HOW I BECAME AN OFW [First of 3 parts]

This is the real story. He he.

The year was 1993. I was already working as a reporter for a business newspaper when a friend/former colleague from the school where I used to work prior to becoming a reporter, called me from Riyadh to ask me to be his replacement at his job there. He said that he had not been at his job for two weeks when he realized that he (and his young family back home in Manila) will not be able to make a go of it. He can't be in Riyadh for two years without something bad happenning to his family life. He can't risk it.

He was already a month into the job actually when he called me up. All this time, he was trying to think of someone and finding a way to get a replacement. On hindsight though, more than the family issues, I think it was the nature of the job that did it. Here was an intellectually superior/really cerebral person working as a secretary. Things just didn't gel.

I was living with a partner then who himself had been recruited to work abroad as fashion designer. But he already had a flourishing career on broadcast TV, and branching out occasionally to TV adverts. I thought it will be a waste to pass up the chance to be better in his career in Manila with a very uncertain job in the Middle East. We agreed that if an opportunity to work abroad comes along, I will be the one to take it.

So I did. And life was never the same again.

To be sure, it was not the first time I tried going abroad. After graduation from college, I tried the Manila Bulletin's job want ads every Sunday. I lined up for Aramco openings as advertised by IPAMS. I also tried EDI Staffbuilders and was lucky enough to get past the interview stage. But nothing came out of these efforts until this replacement secretarial job.

I was processed by a nondescript recruitment agency in Quezon City which asked me to pay more than ten thousand pesos as recruitment fee, despite labor laws that said solicitation of recruitment fees were illegal, and even then, may not exceed five thousand pesos if at all.

I went through medical exams including blood tests which turned scary since the lab asked for a second sample on the day the results were supposed to be given out. As the lab technician explained, it turned out that the first blood sample turned panis (or stale). The medical exams also included what the test administrators referred to as psychological exams. I should say that those exams asked me inane questions that didn't seem to have any bearing on my job prospects nor did they have any hints as to how they can accurately measure my psychological capacity to handle a secretarial job in the Middle East.

The medical exams also included a thorough check of one's body. I was told to strip to my underwear and a doctor took a good look at me including at areas where no one had looked into before, at least medically-speaking.

Even while undergoing medical exams, I also had to work out my travel papers including getting my first-ever passport. There were no third companies then that would process passports for you for a fee and so I lined up at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) like every other prospective OFW. Only the queues and the proverbial bureaucratic red tape at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI, where you get clearances from any criminal record), were worse. In addition, the records at DFA raised a red flag against a Roberto Magno who had a pending estafa case at Binan, Laguna. I had to travel to Laguna and get myself a certification that I was not the same Roberto Magno. Fortunately, the people at the records division at Binan were kind enough souls - they issued me the certification on the day I made the request.

Before being deployed abroad, I also had to undergo a Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS), which would purportedly help me understand the culture in the Middle East. If I understood that culture, such knowledge was supposed to help me avoid difficulties, including being involved in situations that may end up in diplomatic faux pas. On hindsight, I think that our PDOS facilitator was no more than a rumor-mongerer and an alarmist. And I even found out later that he had never been to the region he was supposed to be knowledgeable of.

To prepare for my trip abroad, my partner and I invested our meager resources on a huge maleta (suitcase), with matching check-in luggage bag and a shoulder bag. As a gift and to ensure I got me a source of some sort of entertainment while away, my partner bought me a Sony Walkman!

In a short time (barely three months since my friend/former colleague made his call to me), I was on my way to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to begin life as an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW).

NEPHEWS AND NIECES

How my nephews and nieces have grown! Just this month, several of them graduated either from high school or college. This is the last batch I think of my nephews and nieces since I don't believe my siblings have anything forthcoming in the next years.

I'm quite proud of my nephews and nieces, including the older ones who already have families of their own (these include nephews and nieces from my siblings Kuya, Not/Ate Lil, Fris/Evelyn and Let/Edna). They turned out nice. I have been telling my siblings that having children who have grown into excellent adults are a tribute to them and their parenting skills - something they can put a patent on and serve as bragging rights.

Here are photos of the younger generation (although some of them were unable to join; only the Salongas and the Pacientes were there and my sister Tess' and brother Buboy's families were missed), as they celebrated their graduations and other things at a pizza and pasta restaurant in Metro Manila:

My sister Doris and her sons Jeremy
(to her left) and Jonathan.

A shot of one of the pizzas they devoured at Don Henrico's.

Group shot, from left: Ana, Doris, Franz, my sister Flor and
standing, Jeremy, Jonathan and Paolo.


From left: Jeremy, Paolo, Franz, Jonathan and Ana.

From left: Jeremy, Jonathan and Paolo.


Paolo and his iced tea.


Doris (at left) with Franz, Ana and Flor.
Franz and Ana are Flor's daughters.


Brothers Jeremy (at left) and Jonathan.


Jonathan, Paolo, Ana, Franz and Jeremy.

From a bunch of photographs sent to me by Paolo.

GOLDEN JUN

Friend and colleague/co-worker Jun Manalili, turned 50 recently, with a sumptuous late lunch buffet (home-cooked and catered by catering magnate Ali Zacarias, naks) at a traditional (and very spacious) Saudi esteraha (resort). It was actually an overnight stay at the resort, which afforded us (my Bebe and I at least) plenty of time to indulge in our videoke singing passion till the wee hours of the morning. Too bad it rained some time during the day, dampening efforts to play a round of volleyball. The children in our midst, however, had a field day swimming at the esteraha's pool.

Earlier in the week, Jun also made it a point to treat us to traditional (as in, pag may birthday, sigurado meron nito) bihon at puto breakfast at the office.

Jun happily turned a year older in the company of his family. Supportive and ever-smiling wifey Cora was the ideal hostess-with-the-mostest at the esteraha shindig.

Jun strikes me as a very generous guy and the way he treated his family and friends when he turned gold or golden, was just another clear example.

Balloons and games courtesy of McDonald's (although we weren't able to join the activities by then, due to prior commitments) were part of the celebration's highlights, ironically, he he.

Anyhow, many thanks again to Jun and Cora and family for the kind and generous hospitality and for sharing this milestone with us.

Here are some photographs of the happy celebration, courtesy of the golden event's "official" photographers.

The golden boy and smiley wifey Cora...


and the family with a McDo mascot.

Group photos galore!



Me and my Bebe with Rene and Cora and Danny and...


Mahirap talaga mag-concert, sa totoo lang.

Photographs by Jun, Danny and Nicky.

I SWEAR THIS REALLY HAPPENED

In a multi-cultural working environment, such as in Saudi Arabia where many expatriates form part of the workforce, unique and very peculiar goings on happen. This was one of them.

This is a story of what happened to Vincent Krol, a Dutch national who used to work as executive assistant at the office of the president of our company here in Riyadh. He phoned another company located in Europe. His call apparently was taken by a lady there in Europe. They spoke and had what many people refer to here as a telecon (telephonic conversation - another weird goobledygook in these parts). Finally, they agreed that the lady in Europe will send Vincent a fax. Before that however, the lady needed Vincent to spell out his name. Vincent, who has been used to spelling out his name over the phone using the military code for the letters in the alphabet to avoid certain confusion, proceeded to tell the lady that his name is spelled V as in Victor, I for India, N for Nancy, C for Charlie, E for Echo, N for Nancy (again) and T for Tango. He also said that his last name is spelled K for Kilo, R for Romeo, O for Oscar and L for Lima.

A few minutes later, Vincent received a fax addressed to Victor-India-Nancy-Charlie-Echo-Nancy-Tango Kilo-Romeo-Oscar-Lima.

I swear it really happened; we just weren't able to keep a copy of the fax.

MY WRITING TEACHERS IN COLLEGE

I don't really know what brought it on, but last night, I thought about my teachers in college, specially those who kind of appreciated the way I write. On top of my list are Francisco Arcellana, Rene Villanueva and Jorshinelle Sonza.

The late Francisco Arcellana was an eminent writer and a professor emeritus. And he gave me a flat 1.0 (the highest) in his creative writing class. Until now, I honestly don't know what I did to deserve it but I so appreciate it since it was the only course to have given me such a grade in my five years in college!

Rene Villanueva is also a celebrated playwright and prolific writer. And I so appreciate him for boosting little me's budding interest in writing when he copied my brief descriptive write up/theme on a sheet of manila paper and posted it on the board for all the class to see, as an example of a witty and stylistic writing device. I wrote a paragraph, a description of a scene in about 5 sentences, with each sentence building up the description. I followed it with another paragraph, actually just a very brief sentence, that completely negated the immediaely preceding paragraph. Rene Villanueva thought it was so brilliant that my classmates (and other classes he handled that term) should take a look at it. It was not the originality of the device that he was quite proud of more than the fact that it was written by a very fledgling writer. I got 1.25 for the effort.

Jorshinelle Sonza was another teacher in creative writing, one of my earliest writing teachers. She was one of the first to really show appreciation when she said that I write very emotionally. She wrote her comment as a note to my brief write up on humankind's propensity to dichotomize between men and women when the more important issue is the humanity or lack of it, of people.

Certainly, I had other teachers who struck me as equally memorable and they include such luminaries as the late Concepcion Dadufalza (who kept a collection of clowns and who at one point in our class discussion said that despite my intransigence, she could admire my tenacity at holding on to my opinion) and Fr. Alfeo Nudas, S. J., who said I show "sparks of brilliance" although not quite that frequent and sparks that somehow never turned to conflagrations.

I don't think I was able to thank these teachers for their contributions to my writing experiences. After all, I appreciated their contributions in hindsight. Suffice it to say therefore that I remain grateful to them for being my inspiring mentors in college and now in life.

POOR ROB

The ways detractors describe our profligate lifestyle, and the ways that I would sometimes affirm such descriptions, albeit in a facetious way, you might think I was to the manor born. Veracity be established though, I had my moments of poverty looking me in my eyes. I know how it was (and is) to be materially poor specially as I was growing up.

While my mother Mamay was still alive and at the height of her "career", she was the epitome of a successful businesswoman. She was at her "peak" when I was in grade school. You remember my tales of her wonderful sari-sari (variety) store where she sold exotic-looking vegetables from Baguio? Her mogul-like forays into the farms of Albay for pechay, mustasa and tomatoes? Our summers with ripe mangoes and juicy watermelons? Our fresh-from-the-market menus and recipes for sinigang, escabeche and estofado?

It was a time of plenty; I never felt so rich and wealthy.

But business endeavors have a way of going kaput. Specially if the business owner was not as savvy as my young mind thought she was. And in addition to declining health or maybe due to the downturn in her business, my super businesswoman of a mother, somehow lost her will to do business and live. In the end, when she died, her business died with her.

And my poverty began. I was just in high school.

I never felt so poor than when I had nothing to eat. An elder brother who "inherited" the defunct business from my mother, could not make a go of it. He would tell us (myself and two other siblings who remained in Albay with my elder brother and his young family) that we've only been able to eat all along because he was able to loan some money from one of his godmothers, she who owns a restaurant a few blocks from us. As it was, baon na siya sa utang. Even then, we would only have boiled eggs and rice. Sometimes, chicken in a soup, with the chicken so minutely diced up, all I could taste were the chicken's bones. Magdildil ng asin was not far-fetched.

We weren't used to eating grandiosely as we only ate simple things yet we also weren't used to anything less in terms of quantity. My young mind still has not fathomed the seriousness of not having enough money for food.

Not even money for school.

Once, a high school classmate wanted me to join him in a weekend trip to school for some extra-curricular activities. I so wanted to go but my elder brother won't give me fare money. He said there was no fare money for weekend trips to school. So I argued that I would still go anyway and just work around my high school classmate how I can get a ride back home in his family's car.

My college years weren't any better. My father was able to send me to school for the first semester of my freshman year. Even then, I had to get myself included in my university's socialized tuition fee program so that I will only pay a percentage of the school fees as opposed to paying the full fees. My level of povery determined the discount in fees I got. To be part of the socialized tuition fee program, I had to prove my family did not have the means to pay my tuition fees in full. We had real estate alright, but it only consisted of the land where my parents built their house. To prove it's the only one, my father had to present the land's title but he had to pay first real estate taxes that had been in arrears for many years to get certification. Of course, my youth once again failed to recognize the irony of spending money to get documentation fixed for a program that purported to support poverty-stricken students. I was admitted nonetheless to the program and went on to study for the first semester as someone my father sent to school. Though my tuition fees were scaled down, my father still had to pay for my dormitory and other school and living expenses.

The second semester was a different story. As I bade goodbye to the dormitory directress (who was also a nun), she asked why I was leaving. Simply I told her that my father will no longer be able to send me to school. She would have none of it and promptly arranged for me to become one of the dormitory's resident assistants (RA). I was yet a freshman so she only assigned me to do tasks at the dormitory office. But as an RA, I had access to all the privileges: zero tuition and miscellaneous fees, free meals, free lodging and a monthly stipend to boot. The stipend was so minimal, I usually took a bus across two cities to ask another brother for more allowance. I would have to maintain grades higher then 3.0 though and I could not have Incompletes or even 5s in any of my subjects.

I must have been good, I stayed as an RA till I graduated five years later. But still not without major sacrifices. But then, I have already started to become more mature somehow, and learned to count my blessings rather than to curse the darkness. [Mixed and conflicted metaphors, huh!].

My association with the dormitory directress and other RAs she helped, opened up opportunities for me to be of help to others as well. And to see how better off I was, relatively, than the poorest of the poor. One of them came in the form of an NGO that the nuns [the same group of nuns where the dormitory directress came from], managed. The NGO sought out really poor children to become beneficiaries of Belgians and even Americans and Canadians who would send twenty dollars a month for the poor children's school needs. These benefactors were recruited by a French-Canadian medical doctor/philantrophist who worked with the nuns. [He has since died though, although the program remains as strong as ever.] The children, in turn, only had to be in school and write their benefactors, letters about themselves at school or outside of school, at least everytime they came around to the NGO to get the cash from their benefactors who also sometimes sent stuff including pencils, books and clothes. We called the Belgians/Americans/Canadians, foster parents and the kids, foster children.

I was a volunteer at this NGO's foster parents-foster children program. As a volunteer, I mainly helped the children (and sometimes, their parents and indeed, families) write the requisite letters in English, and to translate into Tagalog/Filipino, the letters of the benefactors. These letters were either written in English, or in Flemish; another volunteer or one of the nuns would translate the Flemish letters to English for us English-to-Tagalog/Filipino translators.

Note that I was a volunteer at the beginning of the program; it was an excruciating process to get those kids started on letter-writing. For most of the kids, it was their first time to write a letter. But more than the writing ability and legibly, it was a tedious process to let them write with sense. I don't know why, but these kids would always invariably write, at least in the beginning of the letter and even after several letters -

Dear Foster Parent,
How are you? I hope you are fine. If you ask about me, I am fine too....

I may have considered myself maturing at this time, but I still did not have the patience that truly mature people should have, in having a better understanding of where these kids were coming from. Walang pamasahe. Walang pagkain. Walang alam. Magulong community. Mahirap na neighborhood. Broken families. Dysfunctional families.

The parents or relatives were no more any help. Some of them were as uneducated as their wards. Some more obstinate. Some with more issues than the NGO could address/handle.

It was however, a beautiful realization, several years after the program started, to see how the kids grew - not just in terms of educational progression, but more so in how they conducted themselves, how they looked more progressive every year, how some of them grew attached to their benefactors, and yes, how they wrote their letters. And indeed, how they overcame their initial poverty.

Just like the way I overcame mine. With a lot of dependence on the "kindness of strangers."

My own benefactress of a nun not only let me be included in her roster of RAs. She also sometimes asked her own family to shell out cash for my books. She also let me (and another sibling) stay at the nuns' shelter during summer months. Indeed, her generosity even extended to my sibling as she struggled with finding a job after graduation from college.

I myself found work right after graduation, as a teacher of Communication Arts for high school students. The pay was not much. I struggled to pay for many things - the long-sleeved shirts I had to wear to school, rent for the room I stayed in (I moved many times), daily expenses for food and transportation, including the infrequent after-school coffee and cake at a nearby bakeshop, gifts for a co-teacher or his or her son or daughter who was celebrating a birthday, automatic deductions for withholding tax, social security contributions, housing program contributions, retirement contributions....

Even with a job, I was still below or on the poverty line.

Wealth or a semblance of it, only started to appear on my horizon after about three years of being an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). It took the better part of my young adulthood to go from years of seeming plenty to being actually poor to gradually overcoming poverty to eventually struggling. They were years of paying my dues.

I'm in a better place now, charges of profligacy notwithstanding. But my conscience is clear. I never spent someone else's money. All the money I have spent were first earned or due me eventually. And I never only spent for myself. I have been generous, and I say it pride and with not a bit of modesty. For when you've been materially poor yourself, you know as much what an empty stomach on another person feels; you know how soon pangs of self-pity can easily darken one's once mighty hopeful outlook or crush one's once mighty self-esteem; and you struggle to think beyond yourself and overcome selfishness, greediness and the natural instinct to simply survive and self-preserve.

You learn to care. Specially for other people who were you once. You learn to be ready and giving. Whatever wealth you may have is fleeting; such wealth needs to grow by nurturing or sharing. You learn to be thankful. That by the grace of God, your ability to make lemonade out of lemons, also lets you make lemon meringue pies.

"Do not be afraid to be human today," or so did the poster at the NGO office proclaimed. I thought I did. Even when I did not have much (wealth, not humanity). And specially when I relatively have much (humanity, not wealth).

But my real pride rests in this - that even while I was poor materially, I never felt poor spiritually.

A BLOGGER'S PRAYER

I am excerpting this prayer from Our Awesome Planet. Anton writes the prayer is from a guy called Stephen Cuyos.

A Blogger’s Prayer
So compassionate, so faithful, so loving You are Our Father.
We ask You to increase our faith and our love for You that we may use blogging as an instrument to fulfill Your purposes.
May we become bloggers of truth and promoters of peace.
Help us to be steadfast in our Christian commitment that visitors may find in our blogs a source of encouragement and inspiration.
Give us strength to proclaim Your word, that we may play our part in breaking down the walls of hostility in the world and use our blogs to strengthen the bonds of friendship, solidarity and love.
Make our hearts meek and humble that we may treat our readers as friends, not as unique hits, that we may strive to change ourselves for the better more often than we pimp our site templates, that we may find more time to ease the pain of someone in our own home than to reply to comments left by strangers, that we may interact with our next door neighbors as often as we chat with our blogrolled friends, that we may be more concerned about helping the less privileged than about the number of subscribers to our RSS feeds.
Deliver us, Father, from spams and viruses, from pride and selfishness, and from the temptation to replicate images without permission and copy ideas without crediting the original authors. May we always be united as a network of bloggers and friends working together in Your name. May our blogs lead us closer to You.
We ask all these through Christ, Our Lord.
Amen.