The Christmas season and the New Year see the entire country coming together as families. As the tables are laid for midnight feasts, Filipino parents, children and grandchildren gather to celebrate and offer thanksgiving for the blessings of life, family and faith. We are quick to remember our loved ones who are separated from us by leagues of ocean. Over 10 million of our brethren are employed abroad: a great number of them spend these seasons of joy away from those they love.
This harsh reality was profoundly depicted in a short viral video produced by a leading multinational firm. “Where Will Happiness Strike Next” captured the lives of OFWs who have been away from home for years, supporting their families from afar and toiling to build better lives for their kin while bearing the pains of physical separation and emotional stress. The video touched so many hearts and spread like wildfire across the social networks, as the stories were so real that you could, in fact, see a relative’s face or story in each of the narratives.
Just as the Holy Family fled their homeland to safeguard our Infant Lord, our countrymen flocked to strange lands to take their families out of poverty and claim their own dignity. They learned to thrive in cultures that are foreign and sometimes less accepting of our own ways, beliefs and faith. They have risked dangers that were not of their own making, and all through these trials, it was their faith and dreams for their families that fueled their hopes when courage was in short supply.
The trails they blazed in their professions over time have cast a new light on the role of the Filipino as a member of the global community. The grace and excellence of our countrymen have become a most potent engine of progress no one can ignore or refute. Truly, modern Arabia’s progress would shine less bright without Filipino hands providing their valued services. Many vessels that ply the Seven Seas would probably remain at port, and even bodies like the United Nations would come to a grinding halt, if our global Filipinos were not on hand. They would have to be invented, if they did not exist.
The fruits of their hands have touched our own lives as well. As the government charts our country’s rise from poverty to prosperity, the remittances that global Filipinos unfailingly send home have unleashed massive tides of development. Wealth and opportunity have spread beyond Manila’s walls as seen in the changing rural landscape. The proliferation of malls, schools, businesses and infrastructure proves this better than the usual statistics.
Captains of industry have read the trends right. Industries as diverse as banking, housing and information technology are finding new cores in communities that OFWs have given new life to, and firms continue to build business models and create jobs based on the needs and wants of the global Filipino.
The unabated influx of hard currency has also shielded us from unimaginable ruin. The tails of the global financial crisis have bred new beasts for the world to tame or vanquish, and we have fortunately survived this scourge. As the world’s new challenges stoke discontent and even unrest across several nations overseas, we have managed to calmly stay the course, our helm manned by faithful leaders but our ballasts sustained by the enduring love and patriotism of our OFWs. The hot money that so many economists seek can scatter to the four winds on a whim, but the hard-earned rewards of our countrymen shall always come home to benefit their blood and our land, without the slightest thought of payback, recognition or tribute.
Yet for all this selfless heroism, our nation has been slow, even reluctant to thank them enough. While we enjoy the comforts made possible by the humble, the anonymous and the ordinary, we find it far easier to grant honor to the famous, the cosmopolitan, and the superficial idols of mass propaganda.
While we were prompt in collecting their contributions and taxes, we waited so long before they could participate in our national elections from their foreign places of work. And while we are quick to decry the errors which, out of human weakness, some of our OFW commit, we find our hands too heavy to applaud what they and they alone have done for us. Some of our critics even take it against us that we try, as long as we can, to save an OFW death convict from being executed in favor of a lighter sentence, or provide comfort to his/her family relatives the sentence can no longer be commuted, and the execution stayed.
Nothing can be unkinder than this.
The government stands resolutely committed, no matter the cost, to upholding the dignity of our OFWs, wherever they may be. As many of them spend their days caring for the children of strangers and employers, we reiterate our pledge to easing the plight of those they leave behind while they endure what they must or choose to in their search for a better life. This is the least we can do, but we cannot remain content with what is merely sufficient. Our OFWs deserve gratitude, not just from the government, but above all from their own people.
Their sacrifices and labors have gone beyond any call of duty. They have braved the most daunting uncertainties and, at times, the gravest hostilities with nothing more than a prayer and the optimism that is unique to the Filipino. They have given wind to our sails and they deserve our deepest thanks and unwavering respect. While the greatest nations on earth claim to stand on the shoulders of giants, our country’s glory rests in the hands of people who do the most extraordinary things in the most ordinary way.
The cries of John the Baptist in the wilderness heralded the coming of the hour. The silence and service of our heroes speak to us now, and the hour to render justice is upon us. In behalf of a grateful nation, it is my singular honor and privilege to welcome this effort of the Business Mirror, the Philippines Graphic and radio station DWIZ to recognize the OFW, the Global Filipino, as the Person of the Year.
IN PHOTO -- Filipino workers gather in the central business district of Hong Kong, China, in this August 13, 2006, file photo. Many spend the best years of their lives serving others, far from home and family. Paul Hilton/Bloomberg News
