A migrant worker's final homecoming

A Filipina, Lorie Matulay (below, right),54, from Mountain Province, Philippines, has made it on the cover of Dutch Volkskrant magazine. The magazine devoted 6 pages on her story as an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) cleaning houses in Singapore, Hong Kong and the Netherlands. Now, she finally retires and gets to go home for good.

(Photo from Volkskrant magazine)
Matulay is one of the estimated 8 to 11 million migrant Filipinos that are scattered around 214 countries worldwide, according to the Commission on Filipinos Overseas, whose remittances have reached US$18.76 billion or about 10% of the GDP in 2010. By end of 2011, it was expected to reach $23 billion, making the Philippines the fourth largest remittance-receiving country after India, China and Mexico, says the Philippines' GMA News Online.

Many families in the Philippines rely heavily on remittances from their relative abroad.

Matulay is just among the few who choose to come back after working some time in other countries. And for every OFW who retires, the number of going abroad is ten-fold.

Comments

The Filipino Diaspora Abroad: One Foot in Motherland

I was privileged to give a reaction during the book launch of DIASPORA JOURNEY: PHILIPPINE MIGRATION AND DIASPORA NARRATIVES last October 30. The authors are Filipinos from various parts of the world. A majority of them have lived most of their lives in the US. In light of the recent elections in the US where migration was one of the most pressing issues, and unfortunately the rightwing campaign of the Republicans has demonised certain migrant groups as criminals and opportunists, I am publishing the reaction I gave during the launch. Magandang hapon po, good afternoon to all of you! To Ambassador J. Eduardo Malaya, Consuls Jari, Nomer, Kay, friends at the embassy and the Filipino community, and the authors who are here – AVE RODRIGUEZ-BAXA, MYRLA DANAO, RUBY LANGEVELD-CUMBA, MALU PADILLA, JEFFREY MORALES, MAYA, AND CARLO BUTALID. It is my honor and pleasure to briefly react to this book, DIASPORA JOURNEY: PHILIPPINE MIGRATION AND DIASPORA NARRATIVES. When we propose a man...

Roads to Santiago de Compostela

When a pilgrim on the way to the burial site of the apostle Santiago or Saint James (Jacobo in other languages) sees a scallop shell in front of a house or monastery, he/she/they is welcome to stay. But of course pilgrimage tourism is huge these days and one can just choose a hotel or hostel along the way, with careful planning of course. Many years ago, when pilgrims completed their journey, they took scallop shells from the beach nearby as proof of completion, but now they just have to buy it from the shop and get a certificate from an office approved by the Catholic church. Jog or walk early morning around #santiagodecompostela and you see pilgrims just starting their walk or arriving from long arduous journey, and some crying after making it to their destination.

Voting Dutch Style

Are you going to vote today? The campaigning in the past months in the Netherlands has been intense with more new parties coming up, two big parties joined forces, one splintered from a big one to form another. What I like is how the parties encourage voters to go out there and vote and the platforms of debates. The party heads appeared in a small debate on Jeugjournaal, a news program for children, where children got to ask questions themselves. Questions like "what is your biggest fear", "what was your greatest dream when you were a kid and how did you follow up that dream" and "what can you do for us?" were posed by children. The politicos had to convince the children and they also had a quiz show where some questions were asked: "what does the expression 'ai-naa! mean'?' or "what is the favourite expression of Ronaldo when he scores?" The politicians also appeared on First Dates, a dating program, where they had to be on a...

Stories & Photographs by Jofelle Tesorio

Search This Blog