Every Mother’s Day, this writer greets personally his wife, mother, daughter and daughter-in-law. He also phones or e-mails his sisters, kin and friends who are all Mommies. Then he remembers the Motherland and the millions of Filipino mothers who have been forced to work abroad because of lack of employment opportunities in the homeland. Countless Filipino mothers toil abroad often for near-starvation wages, frequently suffer humiliation, physical and/or sexual abuse and the pangs of not being with their growing children – just because the Filipino government and Philippine society cannot give them the opportunities to be economically free in the homeland.

Then I remember Flor Contemplacion who was hanged in Singapore as a result of then President Cory Cojuangco-Aquino’s failure to protect the Overseas-Filipino woman workers. People can read again my article on Flor Contemplacion in this hyperlink The Woman Leaders of the Philippines Must Protect their Fellow Women 

Mother’s Day should be a day to remember the often-tragic stories of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Filipino Mommies who were forced to be separated from their families because they have to work abroad – so that their family members can have food on the table, shelter over their heads, clothing on their backs and money for education and other basic needs. Some of the Filipino Mommies were mail-order brides and a few of them died at the hands of their foreign husbands. To read again some of these tragic stories involving Filipino mothers and woman workers, please visit the Women's section of this website.

This instant commentary is the 22nd entry in the Women's section.

Perhaps the new Philippine government that will be constituted after the May 2010 national elections can devote extraordinary efforts to protect the Overseas-Filipino woman workers (OFWWs) and bring back the Filipino mothers to their respective families in the homeland. Perhaps the issues of OFWWs, especially the Overseas-Filipino mothers, can be one of the dominant topics in the 2010 Philippine presidential debates. After all, Mother’s Day in 2010 will be the Sunday before the national and local elections are held. # # #

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