Overseas Filipino Workers: What Keep You Going

Image by Official U.S. Navy Imagery via Flickr

From the time I arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines already had produced four presidents – from former presidents Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to the newly elected President Benigno Aquino III, still I am in this foreign lands strongly fighting for survival for my extended family and to my beloved country. My youth and strength are already deteriorating. I often feel some joint  pains. And yet, still, I am here undecided to go home with other million Filipinos.

In our country Philippines, we find ourselves contesting against the erratic working conditions and insufficient jobs to accommodate us. Most of us wanted to raise and promote our living standards but we do not possess the necessary resources to climb up the ladder of success.

Every year our country produces thousands of graduates and the labor market could not accommodate them. So there are no options but to look jobs out of the country and it is through working overseas that they can get a solution to the problem. Thousands are leaving our homeland everyday to find their luck in foreign lands.

There are also other reasons such as:

1. For those who want to escape personal and family problems,  living abroad could be a safe haven.
2. For those who want to let go of dark memories or broken love affairs, it could be an asylum.
3. Others were just induced by summons of some friends.
4. And still others were simply deluded for the sake of adventure.

Despite homesickness, which is our greatest enemy, still we Filipinos could well adjust to different races, cultures and standards of living. In addition, our love is intensified. For Filipinos who by nature love doings things for others, domestic chores like cooking, cleaning, gardening and baby-sitting are some of our several expertises.

Philippines is considered as one of the top Asian countries  in terms of exporting workers. In Saudi Arabia alone, there are approximately 1.3 millions Filipino registered workers such as doctors, nurses, skilled technicians, janitors and laborers, hotel staffs, accountants, engineers, housemaids, drivers, teachers and trainers, barbers, medical technicians, computer operators, tailors and many more. They are commonly working in hospitals, establishments, construction firms, industrial companies, private and government offices, supermarkets and malls, hotels and restaurants with courage, dedications and commitments.

It has been noted that working abroad is a confederate for some of us who are fortunate enough to have good jobs and goodly employers. Through our earnings we could build a house and able to send our children to good schools. But in some cases, the fulfillment of being an OFW is overshadowed by the curse of lingering temptation and adultery, especially in the case of OFW’s who left their spouses in the Philippines.

Working abroad is not a fortune for those workers who are being fed insufficiently, overworked, abused, maltreated and working as a sword-point or those who work as shock absorbers or punching bag by heartless employers. It must be concluded that not only those who have courage, determination and resistance should go out of the country, for life overseas is so rugged that it becomes a survival of the fittest, that those who can bear shall stay, but those who can’t should leave.

But despite all these, we, Overseas Foreign Workers are patiently working hard because we want a brighter future for our extended families and children and to help improve the ailing economy of our country through the billions of dollar remittances that we send home.

I am begging for our officials and other feuding politicians in our country to see and consider our greatest sacrifices in foreign lands. It is not enough for us Overseas Foreign Workers to be called as the Modern Day Heroes. They should stop bickering and unite to help cure the country’s debilitating social diseases. They should show vision, unity, determination and motivation to give the people good governance and work hard to achieve peace and order in the country for more investors to invest business. That means  more jobs for the Filipinos and better chance to eradicate corruption for good.

 

 

Sex Education for Children, Teenagers and Even Adults--part Three

Image by Infrogmation via Flickr

Published on Socyberty, Feb 6, 2011 Category – Government

I consider High School as the most interesting phase of school life. On this stage new things and experiences are to be explored and to be enjoyed by young students. Also on this stage is the hot point for them to start to attract the opposite sexes.

I still remember my favorite subject. It was biology that include the parts and functions of the human body. I learned from that subject that our red blood cell is formed of molecules. If we saw it by our human eyes they are conjoined but if we will see it through a microscope the molecules of our blood are not hooked up as one. We also used the microscope to know how our semen looks like. We also learned that if we saw it by our human eyes they are the same as our red blood cell joined together but if we will see them through the power of microscope its molecules have its own space moving and stretching around.

And we also studied the five sense organs. We considered them as the most interesting part of our biology subject. Everybody in the classroom behaved while listening to our mentor, who was at that time a lady teacher. We jotted down all what she taught to us.

We have learned about the power of our eyes for sight or vision. Many poets described them as the gates for our souls but for me I described them as the gates for our sins. Our eyes are the first to see and perceive what we see before sending them into our mind or brain. It is now the job of our brain to describe and to figure out what our eyes have seen. If our brain is full of humor, it can describe that particular thing or incident in a very colorful and lively conception.

Then we discussed about the power of our ears for hearing or audition. We learned that our ears are responsible to detect the vibrations of any sound through an avenue such air. If we will see the anatomy of our ear, inside it is a section responsible to ascertain the mechanical motion and other vibrations before sending them to our brain.

Then our study was followed about the power of our tongue for taste and the power of our mouth to bite, to eat, to drink and to speak. We learned that it is the responsible of our tongue to identify and to differentiate sweet from salty, sour from bitter taste. Many scholars considered our mouth and tongue as the most dirtiest human body parts when it come to speak languages – they believed that the most dirtiest languages spoken by a person are perceived from the power of our mouth and tongue.

We also discussed about the power of our nose for smell. We learned that it is the responsible of our nose to detect the different types of odors from sweat, pungent odor from a stagnant water, odor from our armpits, odor from a decaying animals. Our nose can also identify sweet, salty, sour and bitter. And our nose is often used in the school of kindergarten as a subject for a puzzle question like – 1+1=2, 2+2=4, what is my nose for? The kindergarten pupils will answer “To smell Ma’am”.

Then followed the sense of touch. We learned from our discussion that our hands and fingers are not only the responsible for this sense. We can also use our tongue, mouth, skin, nails and hair for this sense of touch.

These five sense organs are our physiological capacities that provide inputs for perception and they are useful for our sex life and education.