IN SERVICE FOR A BETTER LIFE?

Here's an entry from my Papa Dude's blog, Musashiboogie. I totally forgot about Tiyay's and note that he forgot to write about the "vetsin" in Boy's story.


I think Mr. Chip Tsao was addressing the Fillipino fashion designer Boyet Fajardo on his peice he wrote. Probably it dawned on him, when he read about the news on the fashion designer, that Filipinos could now really be a threat in claiming the disputed Spratly Islands.

Filipino workers here in Italy must always flex their muscles at their patrons to show them that they are capable of srubbing toilets day in day out.

Many Filipinos were outraged, running amok on the web criticizing Mr. Chip on his article. The Philippine government shouldn't be preoccupied too much about this, the Chinese government should.

The Overseas Filipino Workers of today are called "Heroes" (Mga Bagong Bayani ng Bayan). I don't know why they call them "heroes?" Maybe because the OFWs have something in common with our World War II veterans, who are still fighting to claim for their pensions or benefits from government agencies. The veterans are luckier than the OFWs, because they can always show their war medals at any government office to prove they are WW II veterans.

Here the OFWs are suffering from the same problems they encounter back home. At Philippine Embassies and Consulates, when they ask for assistance, the government employees run OFWs in circles.

The price of being an OFW hero is a broken family. The core of Filipino family values are often harshly tested by working abroad. And when you hear their stories it will only break your heart.

Like the "TNT" who was frantically searching for fellow Pinoy balikbayans to take an extra person with them. It's difficult for her situation that's why she is sending her months old daughter back home.

There's the father who only takes five euros from his monthly pay for a pack of cigarettes and the rest he sends back home.

The wife who confessed to her husband that she had an affair. Every time she comes home from work she was tired, lonesome and depressed. One day she met this guy who filled the void in her life.

The Italian police labeled a letter writen by a Filipino teenage as evidence when they investigated his death. The boy wrote that he was being bullied and taunted at school because his peers said he was gay. Case closed.

Many OFW parents are worried about their children back home because the money they send isn't enough to comfort and guide their kids to the right path to growing up.

A father in the Philippines tries to be a mother to her adolescent daughter who had just had her first menstruation.

And how about the teenagers who spends their parents earnings on wrong and destructive vices.

Filipino care givers here often times are paid more than any other immigrant workers. Maybe because Filipinos add a special ingredient into their work.

Tiyay, a native of Iloilo, took good care of an old Italian lady till her death. When her employer was sent to live the rest of her remaining months in a hospital, Tiyay stayed with her even in the nights where she didn't even had a bed to rest on. Tiyay was the only person at the old woman's funeral who cried like rain and wailed uncontrollably much to the amazement of the deceased family and friends.

Rebecca Stepenson, an English woman who lives and work in Venice, always let her Filipino part time maid and her family use the masters bedroom to sleep in while Rebecca and her husband are out of the country for a month or so.

There's Boy, a good cook and driver. He was worried about his employer's health because everything he cooks they eat and want more. One time he told me that he thinks his patrons have Filipino blood in them now because when he served them Orate (a Mediterranean fish) in Paksiw, he could hear their slurps in the hall way salvaging what is left on the fish's head.

Filipino care givers keep their employers families in tack while their own families are in pieces.

And like any other Filipino parent, I know when my sons will one day tell their children and grand children what line of work their mama and papa had, they will be proud of what we did. I know this because we are Filipino.

THE GAZA CHILDREN

POSTING AN ENTRY FROM Boogie's Blog.

The financial crisis had left my beloved hotel, where I work, with just a handful of guests for nearly a month now. All the rooms in four floors of this eight storey building, one of the oldest in Venice, are empty. Like the past several days work was light and tips are low. My colleague, before he finished his shift, left me a list of rooms to work on. He told me to dust off the “Baldachino” (those curtain like things that hang on the beds and head boards) using a vacuum cleaner. I went to work, finished a room and moved on to the next.The work bored me to death and my boredom made me feel tired, sleepy and lazy. I was about to go to the next room when I decided to take a break. So I grabbed the remote control, sat on the edge of the bed and clicked on the TV. Nothing caught my interest till I got to CNN. The Cable News Network ran the war on the Gaza Strip as it dragged on for the 21st day now.

A UN facility was in flames, the Israeli army hit the compound because they were being fired upon from the building. CNN also showed a footage of a large crater some where in Gaza and the Palestinians standing around the rim of the hole looking on. BBC was running the same news and I changed the channel again. I continued to surf the channel and was about to switch it off when the studio of the Aljazeera caught my eye. The news anchor was standing and behind him was a video wall, wide and black with the names of all the Palestinian children killed written in white letters. They highlighted a name, and said he was four years old, his sisters died too killed by an Israeli bomb. They picked another name and this time the boy was two and he died in his mother’s arms. Then Aljazeera showed the images of the dead children, some of them were lined up and covered with cloth, others were covered by debris, one was mangled and many were being carried by Palestinian men. The lifeless faces of these children were scarred and bloodied. Some were “lucky” (I don’t know if this is the right word) enough to be recognised others were not. As I sat there and looked on, shivers ran down my spine and I wasn’t bored any more.

Aljezeera continued on with the children but now they showed the survivors recovering in hospitals. A pretty little girl told a reporter of a bullet hitting her hand and another one found its way on her back. I saw a boy lying down, his head bandaged, his face covered with scars and tears were welling up in his eyes as he tried to talk about what happened. Some thing in me gave way when I saw this boy’s tears. I started to cry and at the same time tried to control the tears but I could not. My mind told me, “goddamit its okay to cry!” So I turned off the TV and cried.

Except for the breathing and sniffing sounds I made, the room became quiet. I got up, paced around and dried my tears. Then I left the room draging the vacuum clearner along and headed for the service elevator. I decided to put the machine away and do something else. Tears began to fall again when the lift started to move down.

I cried a lot of times this day. I cried after I called me wife telling her what I saw. I cried again when I was on the boat on my way home. I’m crying now as I write this piece.

I don’t understand this war I couldn’t even tell who is winning. One thing is clear the Palestinian children and civilians are paying the price. I’m a father of two boys and I felt that the dead Palestinian children were my own. I wonder about the Israeli fathers and Hamas fathers who are fighting each other in this senseless war, do they cry too like me? I hope and pray that the monsters would stop killing. . . . . stop killing our children.