Sacrifices of a MODERN DAY HERO

Our life being an  Overseas Filipino Workers is never been relaxed and easy. Why? Since we have to take the risk and sacrifices in leaving our family and friends behind to work in a foreign land thousands of miles away from home. Searching to find much higher salary to support the daily needs of our family and gives a better future for them. Some of us are parents, who are not able to take good care of our children because we are thousands miles away from them. As we stay  in the country that we are working, we need to adjust ourselves to almost everything. Like language, our way of living, culture, costumes and foods.And we need to set aside our beliefs and values in life that we practice when we are still a small kid until we are growing older. Working abroad is such an opportunity because not everyone can go and work there.

But together with this lies the financial problem to cover the expenses and requirements to go overseas. And the emotional burden of fact that being away from our love ones is not easy to handle. The boredom, homesick and loneliness being alone.We want to go and work abroad, although it is too far and it is a foreign country but we consider it as a quick option to reach our dream. To the OFW's we need to chase the wild goose opportunity to earn big amount of money if we can work outside the country. It doesn't really matter how big the toil of sacrifices. Unfortunately, the sad reality is a lot of families who have relatives working abroad did not know how, hard the life of their family HERO is. Some is spending extravagantly and didn't  think how hard we work for that money and they did not give value to all the sacrifices that we have done just to give them a good and comfortable life in the Philippines. The only thing in their mind is, they can buy whatever they want. They can go wherever they want to go until the purse of hard earned money is empty. Enjoying the luxury of the latest gadgets, just to empress others that they can afford to buy because they have a family member abroad.

They don't have a clue how we sweat blood and degrade and lost our honor from whatever honor left just to earn money for them. Some of our sacrifices is we cannot enjoy with our family on important events in their life such as birthdays and Christmas. We missed to see our beloved children growing up. Another thing is, not all OFW's had achieved good opportunity in the foreign country. There are news all over the world of misfurtune such as: being abused verbally, physically and emotionally. There are other workers went home lifeless for many different reasons. Despite of the situation, still so many desire to go abroad and work abroad to reach their family's dream of having a good future. They are willing to gamble their own life and happiness just to make sure that their family have a secure future.

 And to all those families who have relatives working abroad, please value their efforts, sacrifices and their life that they denied for themselves in favor of you all. OFW's are the modern day HEROES. WHY? We as OFW's share portion to build our economy of our country through our remittances. We deserve the honor and respect for all the things we done not just for our family but also for our country. Although some people called the Philippines ''THE LAND OF SLAVES'' but the Filipino didn't care. I agree with Carlos P. Romulo Sr. by saying  ''I am proud that I am a Filipino''.

To all my fellow Overseas Filipino Worker, learn to save your salary. You don't need to send it all to your family. You work hard on it so you need to make sure that your hard earned money will be spent properly and wisely. Open a bank account wherever you are, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Canada to name a few. Save as much as you can. Send enough to your family back home. Just enough for them to survive the everyday life. The rest you will be the one who need to save it. Based from my own experience, from the Filipino whom I meet every Sunday. I see two faces of life of Pinoy working in Hong Kong. First, the one who know how to value their hard earned money is the one who have savings in the bank. Second, the one who is living a happy go lucky life. Spend their salary on new clothes, new gadgets, spending their time together with their friends in the parks or wherever they want to go. And after two weeks upon they receive their salary they need to ask their friends if they can borrow money because their family need money in Philippines. My point is, we have only one day off in one week. But those Filipina who is struggling their finances is the one you will see that have new clothes every Sunday. The one who have new and latest gadgets like cellphones and tablets.

So to those who is planning to go abroad, our dream is to give good life to our family that is why we are willing to sacrifice. You can justify your sacrifices if you know how to spend wise. Plan how to manage your finances and don't forget to put number one in your list the ''I will open a bank account for myself to save some money''... for later, when I can go back home to my beloved family and country.