PARACELIS, Mountain Province – Parents always want to give their families better living conditions so that their children will not suffer the hardships that they had experienced while growing up and one of the options being considered by wives and husbands or both spouses is working overseas to realize their dreams for their families.
For Emma Dawadao -Codiam-Banggot, 31, a native of sitio Mabaclao, barangay Bantay, here, working in Japan as a building cleaner will definitely help in improving the difficult living condition of their family but not after making supreme sacrifices while she will be away for at least three years. She is the fourth of eight children of Winston Sikyabon Codiam and Nora Dawadao Codiam, both farmers from the said place and is married to Carlos Baliza Banggot, a corn farmer from barangay Boringal, where the couple was blessed with a 2-year old daughter. The Codiam couple is blessed with 4 male and four female children where most of them have their own families and jobs except for the 7th child who is in college and the 8th who died due to a lingering illness while he was only one year old.
“I do not want my family to experience the hardships of life that we experienced while growing up. I had to grab the rare opportunity of being given the chance to work in Japan under a noble program,” Banggot stressed.
At a tender age, she was already exposed to the difficulties of life having to help her parents in the farm work and do some household chores before attending classes in an elementary school in their place.
In 2007, her family experienced the most painful and difficult chapter of their life when their last child died due to a lingering illness when he was one year old. Her parents had to sell the animals aiding them in their farming activities and some of their real properties just to raise the needed resources for the medication of their child but the same was in vain.
“I was able to graduate from high school in 2009 or two years after the untimely demise of our youngest brother but I had to forego pursuing a higher degree of education because my family’s resources were already drained. I had to look for possible sources of income to earn for my future education and other needs,” Emma quipped.
From 2009 to 2015, she went to various places to look for a job. She went to Metro Manila area, Bulacan, Cavite among others and worked as a house help, factory worker among others just for her to survive the difficulties of life and be able to earn for her future studies.
In 2015, she decided to go back home and pursue her college education by enrolling in the course Bachelor of Science in Forestry at the State-run Nueva Vizcaya State University based on Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Aside from her earnings while working outside her hometown, her family members also pitched in some money for her to complete her studies. Luckily, she was able to graduate from the said institution in 2019.
After her graduation, Emma was lucky enough to be employed as a contractual employee of the Community Environment and Natural Resources Office in Paracelis where she was able to practice her profession as a forester by monitoring the implementation of the government’s National Greening Program, assisting in seedling production in established nurseries and other related work that allowed her to have a stable source of income for her to give back to her family.
Sometime last year, her uncle encourage her to try attending the 4-month Nihongo language training that will be conducted in the municipality under the Join us for Progress: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs program of the Dominguez family in partnership with the Manila-based Philippine Global Human Resource Information Center as it will be a requisite for work in Japan. More importantly, the said training will be free for those who will be screened and qualified to undergo the rigid language course.
At that time, Emma narrated that what was opened to interested applicants was farm work which had an age limit of 20-26 but she still tried her luck to take the free offering to expand her knowledge on the foreign language.
“I nearly lost hope of having a chance to work in Japan during the training because my fellow trainees had been invited for interviews by prospective employers for farm work. There was even a time when I told the language training coordinator that it is useless to be excelling in the training when it seems that there is no chance for her to be qualified for an overseas work,| Emma added.
However, Flora Awingan Fanitog, the current Nihongo language training coordinator in Paracelis, urged her not to lose hope because there is always the right timing for everything and what is important is for her to continue doing what is right in the training.
Emma narrated that in one of the online training session that she attended, a Japanese employer informed the class that there are openings for building cleaners where there is no age or height limit that gave her the courage to continue and complete the language training amidst the challenges that had existed at that time.
When I heard the announcement, I told myself that it was the job that I wanted,” she emphasized.
When it was time for Emma and her colleagues from other places to be personally interviewed by their prospective employers in Manila, she prayed hard before, during and after the interview for her to be given the chance to work in Japan even as a building cleaner.
“I thought that I had no chance of being selected because my fellow interviewees were really promising in their appearance and the way they answer the questions of the panel. I continued to pray hard while waiting for the announcement on who among us will be the lucky ones to be hired,” Emma said.
After a while, the interviewees were again called back by the panel inside the room for the announcement of who will be the ones that will be selected for the job and Emma started to be nervous and wary about what will happen inside.
“I saw the members of the panel discussing among themselves while we were entering the room. When the first number of the one that was selected was announced, mam flora suddenly jumped for joy. I was shocked to learn that it was my number that was announced to be one of those who were selected. I smiled and thanked the panel for giving me the rare opportunity to work in Japan,” she stipulated.
Emma is about to complete another round of training at the Bulacan-based Sage Asian Language Center, one of the partners of the Dominguez family in the implementation of the said program prior to her deployment to Japan by next month. She already signed a three-year contract with the Kumamoto-based Shinji Iwasaki Kyushu Green Service Corporation as a building cleaner.
“My family served as my inspiration and motivation to gain initial success in this endeavor. I do not want my family members to experience the hardships that I had been into during my younger age. I trust in my husband who will be left behind,” she said.
Under the said program, qualified and selected individuals will be given a 3-year special training visa that could be extended up to five years at the choice of the beneficiary and even up to ten years depending on their performance in their work.
For her part, Awingan described Emma to be diligent and patient and she attributed her success to her desire to strive for excellence in work and studies.
Emma hopes that her story will serve as an inspiration and motivation for those individuals wanting to work overseas and leave their families behind for greener pastures so that all aspects and implications of the said endeavor will be given due consideration before making the difficult decision to take the available overseas work.
She also expressed her family’s gratitude to the Dominguez family for conceptualizing, investing and making the program happen because it will surely help many people from the different parts of Mountain Province uplift the living condition of their respective families and that may the Lord continue showering them with more blessings so that more people will benefit from the program in the future. By Dexter A. See