She left the country full of dreams not for herself but for her family. Because of the dearth of jobs in the country and the lack of attention given to the working sector by the Arroyo government, she was tempted to try her luck as a domestic helper in Saudi Arabia. She, like a lot of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), suffered in the hands of her foreign employer. Worse, she’s dead and her lifeless body remains in a territory distant from her family.

Eugenia Baja, 25, had to work right after graduating from high school because she wanted to help her parents send her younger siblings to school. As the fourth among seven children, she felt responsible for the three younger siblings, especially since their parents are already old and they barely survived with their income as farmers. Lilybeth Garcia, her eldest sister, told Bulatlat that farming used to be the only source of livelihood for their family in Sierra Bullones, Bohol. They paid rent to the landlord, spent for seeds, fertilizers, and other production inputs, to get half of the harvest. Otherwise, the sharing would be 70-30 in favor of the landlord. Garcia also said she and her other siblings had to work as household helpers to augment their parents’ income. It came to point that their parents could no longer farm because of old age.

Eugenia, or “Genia” to her family, worked as a saleslady in a department store, as a server at a burger machine stand, and as household helper before going abroad. Her older siblings who used to support the family already had their own families so she felt it was her time to shoulder the responsibility of bringing rice and food to the table. Genia also decided to work abroad because, Lilybeth said, “Ayaw niyang maging katulong lang din yung mga kapatid namin.” (She didn’t want our siblings to end up as household helpers.)

She was supposed to leave for Lebanon in 2005 as a domestic helper, but wasn’t able to because war erupted in the said country. Genia left the country in May 2007 to work as a domestic helper, this time in Riyadh. During her first month in Riyadh, she usually told her Ate Lilybeth through text messages that work was difficult. ” Nagugutom daw siya dahil tinapay lang yung kinakain dun.” (She was always hungry because they only ate bread), Lilybeth told Bulatlat, tears streaming from her eyes.

Despite the heavy work, Genia would always assure her Ate Lilybeth that she was alright. Lilybeth said, ” Maraming pangarap si Genia. Sabi niya sa isa naming kapatid, umuwi nalang sa probinsiya at tulungan sina tatay magsaka dun. Nagpadala siya ng pera para ibili ng kalabaw.” (Genia had dreams. She told one of our siblings to go home to the province and help our father in farming. She gave money to buy a carabao.)

” Kapag kinakausap niya yung mga bata naming kapatid, lagi niyang sinasabi na ‘para sa inyo’ itong pagtratrabaho ko.” (Every time she talked with our younger siblings, she constantly told them that she was working in a foreign land for their sake)

Around December 2007, Genia called her family to deliver sad news; that she can’t send them money for the holidays because her salary for the months of October, November and December were not given to her.

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