Twenty‑five years ago, on February 14, 2001, I boarded for an international flight for the first time. I didn’t know it then, but that moment would become a hinge in my story, a turning point between who I was and who I was becoming. When I look back now, the world I stepped out of feels almost unrecognizable.
This was six years before the iPhone would shrink the world into a touchscreen. Eight months before 9/11 would rewrite the rules of global travel. Right in the middle of the dot‑com bubble, when tech companies were rising and collapsing. Google was still a scrappy upstart. Friendster, Facebook’s forerunner didn’t exist yet.
WAP pages loaded one line at a time — maybe some of you might ask what WAP is, right? And my phone — a Bosch Com608 — was proudly monochrome, good for calls and SMS, nothing more. But that was enough. Back then, a phone wasn’t a lifestyle. It was just a tool.
**
Long before I ever filled out an application form or lined up at a recruitment agency, the idea of working abroad had already planted itself quietly in my imagination. It began in high school, in our small living room, whenever my cousins from overseas sent balikbayan boxes filled with wonders from a world I had never seen.
They worked in the Middle East—places whose names sounded both distant and mysterious to a teenager who had never even flown on a plane. They would send wristwatches, Toblerones, and other pasalubongs that felt almost luxurious to us. We’d gather around the cassette tapes they mailed home, each one carefully packed in thick plastic cases to survive the desert heat. As their voices crackled through the speakers, we’d pore over the photographs tucked inside the box—sun‑bleached snapshots of them standing in some remote Saudi desert, the horizon stretching endlessly behind them.
I remember staring at those photos longer than anyone else. What is life like over there? I wondered. What did it feel like to step into a place so different from home, to earn in a currency that seemed impossibly high, to build a life in a land that looked like the surface of another planet?
Somewhere in those moments, the fantasy began. I started imagining myself working overseas—anywhere, really. The idea of earning more was part of it, of course, but so was the pull of adventure. I thought, Maybe this is where my life is headed. Maybe this is how I’ll see the world.
Years later, when I finally graduated from university, that old dream resurfaced with even more urgency. Every Sunday, I made sure to grab a copy of the Manila Bulletin—the thick Sunday issue with the classifieds section that felt like a passport to the world. I would flip through pages filled with overseas job listings: mainframe programmers, HVAC engineers, nurses, domestic helpers, technicians, hotel staff. Each ad felt like a doorway, a possibility, a reminder that thousands of Filipinos were already out there, building lives in places I had only seen in those old photographs.
And I told myself, One day, I’ll be one of them.
**
Table of Contents
Life Before the Leap
Before I was employed at Zurich Insurance in Makati, I had been with PhilWeb — first in Cagayan de Oro, then at their Makati office in The Enterprise Center. My exit was abrupt, almost cinematic. One weekend, with no grand plan, I submitted an application to Zurich Insurance. It was one of those impulsive decisions you make in your twenties, when you’re equal parts hopeful and reckless.
Then the unexpected happened.
Zurich’s IT manager, Joel Tanangonan — Sir JT — invited me for an interview. It was a drizzling Makati afternoon as I walked from Ayala Avenue to Paseo de Roxas, umbrella in hand, weaving through jeepneys and office workers. Inside Citibank Tower, the interview was simple, direct, and life‑altering. Sir JT made an offer that doubled my salary. I said yes.
And just like that, a new chapter began.
Finding my rhythm in Makati
I moved into a rented apartment in Barangay Bel‑Air — not the gated, celebrity‑filled Bel‑Air Village, but the humbler side that charges P2,000 per room complete with amenities, and where young professionals learned how to stretch a salary until the next cutoff. My routine was simple:
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- Take a jeep from Landmark to Reposo
- Walk to Citibank Plaza
- Attend Mass at St. Andrew’s Parish on Sundays
- Visit Uncle Max and his family in San Andres Bukid on weekends
Inside the office, I was a web developer wrestling with HTML tables, framesets, and the quirks of early browsers. I struggled with Lotus Notes email setup — who didn’t? — and our room was so cold it felt like Zurich had imported Swiss winter into Citibank Tower. I shared that icy space with Garry Ramos and Maricris Manlapaz, who would later play quiet but crucial roles in my story.
I had only been with Zurich for about two months when the next twist arrived.
The email that opened the metaphorical door to a career abroad
One ordinary day, an email landed in my inbox. It was from Nikhil Gupta, a recruitment consultant representing PCCW, Hong Kong’s telecom giant previously named as Hongkong Telecom. He said he got my information from a previous application — one I barely remembered because I had sent out hundreds of résumés during my job‑hunting frenzy.
He arranged a phone interview. I took the call quietly while on duty, stepping away from my desk while Garry and Maricris kept watch like co‑conspirators. Nothing was promised. Nothing felt certain.
A week later, Nikhil emailed again: someone from PCCW was flying to Manila to conduct interviews. I was invited.
The Oakwood interview
I took a day off — a small risk for someone still new at Zurich — and went to Oakwood Hotel, the very site where a military mutiny would take place in a few years. The lobby was filled with applicants in business attire, each carrying their own version of hope. The interview was brief, almost rushed. Two of the panelists were Chinese nationals. They asked a few questions, took notes, and thanked me.
It was over before I could process it.
I went home, slept, and woke up doubting everything. Maybe it would end like all the others — a polite rejection or silence.
But life has a way of moving quietly before it moves dramatically.
The jeepney call that changed everything
Days later, I went to Landmark to buy small white goods for my apartment — a flat iron, extra hangers, simple things that made a rented space feel like home. I boarded a jeepney, groceries on my lap, mind drifting toward dinner.
Then my mobile phone rang.
It was Ms. Pe Benito from the Oakwood interview. Her voice was calm, almost casual.
“You got the job. We’ll call you for further briefing on the next steps.”
For a moment, I froze. The jeepney engine hummed. People moved around me. But my world had shifted.
I walked home carrying home appliances in one hand and a life‑changing secret in the other.
Garry and Maricris were the first to know. They celebrated with me — genuinely, warmly — because they understood what it meant for someone from the province to get a chance to work abroad.
Soon after, I learned that only fifteen applicants were selected. We met during follow‑up sessions with recruitment consultant Vitus Tong. Names became familiar: Jun Rey, Raymond Ona, Edwin Macabutas, Sheila Tablante, Mae Jose, Junjun Olympia, Nino Debonbon, Leo Suyat, Martin Fernandez, Ishmael Malik, Christopher de Leon, Jay Redor, and Karen Obispo.
The Rituals Every OFW Aspirant Knows by Heart
My journey toward working abroad didn’t begin at the airport or with a job offer. It began in the slow, grinding rituals that every OFW aspirant goes through—the errands, the queues, the paperwork, the sweat, the uncertainty. These were the unglamorous steps that tested your patience long before you ever set foot on foreign soil.
One of the first stops was Arguelles Medical Clinic in Manila for the mandatory medical exam. Anyone who has gone through this knows the drill: blood extraction, urine sample, dental check, chest X‑ray, eye test.
You shuffle from one room to another, clutching your forms, waiting for your name to be called. The clinic smelled faintly of alcohol and photocopied paper. Around me were people of every background—seafarers bound for Norwegian lines, domestic helpers heading to Singapore, factory workers hoping for Taiwan. We talked in fragments, sharing stories to pass the time, each of us carrying our own version of hope.
In between these requirements, we occasionally met with Vitus for orientation sessions at Starbucks—thankfully close to my office. I would quietly slip out from work, pretending to run an errand, then sit there listening to him explain the next steps while I nursed a lukewarm latte. Those meetings felt like secret missions, as if I were preparing for a life that no one at the office knew I was about to enter.
Then came the government requirements. The PDOS at POEA Mandaluyong was another rite of passage. The lines were long, the instructions unclear, and the process painfully slow. You filled out forms that asked for everything—birth dates, passport numbers, parents’ names, addresses—details that could easily be misused if they fell into the wrong hands. But you had no choice. You followed the system because that was the only way forward.
We crisscrossed Manila through the MRT, squeezed between commuters, sweating in the afternoon heat, carrying folders stuffed with documents. Every station felt like a checkpoint in a long obstacle course. Everyone around us seemed to be chasing the same dream: a job abroad, a better salary, a chance to rewrite their future.
For reasons I can no longer recall, Karen and Rogelio fell behind in the processing. That delay pushed the three of us behind the twelve others in our batch who were scheduled to fly ahead to Hong Kong. At the time, it felt like a setback. Looking back, it was just another twist in a journey that was never meant to be straightforward.
The Valentine’s Day Flight
And then, finally, the day came. February 14, 2001, Valentine’s Day. While others were exchanging roses and chocolates, we were boarding an afternoon Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. My heart was pounding, not from romance, but from the weight of everything that had led to this moment.
On the way to the boarding gate, I ran into a hometown neighbor, Cesar Sumbeling. He was also flying out—maybe to Dubai. Seeing someone familiar in that vast airport made the world feel smaller. It reminded me that even as we widened our horizons, we carried pieces of home with us. Every familiar face, every shared smile, every “Uy, ikaw pala!” softened the fear of stepping into the unknown.
As the plane lifted off, I looked out the window and realized that the dream that began with wristwatches, Toblerones, cassette tapes, and desert photos was finally becoming real. The boy who once imagined life overseas was now on his way.
Arrival in a Rain‑Soaked Hong Kong
When our Cathay Pacific flight touched down in Hong Kong that Valentine’s Day afternoon, the city greeted us with rain—thin, cold, and persistent. It wasn’t the dramatic downpour we knew from home, but a damp winter drizzle that seeped into your clothes and made everything feel heavier. At the arrival hall, Vitus was already waiting, waving us over with the calm efficiency of someone who had done this many times before.
We piled into a van that took us through unfamiliar streets, the windows fogging up as we crossed into North Point. The city felt dense and alive even in the rain—neon signs glowing against the gray sky, buses gliding past with a quiet hum, pedestrians moving briskly under umbrellas. When we reached Century Inn Hotel North Point (now Ibis Hong Kong North Point), the others who had flown ahead were already there. The reunion was loud, chaotic, and comforting. We were all newcomers, all wide‑eyed, all trying to absorb the fact that we were finally here.
The first order of business was universal: secure phone cards. Everyone rushed to the nearest convenience store, fumbling with unfamiliar brands and denominations. One by one, we called home—parents, siblings, partners—telling them we had arrived safely, that Hong Kong was cold and rainy, that we were excited, nervous, hungry. The calls were short but full of relief. Afterward, we found ourselves at a nearby KFC, sharing a simple dinner that tasted like celebration.
Exploring Our New City
The next day, we explored the city together. From North Point, we boarded the tram—those iconic double‑deckers that glide slowly through Hong Kong Island—and rode all the way to Sheung Wan, where PCCW’s office was located. The tram rattled gently as it passed through neighborhoods that felt like scenes from a movie: wet markets, old tong lau buildings, narrow streets lined with shops selling everything from dried seafood to electronics.
Soon, reality set in. We were assigned to different offices. Some stayed in Sheung Wan, others were sent to Lai Chi Kok or further out. But even as work scattered us across the city, the group stayed close. We chose to live in clusters—three or four in a flat—mostly around Sai Ying Pun and Kennedy Town. Those high‑rise apartments were cramped, but they were ours. They were the first homes we built in a foreign land.
The Smells, the Streets, the Memories
Certain memories remain vivid even now. The unmistakable smell of Café de Coral—the mix of soy sauce, fried noodles, and something uniquely Hong Kong. The streets of Sheung Wan, always carrying the scent of dried seafood that clung to your clothes long after you passed by. The cold wind that cut through your jacket as you waited for the tram. The feeling of being small in a massive city, yet strangely at home.
Looking back from today, I’m grateful I chose this path. My OFW journey has been a roller coaster: full of highs and lows, detours, and lessons I never expected. But that rainy afternoon arrival, that first tram ride, that first dinner with people, many of whom would become lifelong friends, those moments remind me why it was all worth it.