Lessons from an OFW

By Jelica R. Enriquez

IWAS excited to come home.

These were my first thoughts when I boarded the plane on my return flight to Manila. The thrill of traveling abroad after the height of the pandemic had worn off. My feet had blisters. My arms were sore. Dark circles formed under my eyes due to lack of sleep. Travel fatigue was creeping in. For the first time, I did not want to stay behind in a foreign land. I just wanted to fly back home and sleep on my own bed.

A Filipino female passenger was waiting for me as I walked toward my assigned seat. “Hello!” she said, flashing a wide smile. After a week of communicating with foreigners, I felt at ease to be seated with her.

“Sayang! I forgot to put the lotion in my checked-in baggage,” she said. She recounted how the security officers at the boarding gate collected bottles of lotion from her hand luggage. “I was supposed to give them to my sister,” she said.

My seatmate is a mother of two from Cavite. She is an Overseas Filipino Worker. She has been working in Singapore as a domestic helper for 10 years. Her female employer is Singaporean. Her employer’s husband is Malaysian. The grandmother also shares space with them.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, there are approximately 2 million OFWs deployed to different countries. More than half of the OFWs are women, and a significant number of them work as caregivers or domestic helpers. In Servants of Globalization, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas’ esteemed study on female OFWs, she found out that her respondents felt estranged in their migrant community.

Recalling how some foreign employers treat Filipino migrant workers, I asked my seatmate how her employer is. “Oh, she is kind to me,” she raved. “She and her husband are considerate,” she said.

I also asked if she receives a fair compensation. She smiled. “The grandmother even gave me SGD 700 (Php 29,000) as baon for my Philippine trip,” she shared.

Her primary house duties are cooking and cleaning. She boils vegetables and steams fish. Her Malaysian employer is not a fan of herbs and spices. “They do not like Filipino food because they find it too salty,” she chuckled.

Her accommodation and food are provided by her employer. The grandmother even gives her a hefty bonus every Christmas. She considers herself