After a forum held at San Beda College last week, Assistant Vice Dean Jennifer Ramos turned to me and asked, “What would your dad’s position be regarding the impeachment trial had he been alive today?” I had to pause and remember how quiet and stoic Ka Blas was during the Senate impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada. After a brief pause, I responded: “He had always stood for stronger institutions. But as senator-judge, he would have kept his position to himself, until it’s time to cast a final vote.”

During that historic impeachment trial, quite a few people couldn’t understand my father’s decision to clam up whenever the case was being publicly discussed. Not once did he let his family in on the juicier behind-the-scenes stories that were shared without attribution by those in the know. Had he been alive today, and knowing the statesman that he was, my father would undoubtedly still be in listening mode, shunning media interviews but learning and studying all the issues by himself.

Two days ago, my father’s 85th birthday came and went. Friends and family members gathered by his grave at the Libingan ng mga Bayani to hear mass and also to share a modest breakfast. His beloved province of Bulacan continues to honor his memory with an annual holiday on his birthday. These momentous gestures of love and respect remind me about how abundant service to God and country would always be remembered, if not by all, then at least by those able to apprecaite the past.

Blas Fajardo Ople was a college dropout, and had worked as a stevedore at the North Harbor. He also earned a living as a deskman and writer. Like most newsmen in his time, my dad drank a lot and smoked a lot particularly in the prime years of his life. Always starved for knowledge, he feasted on books and all kinds of publications. He was a nationalist and a champion of labor rights. Though he may have been rough around the edges, his intellect was vast, deep, and therefore smooth and authentic. His life is the Filipino dream. Ka Blas converted every public office into a classroom, which was ironic because he had no diploma on his wall.

In his own words, then Senate President Ople tells us in a commencement speech delivered on March 26, 2000 at Fortress College, Kabankalan, Negros Occidental, 8 secrets to his success:

“The first key to success, worldy or otherwise, is to set a goal for one’s self. Most of mankind get born and die without ever knowing what they really want.”

“The second key is to develop a positive outlook in life. Problems are often opportunities in disguise. As someone has said, pessimism is just a state of mind but optimism is a strategy for living.”

“The third key is to develop an active, rather than a passive, view of one’s environment. Successful men do not merely wait for things to happen to them. They take initiatives. They try to make things happen. They create their own challenges and opportunities.”

“The fourth key is to stand by one’s principles when life’s crises must be faced. The test of character, in the phrase of William James, is not in choosing the path of least resistance. This merely means that most times, the harder choice is the correct one.”

“The fifth key is to be absolutely dependable and trustworthy, so that your own colleagues know they can trust your integrity even in the most difficult moments. The trust of colleagues and subordinates is what can propel you to success.”

“The sixth key is a commitment to continuing personal and professional growth. Most people stop growing after leaving school. Education is for life.”

“The seventh and last key is to live a frugal and disciplined life, shunning all forms of waste, whether of time, talent, money or other resources. Life itself is a finite and most precious gift, and wasting it through frivolity and self-indulgence must be offensive to the giver of life.”

“Unfortunately or not, the advice will mean nothing until the principles of success are internalized in the convictions of a young man or woman setting out on that all-important journey. He or she will have to weigh the counsels of fear and hope contending inside the heart. In the end, we are most answerable to ourselves and not to any jury. And that is the eighth key to success. To thine own self be true.”

You probably can tell that my greatest hero is and will always be my father. I hear his voice in the pieces that he wrote, and feel his touch in the imprint of so many shared memories between father and daugther. I miss him terribly and that feeling of loss shall never wane.

May every OFW that the Blas F. Ople Center helps from hereon represent a flower planted in my father’s garden of memories. Belated happy birthday, Amang! (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople. Visit www.susanople.com)

Dubai — I thought it would be a breeze to write while on a cruise. After all, the cruise ship itself is named “Costa Favolosa” and our itinerary included port visits to Dubai, Oman, and Abu Dhabi. Seven days at sea – how difficult would it be to open my laptop to write? Very.

A keyboard was the last thing I wanted to see, touch, and tap while on deck, with sea wind as my shawl, and looking yonder where the sky meets water with little boats bobbing up and down like dolphins. The cruise is an annual tradition of the Nacionalista Party led by Senator and Mrs. Manny Villar. Onboard and offshore, the entire cruise was an instantaneous crash course for many of us about life in the Emirates.

There are more than 300 Filipinos working onboard Costa Favolosa. Every single one of them is a walking success story. Maria Plastina, my cabin attendant, hails from Bulacan. She and her husband have been at sea for months, working and saving for the education of their kids. Maria will disembark and return to Manila this March only to board Costa’s newest cruise ship for its maiden voyage in April. This transfer shows how valued Maria’s services are.

I am also proud of Martin, one of the more senior waiters at the ship’s buffet dining area. He bought a lot in Greenwoods, Pasig City and kept saving until he and his wife who also works in Dubai, were able to build their home. His three kids study in an international school. The couple‘s next mission is to put up an Italian restaurant in Manila that Martin himself would manage. Martin told me that his wish is simple – to spare his kids the hard knocks of life that he himself had to go through.

Unfortunately, the global financial crisis has not spared our Costa Favoloso staff. Their salaries, formerly in euros, are now paid out in American dollars representing a steep drop in value. Of course, they signed their contracts out of necessity.

Offshore, two brothers met me at portside in Dubai. Lawrence and Julio Tibayan work in a British-owned company that runs, among several others, a car rental company. Lawrence also works for a mall store that sells branded sunglasses like Oakley. Lawrence was first to work in Dubai before taking in his younger brother. Julio or “Jules” said that the car rental company where he works was tapped to supply cars for the the latest Mission Impossible sequel, “Ghost Protocol”.

I asked Jules if he has a photo of Tom Cruise. No such luck, he said, because the security was quite strict. Still, it was a thrill for our kababayan to see the famous actor up close. “Tom Cruise is short,” he quipped. Both Lawrence and Jules are excellent examples of young OFWs; barely in their thirties, the two have their own places to stay, cars to drive, and jobs to go to.

The two brothers took us around Dubai, with quick stops at Burj Khalifa and Burj Dubai, unorthodox architectural wonders, one of which is said to be the tallest building in the world while the other is a seven-star hotel.

In Oman, we went around Muscat with Labor Attache Ernie Bihis as our guide. While having lunch at a Filipino restaurant aptly named, “Palayok”, the labor attache who has been in the labor department since my father’s time, said that Filipino workers in Oman are highly valued for their work ethic and skills. His number one concern remains the household workers who cross over from Dubai and Abu Dhabi into Oman with tourist visas in search of jobs. Some of them were brought to Muscat by unscrupulous agencies in Abu Dhabi and forced to work for lesser salaries.

Labor Attache Bihis said he already has plans of discussing this grave problem with his counterparts in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as with the local agencies in Muscat. Another source of concern is prostitution – something that even he found difficult to believe until a Filipino journalist based in Oman affirmed the information. Once again, this is another dark facet of migration that we do not speak of, but is a growing concern for quite a few of our labor attaches.

Dockside at Abu Dhabi, I met Labor Attache Nas Munder, another old hand at DoLE. Through him, I learned that there are at least 600,000 Filipino workers in the United Arab Emirates, with around 25,000 working as household workers. Yet, that small minority brings to fore the most number of welfare cases due to the highly vulnerable status that is attached to working as a foreign maid in any household. Philippine Ambassador Grace Prinsesa briefed us about embassy’s reintegration project for women through small-scale enterprises.

Going on this cruise through the Emirates enabled this writer to see up close the lives of our seafarers and land-based workers. The places I’ve seen – the mosques and malls, posh hotels and treeless mountains, pale in comparison to the rich harvest of stories that our workers aboard shared with me. To the 300-plus hardworking Filipino crew aboard Costa Favolosa, I dedicate this column. To them, I say, well done and Godspeed. (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople)

Nanay Edith Langamin forwarded a text she got from Atty. Ira Pozon of the Office of the Vice-President to my mobile phone. It said that the Vice-President would like to meet with her regarding the case of her son, Jonard, who is on Saudi Arabia’s death row. The meeting was to be held Wednesday, January 4 at the Coconut Palace.

“Ma’am Toots, pakisamahan po ako,” Nanay Edith said. The Blas F. Ople Center, a nonprofit organization, which I head, has been helping Nanay Edith follow-up on her son’s case since April 2011. At that time, news reporter Jeff Canoy was doing a documentary on the lives of OFWs. Jeff’’s able researcher, Cherrie Ongtengco, fetched Nanay Edith at her home in Caloocan City for that eventful morning meeting.

It was 10.30 am, Wednesday. We motored from the Ople Center to the spacious Coconut Palace by the bay. Nanay Edith brought along her sister, Rina. At the entrance of the Vice-President’s wooden palace was Atty. Ira Pozon, the person tasked with looking after sensitive OFW cases. His handshake was warm, as was his smile. Nanay Edith’s heart fluttered with anticipation.

We were shown into a room. Already seated were Vice-President Jejomar Binay, his adviser, former Ambassador Jun Lozada, OWWA Administrator Carmelita Dimzon, and Robert Mendoza, the father of Robertson Mendoza, who was killed by Jonard Langamin during an altercation on May 5, 2008. Both the Mendoza and Langamin families were unaware that the meeting would involve both parties. However, Nanay Edith and Ka Bert have met twice before. Ka Bert is a softspoken man with a good heart who had told me once before that he bore no grudge against Jonard.

The entire group moved to the Vice-President’s office where there was a comfortable set of sofas facing each other, and three chairs commanding the front. On those three chairs sat Administrator Dimzon, Ambassador Lozada and with the Vice-President right in the middle. The Mendoza family sat to his left and Nanay Edith, her sister, Rina, DFA’s Ambassador Eric Endaya of the Office of Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (OUMWA) and I were seated opposite them.

For three years, Nanay Edith had been following up her son’s case. Blood money has been set at the equivalent of Php5 million. Edith and her husband sell fishball and sweet corn at the Baliuag Bus Terminal in Caloocan City. Prior to that meeting, the Langamins were able to raise just Php 30,000, from money chipped in by OFW families and a few anonymous donors. During that Wednesday morning, we learned that Jonard was to be executed on March 2012.

Vice-President Jejomar Binay spoke with a soft voice, and every word he uttered was measured with tact and diplomacy especially towards the aggrieved family. He opened the meeting with an appeal to not dwell on the past and instead focus on how both families could move on. He briefed us about the process regarding blood money cases. He assured Robert Mendoza that the government has taken cognizance of his family’s grief and loss. The Vice-President steered the conversation to the plight of Jonard Langamin and the urgent need for a solution prior to March. He asked Ka Bert in the softest and most gentle manner possible, whether he would be able to forgive Jonard and to put such act of forgiveness in writing. After a few quiet heartbeats, Ka Bert, who was looking down at that time, nodded yes.

The intensity of that moment shall stay with me forever. While the Vice-President and Ambassador Endaya of the DFA were discussing procedures, Nanay Edith leaped out of the sofa and crossed over to Ka Bert’s side and knelt before him. Her body shook with tears, emotions etched on her face like a glass sculpture. The room itself was suffused with joy pouring out from Edith’s grateful heart. Three years, that case was unresolved. It took ten minutes on that fateful Wednesday morning, for Jonard Langamin’s life to be spared. God was in the room.

Later that day, I watched the news and saw Bert Mendoza explaining why he decided to formally forgive Jonard. “I asked my son for a sign. I said that if I woke up early on Wednesday with a light feeling, that would be a sign from Robertson that all must be forgiven.” And yes, he did.

What now remains is for the Department of Foreign Affairs to send the letter of forgiveness signed by Robert Mendoza, as the patriarch of the family, to the Philippine Embassy which shall then formallly present this to the Saudi court. What is important is that Jonard’s life has been spared. What is inspiring was how Ka Bert found freedom in forgiveness. I wish the Langamin and Mendoza families the best of luck in their new lives and I thank Vice-President Binay and the DFA for resolving this case. (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter, www.twitter.com/susanople.)

Over the holidays, I have accumulated vignettes from overseas Filipino workers on vacation from their countries of work. Having been exposed to more stable governance, reliable services, and compatible systems, these Filipino expatriates would lament the lack of common sense in our own red tape-infested, messy and disjointed procedures and policies.

Fernan Santos, a regular chatter at the online chatroom of the daily Bantay OFW radio program over DZXL told me that he was actually called a “criminal” by a Bureau of Immigration agent at our international airport because he had a namesake on the NBI’s list of fugitives. After showing his own NBI clearance, employment contract and other papers proving that he was and had always been an overseas worker, the officer concerned relented but never apologized.

Fernan said that common sense would have long dictated that the Bureau of Immigration and the National Bureau of Investigation which are both under the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice have a common database that is regularly revisited by both institutions. In this way, my OFW friend from Saudi added, the humiliation of being held and questioned because of bearing a similar name to a wanted person would be minimized or prevented.

Resistance has replaced common sense in the way the records of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration remain devoid of compatibility. Both offices belong to one department but despite numerous crises abroad affecting thousands of OFWs, they each have their own databases unconnected by any digital bridge or software that would make timely search and verification procedures easier and faster to undertake.

If you look at how the work of different offices and agencies in government often overlap and converge, one is aghast at how simplified procedures are lost in translation and interpretation of various mandates and policies though the constituents may be one and the same.

“Archers”, an OFW based in Singapore, lamented how migrant workers are being charged mandatory membership in PhilHealth as if they were here and able to access all the benefits accruing to local workers. “Our company is obliged to provide us with health insurance so we barely are able to use our PhilHealth membership and yet, the agency wants to even increase our fees.”
Last December 15, the PhilHealth Board issued Circular No. 022 that would raise the contributions of OFW members from the current Php900 to Php1,200 in January then to Php2,400 in July of 2012. This two-step increase was done without prior consultations or notice to the public or the sector concerned. Common sense would have dictated that given President Aquino’s vow of consultations and transparency, the Board would at least have given notice to its members about the planned increase. Such lack of common sense is lamentable given the institution’s role of promoting good health without jeopardizing the otherwise healthy relationship it has with the OFW sector.

During a pre-New Year lunch at DZXL with our OFW friends, I also overheard one of them lamenting the proliferation of courtesy lanes in frontline agencies such as the POEA, DFA Consular Section, and even the Bureau of Immigration (for a certificate to clear one’s name for travel). “Courtesy lanes have become an incentive for laziness, requiring a customer to pay more to for efficient service,” he lamented. Others chimed in, saying that in countries such as Singapore and Saudi Arabia, one goes through the same lanes as others, shelling out predictable and reasonable rates, without hassle.

All these lamentations from our modern-day heroes remind me of a conversation I had with a Filipino diplomat assigned to a predominantly Muslim country. He lamented that while the Philippine Embassy and Filipino community leaders promote the Philippines as a tourist destination, they are unable to answer some basic questions from potential Muslim tourists. For example, does government even have a list of restaurants and hotels across the country that can provide Halal-certified food? We also do not have separate prayer rooms for men and women from Muslim countries in government offices, malls and tourist sites. We are insensitive to the needs of these Muslim tourists and yet we are surrounded by two major Muslim countries in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Perhaps we need a session or two to round up representatives from different sectors to just examine how uncommon common sense has become in the roll-out of various government services and projects. I, for one, would like to volunteer the involvement of the following OFWs and OFW relatives in such discussions: Fernan Santos, Ricky Tolentino, Rico Reyes, Nadene Pechayo, Eric Canlas and his wife, Raquel, Arnel Ragel. They comprise part of our regular chatters group at DZXL where my co-anchor Buddy Oberas and I maintain a two-hour public service program for OFWs.

Governance is much better when little things get solved. It pays to “shrink the change” rather than wait for entire mountains to move themselves. The more common sense fades away in governance, the higher the cost in public trust. (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople)

Like clothes on fire, we just couldn’t wait to shed 2011 fast enough. That was the year of major quakes, unbelievable tsunamis, fast-rising floods and rainfalls so voluminous that the earth could no longer absorb every drop. That was the year when the peso grew stronger diminishing the buying capacity of every dollar remitted from abroad. That was also the year when President Aquino better defined himself as a leader who means business when running after those who in his mind and heart have long betrayed the public’s trust. 2011 was the year when the Liberal Party as the administration party showed real muscle even when public opinion stood divided as to how it was flexed.

December 2011 was the year when Christmas became a sad and mute witness to entire villages swept away, to families shrunk by the cold, wet, muddy floods that woke them up to a living nightmare. The cities of Iligan and Cagayan de Oro would never greet December with the same kind of enthusiasm as before. Never, never again would a Christmas tree be but just a tree adorned with lights and ornaments in the flood victims’ eyes. December in 2012 will mark the first death anniversary of over a thousand dead and several more missing in these calamity-stricken areas.

2011 also bore witness to the execution of four Filipino drug mules in China and thousands more trafficked to other parts of the world. Let’s hope that 2012 will not produce more of the same death row cases. Let’s pray that 2012 will be remembered for the creation of a record-breaking number of jobs here at home because of unstoppable foray of investments and tourist arrivals into our shores.

For certain individuals, 2011 was a golden year. Congressman Manny Pacquiao ended the year that was with a new yacht, symbolic of his winning streak and marketing savvy. Beauty queens Venus Raj and Gwendolyn Ruais proved to the world the beauty-and-brains combination that resides in the Filipina. Filipino-American Robin Lim became CNN Hero of the Year for starting birthing clinics in Indonesia. Vice-President and presidential adviser on OFW affairs Jejomar Binay soared high in popularity and trust ratings as did the President himself. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has moved up in the public’s esteem as a senatorial choice in 2013, and as a Cabinet Secretary with guts.

On the overseas employment front, as I write this, several OFW groups are up in arms because of a PhilHealth circular raising the premiums of almost all workers particularly migrant workers who would soon be paying 150% more than the 2011 rate of Php 900. Workers employed in Libya have slowly been returning with the partial lifting of the deployment ban while those in Syria are caught in the whirlwind of political protests and the abrupt raising of alert levels by the Department of Foreign Affairs. 2011 was the year when 41 countries were slated to be banned as labor-receiving countries on the basis of Republic Act no. 10022 had it not been for too many adverse reactions that led the DFA to reconsider its recommendations.

It would be hard to describe everything that happened in 2011. Suffice it to say that it had been a tough year that saw the world economy in shambles, despots removed through regime changes spurred on by social media, the passing of a creative technology genius by the name of Steve Jobs, earthquake after earthquake, flood after flood, and a nuclear incident that spooked the world. And those are just the events that transpired in front of news media.

We look forward to 2012 and pray that it would be the exact opposite of the Mayan prophecy: boom, not doom; new beginnings, and not the end of the world. But if there was anything that 2011 taught us, it was all about resiliency. That what we experienced in the year that was could only make us stronger, fitter, and more prepared for the year that has yet to unfold. Our biggest folly would be to shrug off all the lessons that 2011 wanted to teach us because we are simply too smug for our own good.

On a personal note, the Blas F. Ople Center and Our Times would like to thank all the people who have reacted to our advocacy for OFWs, and to our column; those who bothered to send e-mails and who read our articles on quiet Sundays. Special thanks to the management and editorial staff of Manila Bulletin Group of Publications. I wish also to thank my staff at the Ople Center: Jenny, Jolly, Jeff, Mark, Rayza, Dennis, Loloy and Fort, of course. A special thanks also to those who supported our recent Happy OFW Christmas event: Pag-IBIG Fund, Philam Life, Pagcor, SSS, PhilHealth, DBP, I-Remit, MG Forex Corporation, NYK-Fil Ship Management, Sun West and Century Properties, Inc. To WhiteBoard, you know who you are. Thanks to all and happy New Year everyone!

Today, my mother, Susana, my siblings as well as my daughter and I, will have lunch together at my brother’s condo unit in Quezon City. Each sub-family will bring food to share, and I am quite sure that my Kuya Bulos in Los Angeles, California and our eldest brother, Luis, who is based in Geneva, Switzerland, will call my mom on her mobile phone which will then get passed around like a box of yummy chocolates.

Such happy family reunions that straddle both the virtual and non-digital worlds make the Christmas holiday season really a joy to behold. One can tell from the constant uploading and tagging of photos on Facebook that this season has been both busy and happy, celebrated the Filipino way.

Today, we give thanks for the birth of our redeemer, Jesus Christ, in the most humble of places – a manger strewn with straw. After invoking His name in prayer, we then fit and fill our plates with food that we could afford, and exchange gifts with people closest to our hearts. The more lucky ones would have gifts ready for mass delivery, as a business strategy or as a marketing ploy. Politicians would have separate lists for media friends, party-mates, benefactors, staff, and next-of-kin.

This Christmas, I have my own modest list of special wishes for certain people and institutions:

1. Jonard Langamin and his mother Edith – I pray and hope that the Langamin family would be able to raise the much needed Php 5-million in blood money being required of them so that 27-year old Jonard would not be executed in Saudi Arabia. Jonard deeply regrets his crime, and the aggrieved family, also Filipinos, have long forgiven him for killing their loved one during a heated altercation aboard a ship docked near Saudi Arabia. Nanay Edith and her husband sell fishball and sweet corn for a living. The aggrieved family is also of modest means. Raising Php 5-million to save Jonard from a daily income of P200/day is next to impossible. For those interested in helping out the Langamin family, here is Nanay Edith’s number: +639994307853.I also offer the same prayers for other OFWs on Saudi’s death row like Dondon Lanuza, Joselito Zapanta, and five others.

2. President Benigno Simeon Aquino III – the year ahead will be a difficult one mainly due to an ailing world economy. My special wish for the President is that he acquires the gift of patience because the high road towards positive change will never be easy. I also pray for discernment and wisdom for PNoy and his closest advisers, because though we are their bosses, our voices are often discordant, and public opinion can be a product of herd mentality, rather than in-depth intellectual, spiritual, and emotional reflection. In the end, we need to rely just as much on his administration’s vision for the country that must come with a clear set of priorities on what must be done in the next five years.

3. Members of the Senate – may their togas remind them of the need to study hard for the impeachment trial and be led by convictions rather than party affiliations, or the clarion call of a 2013 re-election. I wish for them the gift of discernment because the trial involves not just one man, but the credibility of an entire institution, and the stability of an entire nation as well. May they do their jobs well.

4. Business leaders and top 100 companies – My Christmas wish for them is good karma based on their respective corporate social responsibility creed and actions; that fate and good fortune shine upon those who know how to give and pay back, from the heart, and serve as community partners and allies of civil society groups and their own employees. My special thanks go to private companies and government institutions like Pag-Ibig, PhilHealth, SSS, and DBP that sponsored our Happy OFW Christmas event last December 16.

5. OFWs and Local Workers – My Christmas wish is for our workers here and abroad to rise above poverty and mediocrity, and discover the path of personal fulfilment by being able to do what they love most. I pray that there are lesser victims of human trafficking and drug trafficking in 2012. I also pray and wish for greater absorption of workers by our local economy, in jobs that are not contractual in nature, so that our middle class can expand and flourish.

Love is the currency of the yuletide season, and it is difficult not to smile despite aching pockets and horrific traffic jams. The air itself is made light with affection, because kindness is an emotion made viral particularly on Christmas Day.

With this, let me rest my keyboard and end this piece by wishing you the most joyous Christmas ever! May your dreams for your family and for yourself come true! Thank you for being a part of “Our Times” this Christmas. (Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople.)

Labor Attache Nasser Mustafa is a hero. While in Libya, he fulfilled his promise to bring home two Filipino domestic workers being held against their will by their employer, deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s niece. While the Department of Foreign Affairs had enunciated its position to wait for the Libyan transition council to take over the country’s leadership, Labor Attache Mustafa worked out a bold rescue plan.

What was remarkable about his feat is the modesty attached to it. An initial statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs regarding the Philippine Embassy’s rescue mission conjured images of an elaborate and grandiose plan, citing the use of two embassy teams and a pit stop at the embassy itself. That someone even felt compelled to issue such a premature and half-baked statement without proper coordination with the labor department smacks of territorial assertion rather than the more benign country team approach.

Here are some details about the actual rescue as gathered by this writer:

• Mary Ann and Diana Jill have long wanted to come home and feared for their lives as the conflict in Libya intensified but their employer, a niece of Col. Gadhafi, refused to let them go.
• It took ten days for Labor Attache Mustafa to locate the actual residence of Diana’s employer which at times was surrounded by rebel forces.
• At around 6.30 AM of September 19 (Manila time), Labor Attache Nasser Mustafa, embassy driver Alih Mariwa and his Libyan friend and interpreter Awal Ajanti rescued Diana Jill Rivera and Mary Ann Ducos from their Libyan employers.
• On the morning of the rescue, Mustafa was in touch with the two women via mobile phone and he requested Mary Ann to go up the roof and wave to him as a confirmation that he was in front of the right house.
• While Mary Ann was on top of the roof, Diana Jill was keeping guard on the ground. She made sure that her two little wards were asleep and that none of the armed guards and her employers were awake.
• The two left the house using the front gate, leaving behind all their belongings, as instructed by the labor attaché.
• Once they were in the embassy car, Labor Attache Mustafa instructed Alih Mariwa to drive as fast as he could away from the house and towards the Tunisian border.
• Diana Jill and Mary Ann were able to cross the border from Libya to Tunisia using travel documents prepared by the Philippine Embassy.

On his Facebook page, two days after the daring rescue, Labor Attache Mustafa posted this comment: “Real success is finding your life’s work in the work that you love.” Bravo Labatt Nash Mustafa for your heroism and leadership in bringing our two OFWs home!
Upon hearing of Mustafa’s efforts, civil society groups allied with the Blas F. Ople Policy Center were quick to come together and plan a tribute dinner for him. Jun Aguilar of the Filipino Migrant Workers’ Group said that the labor attache’s three-man team breathe life to President Aquino’s inaugural directive of an even more responsive DFA and DoLE for distressed OFWs.

There are more people to thank for working behind the scenes and also for assuring the two OFWs of new and better beginnings. First dibs go to Jenny Rivera who tirelessly worked for the freedom of her sister, Diana Jill. Her persistence in going to DoLE, the DFA, and OWWA to follow up her sister’s case led her to become the Ople Center’s liaison officer. Labor Attache Mustafa did the actual rescue but it was Jenny’s fighting spirit that kept that option open from February to September of this year.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis accommodated all our requests, and was ever present at the DFA whenever Jenny had information to share. We at the Ople Center also acknowledge the help of the staff and officers at the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs. Special thanks go to Vice-President Jejomar Binay who had comforted Jenny in the past and kept his promise of making sure that her sister’s case would not be forgotten.

James Concepcion, president of the Days Hotel and Cecille Tan, vice president for operations, have assured Diana Jill and Mary Ann that they could train and work for the Days Hotel in Cebu City. Such a generous job offer gave both OFWs real hope after months of despair and danger in the Gadhafi compound. Special thanks also to Jane Ampeloquio of Emergent Concept for willingly taking on the task of training these two household workers.

Upon their arrival in Manila, the two OFWs bonded with their families at the posh Midas Hotel where their weekend stay was sponsored by good friends, Zaldy and Mylene Co through my best friend Arleen Ong. Finally but never least, we offer perpetual thanks to the Lord who have yet to fail us in our mission to help distressed OFWs. He makes the impossible, simply possible. (Send your comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople. The Ople Center’s hotline is 8335337.)

This was my Panorama column last Sunday, September 18. I’d like to dedicate this to Jenny Rivera, Diana Jill, and the rest of their family and to all OFW families here and around the world.

Love, when expressed in and through prayers, leads to hope. I have seen this many times in my life. I have also seen it in the lives of so many Filipino migrant workers and their families. There is divine alchemy in prayers. Sometimes just the bowing of one’s head, the joining of hands clasped in unity for noble intentions, represent opportunities for conversations with God that are frank, honest, and raw with emotion.
Jenny Rivera, brave sister of Diana Jill, one of four Filipino domestic workers employed by the niece of Col. Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, seeks refuge in prayers. She bears the burden of bringing to the attention of government the fears, longings, and urgent pleas of help from her sister. Nanay Edith, mother of Junard Langamin, an overseas Filipino worker detained in Saudi Arabia in a cell reserved for death row convicts, also finds refuge in the power of prayers. These two women, brought together by fate to the doors of the Blas F. Ople Policy Center, have shown remarkable courage, selflessness, and faith amid crisis situations not of their making.

When my father died while airborne on a plane that was taking him from Tokyo to Bahrain, my family and I sought comfort in prayers. Sometimes I would talk to the Lord and then through Him, begin a quiet conversation of my own with my father. Always, these brief encounters in quiet, near-empty Adoration Chapels tucked neatly in favorite churches, strip me of the arrogance of being, the many pretensions that come attached to life. God and my father know more of me than even I can comprehend.

When praying, think of raindrops falling gently like diamonds on a canopy of overlapping green leaves; or the flapping of butterfly wings as it searches for the freshest, dew-blessed flowers, low to the ground but with petals pleasing to the sky. Prayers are poems of the soul. They transform the aged to the young, the troubled to the peaceful, and the hopeless to one with abundant faith. When nothing else works, one collapses into prayer. When everything works, one must learn to lift eyes and soul to the highest point of heaven in prayerful thanks.
There is safety in prayer. One can unburden the soul, shout, scream, weep, or even simply stare, with heart stretched out in one’s hand, exposed and pulsating with the anguish of the needy. God answers, somehow. The reply may not always be as dramatic as regime change in a war-scarred country or the miraculous healing of a terminally-ill cancer patient. Not all requests are granted because sometimes acceptance of one’s fate is already such a gift in itself.

How does one explain in concrete, specific terms an overwhelming, unwavering belief in the divine? You don’t. It’s like breathing. In, out till time runs out. So is it with prayer – you hear the melody when God answers, in the rhythm of unexpected events; in the vibrancy of life itself. You feel safe when you pray, whatever God’s answer is. Just the desire to touch His face is a wondrous thing. To feel that desire, especially amid all kinds of strife, is extraordinarily beautiful.

Whether offered on bended knees or while standing in a crowded bus, the love that pours out once a person starts praying is so magnificently pure that it escapes description. Listen to a child saying his or her evening prayers. Hear the pitch, feel the innocence. We must learn how to be child-like when we pray. Humble in seeking what only the Divine Creator can bestow, a person who prays must be truest to himself.

The leprosy of lies and pretensions cannot and will not make our prayers buoyant. It is when praying that one is able to define and derive true wealth. True wealth is not the gold that rises now when the dollar is weak. True wealth is in the depth of sincerity and commitment to serving a higher power.

The power of prayer is in the love it grows. I am comforted by the freedom that comes with being able to pray when most needed, and to say thanks to God when so warranted. We are humans but we are not powerful. Every little superficial, accidental cut that leads to red blood emerging from broken skin is a reminder that our stay on earth is limited. We are all guest workers of the Lord. The Diaspora is not just from country to country. It is also from dust to dust, from earth to the divine, from skin to soul, and from mortality to life beyond earthly boundaries.

It is when the least saintly among us find the will to pray, that heavens open its arms the widest. Grace is the rising of those who fell. Faith is the how the blind can see. Prayers are rosary beads of the heart. This I believe.

Home is where you grew up, and where the amazing smell of childhood memories lives on forever. It is where you’d want to eternally rest someday, though hopefully not that soon – with the graves of family and friends just a whisper away.

In my travels abroad, I have met Filipinos who thought and dreamt of home like an ethereal rainbow, after a cold shower of rain. For them, the golden pot lies at its end, when weary bones could finally retire with full financial security. One’s journey to reach that pot has taken quite a few OFWs to places that one gets to read about only in Arabian fairy tales.

Still, the idea of home beckons and that thought is made easier by the prospects of having fallbacks ready once a migrant worker’s journey ends. It is in this light that I welcome the creation of a Php 2-Billion OFW Reintegration Fund by the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration in partnership with the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines. This fund was launched with no less than the full support of President Benigno Simeon Aquino.

Under this program, a former or current OFW can borrow amounts ranging from Php 300,000 to Php 2 million, to put up a business of his or her own. The business loan is payable up to 7 years at an annual interest rate of 7.5%. People in business tell me that these terms are quite good, especially for a start-up enterprise.

What would it take for an OFW to obtain such a loan from OWWA? First, he or she must undergo a business orientation seminar from any of OWWA’s regional offices. This would prepare the applicant in formulating a feasibility study that is an essential step when putting up a business. The applicant only needs to show proof of previous or current OWWA membership.

From seminar mode, the OFW entrepreneur will be referred to the nearest Land Bank or DBP branch that would evaluate all of these applications. Approval would rise and fall depending on how carefully the business proposal was put together, because the Php 2-billion Reintegration Fund also needs to be sustainable.

Recently, the Blas F. Ople Center and the Sagip-OFW Program of Sen. Manny Villar together with the Overseas Workers’ Welfare Administration’s National Reintegration Center for OFWs with the help of such corporations as Fortune Life, Seaoil and the Passenger Accident Management and Insurance Agency or PAMI launched its first ever OFW Reintegration Fair at the Star Mall along EDSA, Mandaluyong City. Special mention goes to DZXL Tatak RMN and DWIZ for serving as our media partners.

We expected around a hundred participants. Much to our surprise, a line has formed even before the doors of the Mall officially opened. One OFW said that he came all the way from Bataan just to listen to the talks of our resource persons. Our simple program started with an overview of the OWWA Reintegration Fund courtesy of Director Maria Luisa Reyes of the National Reintegration Center for OFWs.

It was followed by a reinvigorating talk by franchising guru and noted businessman Paul Tibig of V. Cargo. Myrna Padilla flew in from Davao City to inspire our OFWs and their families with a searing rendition of her life as a former domestic worker turned entrepreneur. Myrna is a spectacular example of the proverbial rags-to-riches story, as she now runs her own business process outsourcing company.

Former journalist and a friend of all, Peter Sing, gave our OFW friends a snapshot of what it takes to leave the safe cove of employment to foray into the more unpredictable waters of entrepreneurship. His personal advocacy is on savings and investments particularly among OFWs because his mother worked abroad to support her family as well.

Randell Tiongson who is a business columnist and registered financial planner anchored all the preceding discussions with pragmatic tips on financial security. Randell has been lecturing about financial security from Hong Kong to Singapore, and in different corners of the country.

Finally, our OFW Reintegration Fair ended on a high note with the prospective entrepreneurs asking our panelists from the Development Bank of the Philippines, Land Bank of the Philippines and OWWA.

Indeed, there are horizons to be explored beyond just leaving our shores. Windows on entrepreneurship have opened via the Reintegration Fund put together with the economic liberation of our overseas workers in mind.

We all have it in ourselves to define our lives. One cannot and should not be an OFW forever. But as in all things, going into business requires due diligence, perseverance, and the desire to learn endlessly, unceasingly along the way. It is for the adventurous heart and a detail-oriented mind.

My father once said that overseas employment is and should be just a temporary program. In the end, his dream was for foreign capital, technology and our world-class workforce to converge in an industrial explosion within our own geographic boundaries.

Today, we might just see that dream happen, even without the foreign capital, as thousands of OFW families now turn to entrepreneurship as their roadmap to home. (Visit my blog at www.susanople.com. Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople. Add me on Facebook via www.facebook.com/susantootsople. Send your comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com)

If you have the power to save a life, would you do it? Or do you set a limit on how much time, effort, and money you are willing to set aside before you even decide to act?

That is the crux of the matter involving the creation of a technical working group to study what the administration’s policy should be when it comes to blood money involving overseas Filipino workers on death row.

The decision of the Office of the President to create a technical working group to study and create guidelines on cases involving blood money stemmed from unusually high amounts being required by aggrieved families. The Department of Foreign Affairs have raised the issue of sustainability in relation to requests for blood money.

But first, a definition of terms.

Qisas is a principle under the Shari’a or Islamic law that makes the actual perpetrator of a crime alone guilty, and alone liable to punishment. The punishment must be the exact equivalent of the crime, i.e. tooth for a tooth, life for a life. [5:45, The Holy Qur'an]

However, in consideration of the priceless value of human life, the Islamic law explicitly recommends the substitution of compensation on another plane — through the so-called “diyyah” or blood money compensation for the victim’s mandatory heirs.

Upon the acceptance of “diyyah”, a letter of forgiveness or “tanazul” is issued by the victim’s mandatory heirs.

Once the “tanazul” is issued, the private aspects of the case iareextinguished, and what is left is the public rights aspect of the case which can be waived by the King or Emir (head of state).

Without a “tanazul”, the King (in Saudi Arabia’s case) will never issue pardon or commute the sentence of the perpetrator.

As an OFW advocate, I believe that the technical working group should lose no time in fulfilling its mandate from the President. Time is of the essence considering that some of these cases involving OFWs on death row have been in the legal pipeline for several years.

The case of Dondon Lanuza for example is already a decade-old. Dondon was convicted of stabbing to death an Arab national. This year, for the very first time, the aggrieved family has signified willingness to consider blood money. The Saudi court had ruled that it would be up to the victim’s son to decide on the private aspect of this case when he reaches legal age (18) which would be sometime in 2015.

However, this rare window of opportunity may soon close unless the Lanuza family is able to resolve the issue of blood money amounting to millions of pesos.

My sincere belief is that the Aquino administration has no other recourse but to help families of OFWs on death row particularly in Saudi Arabia to raise the agreed upon “diyyah”. To discard or downplay previous arrangements because the costs are high and the question of sustainability has been raised, would lead to the diminution in the credibility of our own embassy in Riyadh and the Philippine government as a whole.

One must also note the spirit behind Section 27 of Republic Act No. 8042 otherwise known as the Migrant Workers’ Act of 1995:

“The protection of the Filipino migrant workers and the promotion of their welfare in particular, and the protection of the dignity and fundamental rights and freedom of the Filipino citizen abroad, in general, shall be the highest priority concerns of the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine foreign service posts.”

In governance, there are matters that only the heart can see. In the case of these OFWs, the aggrieved families have already opened their hearts to the call of forgiveness. Calculating the “sustainability” in hearing such calls for rationalizing what is intrinsically emotional; putting boundaries and ceilings on a State’s capability to save lives.

I am not one to condone the crimes of the OFWs involved. They do not come begging with clean hands. But I must argue on the side of forgiveness and a second chance at reforms and restitution.

In the case of OFW Junard Langamin, he was 27 years old when he first stepped on the ship together with another OFW whose life Junard would soon take away. They left as friends but as the days went by and pressures at work continue to build up, the two Filipinos suddenly found themselves fighting below the ship’s deck. A knife was drawn, a life extinguished.

Junard’s mom is a peanut and corn vendor who wakes up at 5 o’clock every morning to push her cart from her home to the Baliuag Bus Terminal in Caloocan City. How can the Langamin family raise the amount of Php 5 million in exchange for Junard’s freedom without government’s help?

I urge the technical working group well in deciding which lives to save, and which to forego. (Follow me on Twitter via www.twitter.com/susanople. Send comments to toots.ople@yahoo.com)