The real unsung heroes

Undoubtedly, one of the most precious and greatest assets of our country that other countries lack, progressive as they are, is a strong and solid family. It can be said that the Filipino family remains solid and strong obviously because our country has so far been able to thwart efforts of foreign groups to introduce their anti-family measures and practices especially through the enactment of a bill in Congress that will eventually erode the family’s very foundation.

But more importantly, the strength of Filipino families lies in the family members themselves who have been properly trained and equipped with durable family values that enable them to face the pressures of an extremely secular world and the onslaughts of modernism and its high- tech gadgets. Mainly instrumental in assisting the Church to form and preserve such kind of families and their members is a unique organization known as the Christian Family Movement (CFM) where my wife Josie and I have been members for the past 45 years.

The CFM is a parish based movement divided into several “cells” or “units”. It is a unique organization in the sense that it is perhaps the only organization whose members are married couples, widows or widowers and those temporarily or permanently separated, who are aptly described as “solo parents”. The members have projects and programs adopted during bi-monthly meetings geared towards the spiritual and temporal welfare not only of their family but of the society at large.

Worth special mention are the units composed of solo parents because of their dual and heroic roles as breadwinner and homemaker of the family, performing the chores of mother and father, or vice versa. These CFM units were originally conceived to serve as some kind of “mutual crutches” to each other by providing complementary support to their members in coping with the loss of or separation from their loved ones and in the effective performance of their dual roles to rear and/or sustain their families.

The first solo parents unit was formed some 50 years ago by Letty Rivera, the late Viring Ozaeta and Chit Almario. Among the original members were Liling Nuguid, Elsa Alicante, Jo Chuidian, the late Nora Santos (mom of ABS-CBN president Charo Santos-Concio), Remy Parungao, Henry Teves and the late Feling Endencia. Their ranks continued to swell over the years as the ranks of the married CFMers dwindled with the death of their spouses. Most notable additions are Teresa Nieva, Sony Sison, Annie Meilly, Lita Ortigas, Pepe Lugay, Mon Jimenez, Bert Singson and Mon Garcia.

And as they grew, they expanded their apostolate and programs by reaching out and providing support not only to their members but to all the other solo parents and their families. The CFM Solo parents assisted by the CFM couples thus became the primary support groups of the migrant workers (OFWs) and their families by offering to them the CFM family life programs.

The CFM solo parents fully realize that while the ten million overseas workers boost and stabilize the country’s economy with their remittances, their families have to pay for the social costs of their sometimes prolonged separation in terms of emotional, psycho-social, marital and parental problem which if not addressed will result in the breakdown of the family value system and weaken/break relationships between husband and wife, parents and children.

Indeed the Philippines is now considered as the o. 1 provider of overseas workers in 193 countries with 65% composed of women in the 25-35 age bracket, which is the prime of their productive and reproductive lives. Based on the 1999 study commissioned by the CBCP, nine million children are growing up with only one parent as the other parent works abroad. There are also large numbers of children with both parents working abroad. Their families have thus been referred to as the “disappeared” or “invisible” families. Hence the CFM solo parents have decided to focus their outreach program for OFW families on the schools of these children.

And the outreach program is not concentrated merely on Christian families. In Mindanao, particularly in Iligan City, CFMers Raul and Dette Pascual who already migrated but decided to come home for good are now in the midst of introducing it to the families of Muslim OFWs working in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and the Arab countries. The couple hopes to establish interactions between Christian and Muslim OFW families that will eventually bridge the gap and thaw their somewhat icy relations simply because of similarities in their concerns, fears and feelings of loneliness for their loved ones.

The CFM solo parents under its incumbent national chairperson, Lindah Santos will thus fittingly celebrate its golden anniversary on November 29, 2008 with a program starting at 8 a.m. up to 4 p.m. The affair will be held at the Miriam College Campus, in Katipunan Avenue Q.C. where the outreach program for OFW families in partnership with the schools will be formally launched.

One of the speakers is Lita Ortigas, who, with late husband Gasty Ortigas were CFM stalwarts. She will conduct a workshop on “Creative Solo Parenting”. Also invited is writer/teacher Cathy Babao Guballa, a former temporary solo parent when her husband was assigned at Ho Chi Minh City who will focus on communication as a vital cog in the OFW program. Bishop Gabriel Reyes of Antipolo, the chairman of the Episcopal on the Laity, and Migration and Tourism will also share his insights on the OFWs and talk on how the laity can provide special pastoral and social care to OFW families which are important components of the family ministry. Every solo parent who may be interested are invited to the affair.

I am sure most Filipinos are so proud and appreciative of the contributions of our solo parents both here and abroad to our country’s spiritual and temporal welfare. They are truly the unsung heroines and heroes of our times. 

Note: Books containing compilation of my articles on Labor Law and Criminal Law (Vols. I and II) are now available. Call tel. 7249445.

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