Advocate or journalist?

Through several people, primary among them Ellene Sana and Noel Esquela of the Center for Migrant Advocacy (CMA), I have been involved with migrants and migrant issues since the early 2000s, 2001 to be exact. This was when a large group of Filipinos came to Manila to lobby for the passage of the Overseas Absentee Voting Bill (now the Overseas Absentee Voting Law). Even before that I had been writing on migrants' issues through Philippine News and Arab News because I wanted to help the OFWs.

Well, I got wrapped up in OFW issues and met a lot of overseas Filipinos who eventually became my friends. Take Mike for example. I wish other OFWs could be as financially literate and independent as he is now. There's also Marvin in the US who's been there for ages (since 1988) and Carlo in the Netherlands. All of them were absentee voting bill advocates along with Robert, Vic, Ka Edong, Tita O, Vic and many others in different parts of the world.

Comments