman daw namatay ngunit sampo ang nasugatan.

Ayon sa balita, ang bomba daw ay nilagay sa bubong ng evangelical church ng Sacred Heart sa Asturias st at mukhang pinasabog ito sa pamagitan ng cell phone.

Nagbabasa raw ng gospel si Rev. Romeo Villanueva ng sumbog ang bomba. Bumagsak daw ang kahoy at yero na bubong ng simbahan.

Ang simbahan ay 15 metro ang layo sa provincial police headquarters. Guwardyado ang kampo hindi lamang ng regular na pulis kasama na rin ang Special Action Force. Malapit din ang kampo sa detachment ng Philippine Marines.

“Hindi ko alam kung paano na bomba ang chapel. Kailangan ito imbestigahan, “sabi ni Chief Supt. Bienmvenido Latag ng Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Dapat talaga. Maliban sa nakakabahala, nakakahiya ang ating mga security forces. Kayang-kaya pala sila pasukan ng terorista.

Mabuti lang mukhang maliit na bomba ang ginamit. Maaring testing lang ito sa pwede nilang gawin balang araw. Ang number one na suspek ay ang Al Qaida dahil galit naman talaga sila sa sa mga Kristyano.

Ang mga tumakas naman sa detention center ng Criminal Investigation and Detective Group sa Zamboanag City ay mga suspek sa pambubomba sa Patikul, Sulu noong Mayo 13. Sa bubong daw sila dumaan. Parehong bubong itong dalawang operasyun.

Mga ika-lima ng umaga daw nadibkubre na nakatakas ang apat. Siyempre imbestigasyun na naman.

Mukhang malaki ang problema ng PNP. Pwedeng sabihin na kahit anong higpit mo, kung determinado ang kalaban talagang makakalusot.Ito ay nagpa-alala sa atin na wala talagang ligtas na lugar, kahit gaano ka guwardyado.

Itong mga pangyayari ay dapat rin maggising sa ating pamahalaan na tingnan ang malalim na problema ng kahirapan sa Muslim Mindanao. Hindi lang ito problema ng pulis at militar. Problema din ito ng pang-ekonomiya at hustisya.