This is a true story of a relative OFW homecoming in the Philippines, drawn from my own experience and memory. I write it here as creative nonfiction flash memoir, using the devices of writing short fiction. I changed all the real names to protect the people in the narrative, but I hope that I have preserved the emotional truth of what happened during this family reunion.
This OFW homecoming story reflects not only one return, but the weight of distance, waiting, and reunion that many Filipino families know intimately. In sharing this, I invite you to return to your own memories. Write about a person who has left a lasting imprint on your life. You don’t need to explain why they matter, simply stay with that moment of encounter, or a scene, and let the experience and emotion speak for itself.
Tagalog Words in Migrations as an OFW Homecoming
The words listed below do not appear as formal entries within the written text itself; instead, they live within the context of the narrative as it unfolds. The story was first blogged in an older digital space and is carried here to trace instances of language in motion within Filipino culture—how words are spoken, implied, and understood beyond the page.
The list of Tagalog words below comes to the fore of the narrative happening in real time—not as definitions imposed from outside, but as meanings revealed through use, through dialogue, and through the everyday conditions that give rise to them.
• OCW – Overseas Contract Workers (also OFW — Overseas Filipino Workers)
• Padating na (coming home)
• Pasalubong (souvenirs brought home by every Filipino for family)
• Bagahe (luggage or baggage)
• Turis[t] (tourist), magtuturist (will apply for a tourist visa)
• Inday (term of endearment, often a nickname in Bacolod)
• Na-deny (embassy denied application to go abroad)
• Lagay (unlawful expenses required by agencies from OFW applicants)
• Para-paraan lang yan (idiom: if there’s a will, there’s a way)
• Sinuwerte (lucky to be granted visa, etc.)
• Mag-apply sa abroad (applying to work abroad)
• Nadale ng agency (swindled or overcharged by hiring agency)
• Asa na (dependent)
When Ligaya Came Home
Everyone was waiting at the airport when Ligaya came home. Kuya Fred and Tata, Belle-au and Vicky, Pa and Ma, Inday, and her one-year-old son Jimboy. Ligaya cried upon seeing her son; the last time she saw him was six months ago. Inday had taken care of him since Ligaya left to return to her nursing post at a hospital in Sheffield, England. Inday is her youngest sister, who, like the rest of her siblings, is jobless. Only Tata is earning an income from driving the jeepney Ligaya bought two years ago, and now they were riding that jeepney as they went home to Bacolod.
“Baya…” there were hugs and kisses and more hugs and kisses, but Ligaya wanted most to hug her son. Jimboy only stared at her, but cried when she attempted to get him from Inday. The toddler sat restlessly on Inday’s lap on their way home. Ligaya was thinking about how she could take her son back with her to London, where he was born. Who would take care of him there while she worked? She was thinking of his privilege: at least seventy pounds every month from the British government. The boy might lose this privilege if he remained in the Philippines.
She was thinking about how lonely she was without Roy and Jimboy on her side. Roy, her husband, used to work in the same hospital she worked in, but had recently found greener pastures on a US cruise ship. He was always complaining about the huge taxes they paid in London and looked for new employment. The uncertainties loomed in her head. What would happen to her family? Ligaya herself was going to be a British citizen in another year. Could she give up her job in London and follow her husband to the US?
Meanwhile, she needed to buy back their house in Bacolod, which was amortized when her father was hospitalized because of a stroke. She would talk to a former classmate who had been granted a multiple-entry visa after applying for a tourist visa and passing the interview at the British embassy. Maybe that classmate would stay with Ligaya for six months in London to take care of her son while she worked at the hospital. Ligaya also wanted to pay her sister Vicky’s debts and help Belle-Au apply as a domestic helper in London.
Ligaya was also waiting to be reunited with her husband, who was now a ship nurse. She secured this unpaid leave because Roy was also coming home to his parents and siblings in Batangas. The two planned to be together once more as a family. But until Roy came, she would stay with her family in Bacolod.
The day after her arrival, her siblings suggested they take the little boy out for an outing. Ligaya was excited. After six months of cold weather, she wanted to see the beach, eat rice and adobo with her hands, and savor sweet mangoes. She provided gasoline money, grocery budget, beach expenses, and everything needed for the trip. The family exchanged stories on the beach, ate plenty, sang songs together, swam, built sandcastles, and Ligaya played with her son, who could now walk with only a little help.
After that happy day, the next days were full of domestic arrangements. Ligaya bought groceries for the week. Every sibling was still living with Pa and Ma. She reasoned to herself that maybe it was okay for Tata, even if he was already married, to stay home with their parents. She was glad Tata’s child Bing was close in age to Jimboy, and they were already playmates. The twenty thousand pesos she sent monthly to her parents helped support even Tata’s family. She thought of how to repay Inday for taking care of her son—perhaps send her to school so she could become a midwife and someday work abroad. She had hoped Vicky would pass the nursing board exam, but Vicky failed and was now earning unstable commissions in telemarketing—her third “so-so” job that did not last.
Even as Ligaya began to reconnect with her son, her mind swam with the hundred and one things she needed to settle within her three-week unpaid vacation. Family debts, migration plans, her marriage, and her son’s future pressed in all at once.
Before she slept that night at the beach, she stared at the stars and marvelled at the vastness above her. How she wished she had the same wide space. How she wished to make every part of her life shine. But until everything was settled, she felt trapped in a very small corner.
Write Your Own Memory
If this story stirred a memory in you, I’m inviting you to write your own. Write about that moment, a person, or a scene that has stayed with you over time. Share your memoir or flash story here: https://www.ninangjatwordhouse.com/write-fellows
Or join a guided memoir writing workshop to shape your personal stories into publishable pieces: https://www.ninangjatwordhouse.com/creative-writing-wordfellow-shop-2
Return to the experience in the lived language of your years.
