If you think being an OFW or Overseas Filipino Worker is easy, you are very wrong. One or two entire days of falling in the lines and climbing up the stairs of seven floors, are just few of the many hard experiences an OFW has to go through.
That two whole days, from 6am to 6pm, is spent just for the medical examinations alone. Not to mention other paperworks and trainings to complete. With med exams, you are lucky if you don't have any health issues. Your papers won't be put on pending and you will have a smooth processing of medical papers instead of falling into lines again and climbing up and down the stairs of a seven-floor building for an entire day. Worst, you have to do the fasting again from 10pm until you are done with your follow-up check ups, which is usually done around the afternoon. Imagine doing all these in an empty stomach. Don't we even get dizzy if we miss just one meal for the day, right?
Domestic helpers, hotel crews or cleaners, chefs, nurses, caregivers, factory or mall workers, laborers, drivers, engineers, and seafarers; younger ones or mature ones, as long as they are overseas FILIPINO workers, they have to undergo all these.
So think about your fathers and mothers or your elder brothers and sisters. They are not getting any younger. Sooner or later they'll have health problems. If you can only see the stress in their faces, the gloom and dismay when the doctor informs them of a bad news regarding their health and instruct them to come back another day for a follow-up check up, your heart will be like torn to pieces. You know why? Follow up check up means another exhausting day and bills to pay for an OFW.
An OFW one greatest wish is a fast deployment. They want to work and earn right away to support their family in the Philippines. But what mostly the loved-ones that are left in the Philippines do? They became one-day millionaires; enjoying the easy, extravagant life, and easy-spending the hard-earned money of their OFW parents who are working hard days and nights, doing sideline jobs instead of resting and taking days off just to earn extra for their children's needs.
It is not easy to be an OFW. You need to be strong and healthy - literally in the mind, heart and body. If you are a weakling, a coward, or a wimp, better go home. You cannot be an OFW.
One more thing and this one is real talk. In order to be an OFW, you have to have MONEY. WHY? Do you think if you apply today you will fly the next day and start collecting salary? Working abroad, even if it's just a domestic help job, one must have a capital. You will invest real money into it just like when you start a business. The money you used for the processing of your papers is your capital. Your salary is your profit.
When you seek help of an agency for your application, your agent would probably tell you that you will not spend a cent because:(1) Accommodation is free (2) Free meals. Yes, those stuffs are free but hey, you take a bath everyday and you wash your laundry. You will need bath soap, shampoo, toothpaste and any other personal hygiene stuffs, and well, laundry soap. Yep, you need money to buy those stuffs because those are not free.
When you get fed (which you will eventually) of eating untasty, sometimes unhealthy foods from the accommodation, your appetite will urge you to buy foods outside to enjoy a real, full, tasty meal.
Waiting for your job order, contract and visa in the accommodation that's more likely take two weeks if not more is costly. You can save money by not spending this and that, but I am telling you this, you will be needing to buy snacks, milk, juice and stuffs to keep yourself strong and healthy. Not spending a centavo is a bullshit. I ain't buying that idea from the agents. It is just a sweet talk to seduce applicants for their commission. So yes, you must have money when you apply for a job overseas. Prepare a 10K pesos budget, the least.
Ps. So for those who sent me text messages asking for help with their application to work abroad, better read this first so there'll be no resentment. I am just being upfront and honest! Stress or Exhaustion, Health and Money are the major capitals of an OFW. So if your mind, heart and body is strong like mine and you have enough money for your allowance, then come on let us fly!
