Face To FAce

After 27 months of convincing, countless changes of mind, 2 visa applications, never ending reasons not to visit me in this far flung place called Middle East, she has finally boarded the plane and will be joining me at last. Finally, I will see her again face to face.

It took more than a year before I managed to talk her to give up her job. I thought she would join me after she quit her job. She was waiting for me to fetch her as I actually planned to have a break then return with her to Doha. My workload did not permit and numerous snags came my way until she gave up waiting and went to see our children back in the Philippines with the message “If you want to see me, find me in Philippines”.

My vacation had finally pushed through. But I did not manage to bring her with me. This time, she will look after our son who is preparing to join the National Service. Initially, our son’s medical report indicates that he has high cholesterol level and he needs to keep in shape and lower down his cholesterol level. After a week waiting for the doctor’s appointment, it takes another 2 weeks to wait for the result. This “medical” thing is working on her favor…aaahhhh….

The result came in, everything is fine. When they submitted the medical result, they were told that the report initially sent to our son have errors. So, all the while, my son is fine. But before I can celebrate, a notice came inviting the parents to tour the training facilities for the National Servicemen. Puffff….. Another month to wait for the tour….

Then came the yearend thanksgiving…. No more excuses…..

Now she is in the plane at last. In five hours, I will be fetching her at the airport…. I will see her face to face at last…..

My goal now is to make her comfortable, make her like my place, so she can decide to be with me, face to face for the longest time…..

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Balikbayan Box

Ask any Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) about Balikbayan Box, the likelihood would be 99.99% knows what a Balikbayan Box is, 90% (may) had sent at least once during his/her tenure overseas, 90% (may) had brought with him/her in his/her first return to the Philippines and 85% (may) had sent more than once.

What is a Balikbayan Box anyway?

Generally, it is a cardboard box which contains small items or just about anything and sent by OFW often through freight forwarders, or brought by Filipinos returning to the Philippines.

But to an OFW, Balikbayan Box has a deeper purpose and meaning.

Balikbayan Box has become a symbol of Filipino’s generosity. It is a cultural expectation from a returning Filipino to bring gifts to family, friends and colleagues left behind in the Philippines. To the eyes of strangers, the sight of a Filipino with a 3 to 4 boxes at an airport check-in counter is puzzling.

Balibayan Box manifests the Filipino propensity to accommodate his relatives, barkadas, neighbors and even his/her favorite teacher during school days.

Balikbayan Box may contain small items, but has brought immeasurable happiness and endless smiles to the recipient not to mention the sheer joy and unuttered delight to the sender.

Unfortunately, I am not a believer in a Balikbayan box. Throughout my 14 years abroad I had sent 2 balikbayan boxes. In both occasions, majority of its contents were my used belongings. If there were any new items in it, it is just to fill the box. However, I beg not to be judged as tight-fisted pure Ilocano something. I have my own views to justify myself.

My main reasons would be patronizing our local products and the economic impact as a result.

Whether you agree or not, balikbayan box more often than not contains items that are already available back home.

I remember when I was young, our grandmother received a balikbayan box from our uncle living in the US. She would place the box at the center of the living room upstairs and call everyone. She will open the box and ask everyone to grab one for each. As you would expect a lot of pushing and shoving only to find out most of the items were labeled with someone’s name. There were these items, pairs of pants actually, which doesn’t have a label. So everyone was grabbing for the pants, a tug ensued amongst my uncles, aunts and cousins trying to have the pants to their possession and I was just watching at the corner. When they realized that the pairs of pants were actually made in the Philippines, suddenly the pants were ignored.

A typical colonial mentality syndrome, huh… Anything imported is classy…

Back to my reasoning…

If only the money spent on these balikbayan boxes were sent back home and spent locally, multiply that by a millions of folds. It would definitely stimulate the local economy which will then translate to job creations. A job creation would mean another player in the economy and the ripple effect would be endless.

Having said that, Filipinos dwells more emotionally and culturally that outweighs the economic rationale of the benefits of sending money than in kind.

On the downside, only few amongst our love ones understands the challenges and sacrifices an OFW would go through to fill up that balikbayan box. To say that you would go through an eye of a needle would be an understatement. How many of these balikbayan box senders would spend more than half of his/her salary just to fill up and send a balikbayan box. How many would run into financial difficulties just to regularly send a balikbayan box and to realize the expectations of an unsuspecting love ones.

How many balikbayan box senders will go home at the end of the day with just a balikbayan box as possession….

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This policy is valid from 02 December 2009

This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. This blog accepts forms of cash advertising, sponsorship, paid insertions or other forms of compensation.

The compensation received may influence the advertising content, topics or posts made in this blog. That content, advertising space or post may not always be identified as paid or sponsored content.

The owner of this blog is compensated to provide opinion on products, services, websites and various other topics. Even though the owner of this blog receives compensation for his posts or advertisements, I always give my honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experiences on those topics or products. The views and opinions expressed on this blog are purely the bloggers' own. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider or party in question.

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