As one seafarer (a sailor on a cargo ship) put it: "Boss, when you are at sea for nine months, your hand becomes your only girlfriend. But when you land in Amsterdam and a woman smiles at you? Your brain shuts off. You don't think about your kids. You only think about now. The guilt comes later. Always later." These kwentos are not meant to be judged. They are meant to be understood.
The morning after is always the same: "We shouldn't have done that." But they do it again the next week. These are not love stories. These are stories of necessity dressed as intimacy . The kalibugan of a female OFW is a more taboo subject. Society expects women to be repositories of virtue. But ask any female domestic worker in Singapore or any caregiver in Israel: the body does not care about societal expectations. kwentong kalibugan ofw work
When we talk about Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), the narrative is often heroic. We see the glossy posters of a mother in a nurse’s uniform in London or a father in a hard hat in Dubai. We talk about sakripisyo (sacrifice), tiyaga (perseverance), and the monthly remittance that sends a sibling to school or buys a concrete fence for a house in the province. As one seafarer (a sailor on a cargo
In the Middle East, where dating is criminalized outside of marriage, female OFWs have a different kwento . Some engage in "mutual agreements" with male colleagues. They call it "friends with benefits," but the benefit is strictly physical. You don't think about your kids
By: Migrant Diaries