Quotable quotes from PEBA 2010 Best Blog Entry in OFW Division, from Dubai, UAE.
"To this very day, family still is the basic social institution, the more founded and solid it is, the better the society where it belongs."
"I believe it is not flesh and blood that makes us fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, but the heart that endures and sacrifice no matter what distance comes between us. It is the unmoved willingness to share that profound, deeply felt importance of being cared for and caring for the rest of its members. "
"While at some point one must go and all other things may change, we start and end with the family."
"For eleven months in a year, my family is sonless in me. My absence, though, hoping aside from hearts growing fonder, is making our house grows grander, my other siblings' education secure and all their essential needs fulfilled. No more empty fridge, no more uncelebrated birthdays, no more powerless nights, no more threat of property foreclosure."
"Sacrifices – that’s what basically defined an OFW's beginning and probably, its end."
"Still jobless, apologetic, I told her "I have nothing right now". She cried joyfully and said " You have us, your family"."
"My absence is absolved not only by my monthly padala, or my Christmas balikbayan box, but with my sincerest commitment to stay with them as long as I need to and that’s what keep us together – love and faith."
"My family is sonless in me while I am gone but there's a sun that shines every day."
"A family can miss a son but it spells a difference when it is the parent who's absent in the dining table, fastfoods substituting home cooked diner or having another person take care of the kids."
"While the unprecedented exodus of the Filipinos and their remittances are what keeping the local economy from collapsing, there is now a growing sentiment that trading global dollars for generation of families raised on cellphone minutes and facebook/skype/twitter is a hefty price of progress."
"The notion that being able to feed your family means leaving the Philippines is a message not every one will just simply buy. But if only most people, particularly the children of OFWs can have the slightest idea of the difficult situations their parents face, they would have loved their parents more than condemned them for their parental shortcomings."
"Educating the children whose parent works abroad can be the first step in letting them understand that scrubbing toilets is never fun."
"Each has a responsiblity in this never ending quest for bright future, it's not just the parents, the children, but importantly the government that profits most from the sacrifices of the OFWs. "
"If only international calls can be made more affordable, at least children can call their parents and talk longer and discuss matters that goes beyond that Western Union Remittance Number."
"If only government can produce enough competetive local jobs, then parents or sons don't have to work abroad to trade their children's development for dollars."
"Not until local opportunities are made available, the saga of diaspora of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers will continue and so are the tales of parentless families, broken marriages, children crossing the wrong path and so on and so forth."
"But as they say, the family that prays together stays together. No matter what distance separates the families, as long as there is faith and love, nothing should come in between and the family will remain strongly founded as they face a new tomorrow."
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