A Drop of Water Makes a Mighty Ocean

After reading the blog posts of my blogging friends Nebz entitled "Bayaning napipilitan ka nga ba?" and Yellow Bells (her reply to Nebz post) entitled "Napilitang Bayani Ba Ako?", I cannot avoid to think about OFWs as heroes and its heroism beyond politics.

12 Million Filipinos have crossed borders, they dared to follow their dreams armed with skills and talents, they make a difference among other nationals and were hailed as world class talents in their respective fields, they shaped the world. The global Filipinos have made a marked and maintained the world class standards in various occupational fields, in medical care, customer services, engineering, computer and technology. Imagine a world without OFWs, try to read Kenjie's blog entitled "The Day The World Without OFW".

Alone, your monthly remittance to your family will not have an impact to our country, but the 12 Million OFWs remittances to their families back home sustains the national economy of our nation, from Jan - Oct 2009, a total $14.321 billion was coursed through our country's banking system, no other groups can meet this challenge - kung walang OFW remittances you can imagine what will happen to our economy with the increasing prices of oil in world market.

Every OFW families fills each tables in Jollibee and McDo and other famous food chains; you'll see them in SM, Trinoma, Gateway and Robinson, with their shopping bags they help these malls to survive. Middle class structure of our society is generally composed of families of OFWs. These group are the main consumers and major contributors to VAT collections, they are our families back home.

Outside our homes, have you ever thought that Western Unions exists because of the OFWs, hey don't ignore the long queues every first week of the month on all money exchange centers abroad, Pinoy ang mga nakapila.

We have armed ourselves not only of talents and skills but we have brought faith into the foreign lands. We became missionaries - and take it as a miracle as the Islamic countries in Middle East have allowed us to practice our faith in their lands, new Churches were build, and on weekends, you will see thousands Pinoy Christians filled the church pews.

Who can really measure greatness? Who can define a real hero? Like love, heroism is better felt than defined, better recognized than analyzed. Since 1970's dama ko ang kadakilaan ng bawa't OFW sa kanilang pakikipaglaban sa kahirapang kinamulatan sa sariling bayan.

The low turnout of Overseas Voters registration should not diminish the sacrifices and great contributions of our Global Filipinos. Distrust and hopelessness to the Government and embassies, limited numbers of polling places, poor OAV campaigns and flaws in the OAV law itself are the main reasons behind the disappointing figures during the OAV registration across the globe.

Even if you cannot vote on May 2010, I know YOU have the will power to SAY YES TO CHANGE, let us help others to say YES to what is GOOD and NO to EVIL. We can’t do this without You, we can’t do this without EACH OTHER. Let us unite and guide our families back home to help them select the ideal leaders of our land, let us unite and become a force of history.

Let us be the flash point where the light begins to travel at great speed, igniting compassion, that others might see the power of change and we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Like a drop of water let me merge and mingle in the currents of our particular time and situation and not hold back, but join what nurtures the earth and soaks the seeds of justice and peace.

"Little drops of water, little grains of sand, make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land.  Little minutes, small though they may be, make the mighty ages of eternity."