This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 1, Feb. 4-10, 2007
ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
Bulatlat and
Compatriots’ Voices from Afar Based on the data
periodically provided by our web counters, the greater bulk of visits to
Bulatlat are from countries or areas with high concentrations of overseas
Filipino workers (OFWs) and overseas Filipinos (OFs): the U.S., Canada, Hong
Kong, South Korea, and the Middle East. OFWs and OFs thus form an important
segment of our identified readership. BY ALEXANDER MARTIN
REMOLLINO As I was about to sleep on the office sofa
one night last December, because I was to do early-morning coverage the next day
and it was better for me to sleep over since where I live is more than an hour
away from where the happening would be, I was alerted by the phone ringing. From
the other end of the line I was greeted by a motherly voice asking for news
about what was happening in Bicol, the region in the southernmost part of Luzon
island. Bicol had been hit just a few days before by
supertyphoon “Reming,” which has become legendary in the damage that it wrought. It turned out to be a long-distance call all
the way from Australia. The lady was dead worried about her relatives in Bicol,
and she couldn’t contact them to find out how they were, and she had called
Bulatlat because she had searched the Net for Philippine media websites and
ours was the only media outfit she could find, she said, with a published
telephone number for immediate contact. She said she had read news about the calamity
but had failed to come across detailed accounts. I, of course, had to give her the bad news:
how “Reming” had claimed hundreds of lives in Bicol, literally leaving people
dead on the roads, and how it had buried two villages in Albay – and how even we
couldn’t contact our colleagues in Bicol because the storm had destroyed all
energy and communications facilities in the region. She sounded distressed after hearing all that
I had to tell her, but nevertheless thanked me profusely and said it was only through
Bulatlat that she managed to come across more detailed information about
what had happened in Bicol. This incident comes to my mind as I recall
that in Bulatlat’s six years on the Net now, we have frequently received
similar feedback from overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), as well as overseas
Filipinos (OFs). Based on the data periodically provided by
our web counters, the greater bulk of visits to Bulatlat are from
countries or areas with high concentrations of OFWs or OFs: the U.S., Canada,
Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Middle East. OFWs and OFs thus form an important
segment of our identified readership. They are also among the more active in
sending comments on the site. A good number of these comments are similar
to that from the Australia-based lady who called one December night.
“I
am trying to learn more about the realities of the Philippines,” said Bradley
Cardozo, a son of immigrant parents in the U.S., in a letter to Bulatlat
on Oct. 6, 2004. “They offer Southeast Asian studies courses here at Cornell,
and hopefully I can study abroad in the Philippines next year. But anyways, I
wanted to inform you that I have been reading your site, and I think you offer
the best commentary and analysis of what is going on in the Philippines. Thank
you for keeping people well-informed.”
A little less than a month earlier, Bulatlat had received similar
feedback from an OFW in Saudi Arabia.
“Thank
you to all the Bulatlat staff,” said one who gave his name as Andrew Ex
in an e-mail on Sept. 14 that same year. “(For) almost 13 years I (have not been
updated on) the real situation in our country. Thank you to my sister, (who
informed) me about your website. Updated na ako ngayon kahit na malayo ako sa
ating bansa (I am now updated on what is happening though I’m far from our
country.” Two years before that Bulatlat had
received feedback of the same sort from Nikko Buenaseda, a Filipino student in
Los Angeles, California. “I always look to Bulatlat.com for the real ‘stories’
behind the issues facing our nation,” he said. Some, like one who gave her name as Garma,
write to tell how they feel about the hardships of life for Filipinos in a
foreign land. “Does anybody out there know what
caregiver/health care provider means over here in the U.S.?” she said. “In our
language it means tsimay or atsay. I’ll not say katulong
(because) it is more decent compared to the others. The work involves a lot of
time (24/7) as a matter of fact and depending on your prospective employers’
needs and wants. And some also require you to clean their house, and some will
also restrict you from using their stuffs - like phones, TV, or even opening the
fridge.” Still, others write to Bulatlat asking
for assistance on the possibility of locating relatives or friends they had not
seen for years, or even decades. We realize that many of our compatriots
overseas consider Bulatlat to be of importance to them, as a source of
information about what is happening in the Philippines. Likewise, we appreciate
the avidness with which many OFWs and OFs peruse our pages. As we enter our seventh year, we would like
to return the favor to our compatriots overseas by also spreading the word to
Filipinos in the homeland about what is happening to their relatives or friends
abroad. Bulatlat
will soon come up with a regular section for
OFWs and OFs. The section will feature their stories, in their own words.
What are the travails of trying to fit into a
culture totally alien to you? How much more difficult – or easier – is work
there compared to the homeland? These and other OFWs’ and OFs’ concerns will
form the meat of Bulatlat’s upcoming section for them. Bulatlat © 2007 Bulatlat
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