Love Knows No Borders by Rose Manalo

 December 8, 2020. I thought it was just another lazy Tuesday afternoon at home as I scrolled through the news feeds of my different social media accounts. It was apparent that 9 months of COVID-19 lockdown had taken its toll on me as I stared, glassy-eyed, at my phone’s screen. Suddenly, a news headline jolted me out of my boredom-induced trance. 

Filipina nurse gives the first COVID-19 vaccine shot in the UK. 

Intrigued, I tap on the link and it leads me to a news article detailing this historic event. The article stated that Filipina nurse May Parsons gave the shot to 90-year-old Margaret Keenan, the first person in the world to receive the COVID-19 vaccine outside of a clinical trial. 

I felt a mixture of pride and sadness as I read the article. I was proud because it was one of my fellow Filipinos, one of thousands of Filipinos working in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service who took part in this historic moment. On the other hand, even though Filipino nurses around the world are being hailed as the unsung heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic, I couldn’t help but feel sad because they are far away from their loved ones, living in a foreign land. 

As of 2018, according to National Geographic, there were more than 10 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in different countries around the world. More than 56 percent of these OFWs are women who work abroad because they want to provide for their families. They are willing to endure many challenges in foreign lands because they dream of a better life at home for their families. 

More than half of female OFWs work in elementary occupations such as cleaners, nannies, entertainers, and domestic helpers. Other than the difficulties that they experience from being away from their family for a long time, they also have to deal with possible psychological, physical, and even sexual abuse. Their passports may be confiscated, and they may be beaten or starved. Some are even killed, like 29-year-old Joanna Demefelis, who was found dead in a freezer, murdered by her abusive Kuwaiti employers. Many Filipinas also return home with stories of sexual abuse, such as Marites Torjano who was raped by a policeman while she was trying to return to her employer’s house. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed additional problems for OFWs. According to an article in CNN, human rights abuses against OFWs have increased during the pandemic. Officials theorize that foreign employers are taking out their pandemic-induced distress on the OFWs they have employed, causing a surge in human trafficking and extreme abuse cases among others. 

In addition, Filipinos working in the healthcare industry, who are mostly female nurses, are also risking their lives in foreign countries battling the coronavirus. Ironically, these nurses even choose to stay far away from their families because they are underpaid and feel underappreciated by the Philippine government. According to a Reuters article, Filipino nurses could earn significantly higher salaries abroad than if they stayed in the Philippines. Along with this, they are also provided with insurance and free lodging which means they can send more money back home to their families. This is proving problematic especially now during the pandemic, where there is a shortage of medical workers in the country even if thousands of Filipino health workers are trained each year. 

To put it simply, Filipino women choose to leave because of poverty. They choose to endure being away from their families, and in some cases, abuse so that they can provide for their families and help them rise out of poverty. Filipino mothers would even leave their children and come back to see them all grown up, their children who barely know them. Some of them would even come back to the country in coffins, having died far away from their loved ones. 

As a young woman of barely 18 years, I am only beginning to understand the hardships that my fellow Filipinas are enduring in other countries out of love for their families. Now, I am even more inspired to study and prepare for the future to help alleviate poverty and improve the economic situation in our country. I hope that in the future I can contribute in my own little way to improve the Philippine economy. It is my dream that Filipina women don’t have to leave the country in order to provide a more decent and comfortable life for their families.