Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) is a term often used to refer a Filipino migrant

workers, Filipino with citizenship who reside in another country for a limited period of time

or employment. The term Overseas Filipino Worker was used as early as the 1990’s to refer

to Filipino Migrant Workers when Republic Act of 1995 was enacted. The term was

officially adopted by the Philippine government when the Philippine Overseas Employment

Administration (POEA) adopted the 2002 POEA rules and regulations governing the

recruitment and employment of land based overseas workers.

Filipino migrant workers have been working outside the Philippine islands as early as

1990’s , when Filipino agricultural workers were deployed to Hawaii to satisfy temporary

labor needs in the US’s territory’s agricultural sector. According to the Philippine

Department of Labor and Employment “active and systemic migration” of Filipinos for

temporary employment began by the 1960’s when the United States of Government,

contractor of the United States armed forces, and civilian agencies began recruiting Filipinos

to work in jobs in the construction and service sector.

The Philippine overseas Employment Administration is a government agency tasked

with supervising labor recruitment agencies in the Philippine Recruitment and deployment

agencies are mandated by the POEA to monitor the situation of the overseas Filipino Workers

including with their respective employers and if their employers provide them the assistance

in case of emergency.

According to the Commision on Overseas Filipinos, there are 10.4 million Filipinos

living abroad. OFW’s according to the Philippine Statistical Authority estimated that there

are 2.3 million Filipino workers abroad.

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the number of Overseas Filipino

Workers (OFW’s) who worked abroad at anytime during the period April to September 2018
was estimated at 2.3 million. Overseas contract workers (OCW’s) and other destination of the

total OFW’s during the period April to September 2018. Saudi Arabia is the leading

destination of the OFW’s and other destination of OFW’s were Hongkong and Qatar.

There are different areas that Overseas Filipino workers faced which they were

working in abroad. There are factors that contributes why these Filipinos chose to work

abroad than working in their home country. This paper aims to discuss the experiences of

OFW which they had during their stay in a particular country for a period of time and the

reasons why they chose to work in that country.

Analiza Vargas is from Sorsogon City who chose to work abroad particularly in

Jordan. Jordan was her first country to reach abroad and she works there as domestic helper.

She process her papers through a legal agency. She chose to work abroad for a reason that she

wants her children to finish its studies and also to save money for them to have a better way

of living, she works into a family who works at the government of Jordan. Her employer

treats her well, gives her the right treatment that a person should have but then the mother of

her employer is the opposite around. She was being eaten by the old woman by smashing her

and not giving the food to eat during meal time when her employer was not around. She

chose to stay and survived those treatment for 2 years. After the end of her contract she

returned home, she went back to her family experiencing problems because she left her

family a bit miserable and she returned and faced a family that is more miserable. Since one

of her daughter got pregnant that result to quit from studying. After several months, she again

decided to return to work abrad o sustain the needs of her children