(Photo Courtesy of Philstar)

I am very impressed with Timor’s First Lady & Professor Jacqueline Aquino Siapno-De Araojo. Like a typical balikbayan, she together with 5-year-old son Hadomi in tow, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport more than a week or so ago and was met by her mother. After exchanging greetings, they took a cab and headed to a bus terminal in Pasay City where they boarded a bus bound for her native Dagupan.

Now that is very humbling. No airs! No pretensions or feelings of entitlement! I am absolutely charmed by her humility. I would rather focus on her as a person.

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I read it a few days ago in the Inquirer. It’s a good thing Carlo Ople, a friend reminded me of Our women, their slaves by Susan Ople. The problem here is that women who seek employment outside the country keep on getting victimized by illegal recruiters. They end up working in a distant land, cut off from their family, and what’s worse is they get physically abused – sometimes molested… and they don’t even get paid. It’s literally modern day slavery. Here are two case studies of Filipinas caught in the web of modern day slavery.
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A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu

I first met Joy Rojas in early 2006 when she interviewed me and two of my friends for The Compassionate Friends. Her article came out in the Sunday Inquirer which paved the way for the awareness of my support group. The success of the article comforted so many bereaved parents and eventually inspired me to be a blogger so I could spread the awareness further.

Now I want to give back, and help Joy achieve her dream.

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Every now and then, we receive positive or negative emails from our readers from all over the world but it is not often that a Western man sends us his thoughts about the Filipina. Let me introduce you to Steve Schertzer who provides insights on the image of the modern Filipina.

Part 1

What a privilege and honor it was for me to come across both of your websites, www.filipinaimages.com and www.laurganism.com. What has been upsetting me lately is the very thing that has made you angry in recent years: The image and perception of the contemporary Filipina. Like you said, just google the word “Filipina” and what appears on every computer screen is mail order bride services masquerating as dating or key-pal websites, and more pornographic pictures of Filipinas than anyone can count.

In fact, these websites seem to be leading the charge in promoting today’s Filipina as little more than desperate gold-diggers who would do anything to meet a foreign man more than twice their age. They are often described as “sex kittens” and “coy” or “submissive” who would make good wives for older, Western men. This is insulting to both Filipinas and to myself as a Western man.

But as we are all too aware, many Filipinas today— in fact, too many of them— often portray themselves that way to get a foreign man to support both her and her family. Philippine society is not doing itself any favors by keeping its collective head in the sand by ignoring this issue. With hundreds of thousands of Filipina prostitutes plying their trade in places like Manila and Angeles City, (not to mention in countries like Japan and South Korea on “Entertainment” visas), the modern day Filipina is also a major contributor to the image of the Philippines as an international clearing house for prostitution.

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