Name:

Age:

What country?

Tell me about yourself.

What made you decide to work abroad?

Describe your work style

How long have you been working/have worked abroad?

How do you feel about working long hours and/or weekends?

How are the working hours at OFW?

What is your benefits for being an ofw?

Can you share your experiences while you were working?(good and bad)

How did you cope up with your negative experiences?

What did you like or dislike about your previous job?

How do you handle stress and pressure?

Tell me about the last time you disagreed with your boss.

What made you decide to go back to the Philippines for good? (If they did) Have you encountered rules
and regulations which are not familiar here in the Philippines?

What is your worst experience in airport?

Did you have a hard time abiding by their rules and regulations?

Give me an example of when you have felt anger at work. How did you cope and did you still perform a
good job?

What kind of life do you want for yourself after your overseas journey?

Who are the people you value and need to spend time with despite living apart?

Are you Happy with your career?

Most of the Filipinos grew up in a condition or community where working abroad seems to be a solution
for many of their problems. Motivation in productivity at work must equal the reward system and
should be perceived by the workers as fair and just. It must sustain his basic and a little of his social
needs for him to be happy at work and his relation with his family but the economic condition at present
is in the subsistence level, and due to extreme poverty, lack of public support for local entrepreneurs,
higher income and salary in abroad, in comparison to the low salary offered by local companies, high
unemployment rate in our country as the job opportunities in the local setting continue to go down the
drain, and less job opportunities for new graduates. There is also a p
ressure from the family and peer influence, “Palakasan system”, unstable
economic condition, discrimination experienced when applying jobs locally, contractual employment
arrangement as the performance is limited to five month duration of employment and poor benefits
here. Filipinos also wants to enhance their career and professional marketability globally. In addition,
there is the opportunity to travel and experience abroad, government supporting OFWs, and some even
see it as a trend now, are the unending problems in the country and some of the reasons why many
Filipinos want or need to work abroad. Most of them consider it as the only option to get out of their
impoverished situation. It can also be because it is our culture to work under other people, being
employed abroad and doing the same work that we do in the Philippines provide us double or more
income and salary than being employed in our own land, and that is why numerous Filipino workers in
the local setting are not happy at work. Also, Inductivo (2011), indicates that OFWs choose to sacrifice
their time away from their family, not to mention the climatic and cultural orientations of those
countries that every OFW has to live with. Some treat this country as a tunnel where they cannot see
any light at the end of it, while others see it a hopeless case so the main reason why they are working
abroad, in accordance with Ramirez (2016), is to look for better opportunity, to earn more, to save,

Consequences of having an Overseas Filipino Worker- parent among Adolescents 7

to provide more for their family, for their kids, to prepare for a better and brighter future. In short, to
have a better life, even though it is not easy to work abroad, to be an OFW, not only for the person
abroad but also for their family in the Philippines. Some achieved their goals, but many of them failed to
do so. Likewise, Kasilag (2015), commended that
OFWs’
work, wealth, and honor associated with it do not automatically bring them the quality of life they
perceived to have. The loneliness of being away from your loved ones, the discrimination from overseas
employers, and the high cost of living abroad is very sacrificial for OFWs. The OFW-Parents, as the
earners, do their best to best to fulfill their responsibility of remitting money sufficient to sustain the
needs and wants of their children. Some parents might assume that their children fully understand the
reason why they had to leave. But some of them, they were too young to even know that they had a
parent who left and some felt not-at-all loved or cared for. Despite the economic benefits to the family,
money and material possessions cannot simply pay off the longing of a child for a parent. The financial
support is not taken as a form of love of a parent but rather affection is concerned more to be fulfilled.
For some, affection could be achieved through an effective communication with the parent. Parents,
however, cannot give enough time to communicate with their child effectively.
The Philippines has one of the largest proportion of migrant workers in relation to its
total population of all countries. For many Filipinos, migration is a symbol of hope
because it provides an alternative to being unemployed or underemployed, living in
poverty, or having a life that is qualitatively less than one’s aspirations. Remittances
sent by a family member working overseas can give significant economic help to a
household in the Philippines. Because of the OFWs contribution to the economy, the
export of migrant workers has become part of national policy. However, labour
migration means also marginalization, social dislocation, downward social mobility, and
family fragmentation.
Filipino migrants experience marginalization in two ways. First, they become socially
and structurally invisible in relation to the host society. Even though they have college
degrees and professional backgrounds in the Philippines, and may have prominent
roles in their family and community, they disappear into other people’s homes,
hospitals, nursing homes, manufacturing centres in other countries. Second, they
experience a subaltern existence. The pain of marginality is made acute by being
regarded as mere instruments of policy and by being subjected to ethnic, economic, and
social differentiation. Migrant workers are often seen as mere objects to advance the
interests of both the country of destination and the country of origin, without regard to
the personal and family fragmentation and disempowerment that this produces.

Those who work as domestic workers are vulnerable to abuse since, as live-in
workers, they are dependent on their employers and have no private spaces of their
own or complete control of their time. As foreigners who are employed in jobs on the
lowest rung of the economic and social ladder, they are also subject to prejudice. More-
over, as temporary residents, they do not have adequate legal and civil rights to protect
them from being exploited. In addition, because migration holds the promise of
economic advancement, some Filipinos have resorted to illegal means to be able to
work and live overseas. This has given Filipinos the reputation of being law-breakers
and has led to some humiliating deportations and imprisonment.

In addition, economic migration produces the phenomenon of transnational families, in

which one or two parents are abroad while children are reared by one parent or by
relatives. This arrangement brings a lot of emotional stress – guilt for parents, insecurity
and loneliness for children, and emotional distance between parents and children.3This
is especially the case when the migrant is the mother,4a common situation since women
comprise more than fifty percent of OFWs. A conflict then results between the economic
security of the family and its emotional and psychological well-being.
On a national scale, the migration of so many nationals means massive brain drain as
teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers move to other parts of the world. This is tragic,
considering that in many villages in the Philip-pines, medical facilities are under-
staffed,5while vital infrastructures are needed for the development of the local economy.