Migrant workers' tales from abroad

Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network Manila

I was at the preview a few days ago of Gil Portes' Homecoming, one of the entries in the 2003 Metro Manila Film Festival. The film is about one overseas Filipino worker's (OFW) homecoming: What it meant to her, her family, her small town, her country. It's not only an eye-opener, it is also a heart-opener. And it is based on true-to-life events. But this is getting ahead of the story.

While watching the movie, other stories (movie material no doubt) were playing at the back of my mind. These were the magazine features and column pieces about OFWs that I had written in the past decade or so. (One feature story, I remember, dates back to the 1980s.) Gosh, I thought, these could make more than a dozen movie scripts. Some of the stories were so raw, so real, so surreal, so dramatic, so cinematic.

One was about a domestic helper (DH) who killed the Saudi princess who abused her without let-up. I still have photocopies of her letters to her daughters that detailed the torment that she went through day in and day out. One letter, written on the hotel's stationery and still to be sent, was found by the Filipino consul on the DH's person, stained by the princess' blood.

The tragedy happened in a five-star hotel in Cairo where the princess and the Filipino DH were then staying. Good thing it happened in Egypt and not in the princess' native Saudi Arabia where the DH could have been beheaded.

I remember referring the DH's distraught daughters to the Good Shepherd Sisters' Center for Overseas Workers. I understand their mother has been released after serving time in an Egyptian prison and is now back home. (I would like to get in touch with her.)

And there was this DH who worked as one of the ladies in waiting in a Saudi royal household. Her stories and the photographs she showed, which we used, were straight out of "A Thousand and One Nights."

Heart-stopping were the harrowing tales of OFWs during the 1991 Gulf War. Fleeing through the desert, braving extreme heat and extreme cold, streaming in droves to find places of safety. A modern-day exodus sans a Moses. The wonder of it was that the OFWs even found time to take photographs of themselves in distress.

And of course, I didn't forget Flor Contemplacion who was hanged in Singapore. And there were these DHs in Hong Kong who went into same-sex romantic relationships to ease their loneliness. This arrangement, they reasoned, was safe and worry- free as far as pregnancy and STD were concerned.

One time, someone wrote via e-mail to ask for a copy of something I had written on a rape case. I could not, for the life of me, recall that I had written about it. Only later did I remember.

Not all stories were tragic though. There were stories of hope. And these were mostly about efforts done on the home front, stories about what people who were left behind did to cope and to make sure their next of kin who slaved away abroad did not toil in vain.

Whenever I was asked to contribute some sweat to book projects on OFWs, I always gave my yes. It is the least I can do for Filipinos who brave the high seas, deserts and inhospitable climes in order to ensure their family's survival, and our economy's too.

Last year the International Press Service came out with the creatively packaged Risks and Rewards: Stories from the Migration Trail, written by journalists from different parts of the world. NGOs Balikabayani and Atikha published Coming Home: Women Migration and Reintegration which was about the life women OFWs lived abroad and their families back home, and the efforts being made to make reintegration worthwhile and fruitful.

On Thursday I received from Atikha the written accounts of children of OFWs who have formed the Batang Atikha Saver's Club in Batangas and Laguna. Atikha is an NGO involved in providing economic and psychosocial services to OFWs and their families. The Batang Atikha Membership Club is a venue for value formation sessions for the young. The saver's club is a new endeavor. More on this another time.

Some of the things that warm my heart are letters from OFWs who send feedback via e-mail to this column. Some offer help and ask to be connected to individuals or groups in need.

Now on "Homecoming" the movie. If you must see only one or two movies during the holidays, make sure Homecoming is it or one of them. It stars Alessandra de Rossi (who did so well in Portes' Mga Munting Tinig) who plays Abigail, a caregiver in Toronto who comes home after five years to marry her childhood sweetheart. She gets a hero's welcome.

The movie blurb says, "Her journey begins when she returns." Abigail brings home hope, but unknown to her and to many, she also brings home a dreaded virus that would disrupt life in the town of San Isidro.

Homecoming draws part of its theme and plot from the SARS epidemic that swept parts of Asia and Canada early this year. But the film is more than just a story on health and disease. It is about individuals, family and the Filipino society in the grip of fear.

Old traditions, friendships, family ties as well as religious faith are tested, literally and figuratively. This virus suddenly exposes the many weaknesses of individuals and society, governments and institutions. It also reveals the strengths and goodness of the Filipino.

Go watch it.