Yesterday, January 2, 2018, was the launching of the OFW Watch app in Mynd Consulting’s office in Davao.
This app, which is available for the web, and iPhone and Android devices, was made by my coleagues at Mynd Consulting. It is part of the advocacy of Mynd Consulting’s founder and president, Ma’am Myrna Padilla, on helping OFW’s solve some of their problems. — An app that will help “empower OFWs” is what they call it. — Ma’am Myrna herself is a former OFW, so she has a big heart for her fellow OFWs, and that is the reason why this app was created.
There were people with high positions in the government who came: the representative of OFWs in congress was there; the vice mayor of Davao City also came; and others from DOLE and OWWA. (I cannot remember all the guests’ names and their positions in government.) Also people from the Rotary Club of Davao 2000, where our president Ma’am Myrna Padilla is a member, came.
I got these two pictures below… This was during the unveiling of the app session.
The thing which made me write this post are the words of our president, Ma’am Myrna, during the demo session. The demo was conducted by our project manager, Paul Domag. During the demo, Ma’am Myrna would sometimes interrupt the presentation just to give more details about why a particular feature was included in the app.
After the “Work Journal” feature of the app was presented, Ma’am Myrna told about her story of her being badly treated by some of her employers in the past, when she was still an OFW. She often gets emotional when telling stories like this. She said that in one instance, she was locked in a room. So she looked for paper and write down something, and throw it out the window, hoping that someone will find it if something bad will happen to her.
In her other job, she was was made to sleep in the kitchen even during winter. And this happened during her first days at work. Why did she not just ran away from that employer and go home and find another job? Because that thing was hard to do… because if she goes home, it will be hard and time consuming and expensive for her to get another contract to work abroad.
She choose to endure that kind of treatment just to keep her job, and… this is the best part… she still did the best work that she can with her job even when her employer was not treating her very well, because she was thinking about the next OFW who will work for that employer. She said that if she will not do her best work, her employer might still treat other OFWs badly and they might say that Filipinos are not good workers. She did not want that to happen.
Wow! That is the kind of attitude that we need in our leaders — this heart of being willing to help other people. (I think this kind of attitude is what made President Duterte won, and still win, the hearts of many Filipinos.)
Another reason, she said, why she was still doing a good work even though she was treated badly by her employer was because she wanted the employer to long for the kind of worker like her when she is already gone to work for another employer.
Wow! That is a special kind of attitude, I think 
, because that is an attitude that I do not have, but want to have.
When I heard those words, I remembered what my brother-in-law said about what a teacher told them in the past… it was about the verse in the Bible about stoning with stones and bread…
“if someone hits you a stone, throw him a bread”
It went something like this (not exact words): “If you want to hurt those people who hurt you, do good to them, because the guilt that they will feel when you do good to them will be greater than the hurt you can possibly inflict them with if you do bad to them also. And their heart might be softened because of your kindness!”
… And… they might become your friends someday!
