LAST week I went to Manila with my wife and daughter and the younger sister of my wife who is a Columban lay missionary. We saw her off at the airport when she left for Ireland for another three years of mission work over there. It is amazing to see how a woman at her age can spend her time to preach the Christian message in a foreign country at the other side of the world.
While we were in Manila we were able to meet at the airport a sister-in-law of my wife who had gone to Singapore as a caregiver and who was sent back to Manila. The poor woman was invited by a Filipino friend of hers to be a babysitter in his family but she did not pass the test of the immigration authorities in Singapore. She didn’t speak Chinese and her English was broken. The Filipino family demanded a reimbursement to them of all her travel expenses. We met her at the airport and she had not a single centavo in her pocket. She was totally at a loss. It was a blessing in disguise that we could take care of her and bring her safely back to Cagayan de Oro.
While we were in Manila we were able also to attend an album launching of religious songs in the Titus Brandsma Media Center of the Carmelites in New Manila. The lyrics of the songs were composed by a Carmelite confrere of mine. A number of guest artists performed the singing of the songs and their singing was with so much enthusiasm and conviction. It was a real pleasure listening to them. In the album it said: “The aim of coming up with this album is to glorify our God and to echo this message of love and compassion to everyone amidst the challenging situations that surround us. In writing these songs the priest was much inspired by the suffering of the victims of the Yolanda typhoon. The album launching was also a fundraising for the Carmelite mission in Papua New Guinea. It was a beautiful experience seeing these young artists singing these songs with so much enthusiasm and spiritual awareness.
My reflection after these contradictory experiences is first of all that our Church is a Church of the Poor. That means that the Church is right to put priority on helping the poor. But its focus is wrong when it helps the poor with dole-outs. It must demand from the government the implementation of the social doctrine of the Church and secondly, the government must do all its best to create more and better job opportunities to our people so that the people won’t feel forced to go abroad for work.
Like I have said earlier in one of my columns, the OFW phenomenon is a big anomaly. Usually the OFW going abroad is facilitated by a placement agency. This is a violation of the social doctrine of the Church. The worker has the right to make a direct contract with the employer abroad. In the case of the women mentioned above, the employer is a Christian. She violated her Christian ethics when she demanded from the woman a reimbursement of the travel expenses and sent her home with a single centavo in her pocket. That is criminal and a barbaric offense. Our foreign affairs department should look into this anomaly and go after that employer.
[Email: nolvanvugt@gmail.com]