THE FILIPINO DIASPORA WITH/IN THE MEDIA: Notes on Sunday Beauty Queen (2016) by Baby Ruth Villarama

(i) Sunday Beauty Queen (2016) by Baby Ruth Villarama is our localized, modern day “Cinderella” story that unravels the experience of Filipino domestic helpers in Hong Kong, who work 24 hours a day every six days and transform into pageant beauty queens for just one day on Sundays. This documentary bagged many awards from different award-giving bodies by its particular yet universal approach of telling the tales of Rudelie Acosta, Leo Selomenio, Cherry Bretania, Mylyn Jacobo, and Hazel Perdido, who all managed to provide us a glimpse of what it is like to wear the shoes of an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), without glamorizing the nature of their work. 

(ii) In theory, Filipino academicians refer to the phenomenon behind the massive exporting of our workforce as “Filipino diaspora” because diaspora literally means the massive dispersion of our Filipino people outside our country, very far from their own ‘ancestral homelands.’ Though the word diaspora is widely more known and used in understanding the historical and Biblical perspectives about the exile of the Jews in the Ancient Palestine by the Babylonians, the coining of the term being exclusively catered to understand the Filipino experience is due to the fact that it is its own unique experience and truth that is still being felt and seen within our nation. 

(iii) But this does not mean that they are different. No; both of them, the Filipinos and the Jews — most especially the Palestinian people in the current world conflict right now — bleed in the same vein or universal truth of being both exiled or uprooted by their own oppressors who enslave them for acquisition of more politically global power by using them as slaves for economic, business, commercial, and agricultural benefits. 

(iv) To focus on further understanding the concept of the Filipino diaspora is to also grasp Epifanio San Juan Jr.'s vital text about them in his critical work The Filipino Diaspora (2001) where he first asserted in his text that: “Filipinos are dispersed [because]…migration is seen as freedom to seek one's fortune, experience the pleasure of venture, libidinal games of resistance, etc.” Because in a third world postcolonial country that we are living in: hope is in the form of “diaspora,” or moving to another country, given the kind of economic climate that we are in for more than decades now to the point that our countrymen will be extremely obliged to “tiis (suck it in)”, even if they were being treated unjustly and illegally already.

(v) But that alone is not fully enough to understand the concept of Filipino diaspora because “[The] Filipino collective identity is [always] in crisis and in a [constant] stage of formation and elaboration.” We must accept that this concept of “consciousness” is still alive, and many of our people remain overseas because, aside from neoliberalism, they are also “not obsessed with a physical return to roots or to land where common sacrifices are remembered and celebrated.”

(vi) But, why is that so? Why are the Filipino Diaspora so trapped in the “symbolic 

homeland” that they have created overseas?

(1) From then until now, the “Ongoing support for nationalist struggles at home is sporadic and intermittent.” and this was expressed in one of the striking scenes in the documentary, for me, during the “Bethune House” scene wherein the members in the said house (which is for the people who are in dire need of shelter and help) expressed their frustration with the policies of both Philippine and Hong Kong government because they could not help the troubled Filipino workers in Hong Kong for the policy that was made to protect them actually oppresses them more because it requires them to swiftly find another job or contractor for the next “14 days.” And once the period ends, the terminated or unemployed Filipino worker will be then considered as an “illegal alien,” just like what almost happened to Rudelie during the first ten minutes of the film. 

(2) Such rule like the 14-day-rule is oppressive because it is not easy to find a job, especially for third-world Filipino domestic helpers in a “first-world country” like Hong Kong, within just two weeks — right after they were terminated for whatever reason their contractor might give to them, which unfortunately can be truly unfair, skewed, and unlawful to our Filipino workers. As Leo and Judy (his partner) reflected upon in the documentary, “If only [our fellow Filipino] people knew… employers spend more on their cats and dogs than their maids.” 

(3) This is where the importance of media, specifically this documentary, for the OFWs comes in because this art form immortalizes, raises awareness, and makes more people understand and empathize with their struggles, oppression, and marginalization in the foreign land through each frame of the film. The media for the Filipino Diaspora is an important extension of their “humanness” that their jobs stripped them of; it is their form of revolt and resistance against the neocolonialism the higher world countries have planted deep inside our country’s roots. 

(4) However, the Filipino diaspora to the Philippine media is different. The kind of treatment or interaction media does to our Filipino Diaspora is more of a “representational” one, even fabricated and highly romanticized (i.e., OFWs as “Bagong Bayani”) to be overt, wherein they cover their experiences — might it be either positive or negative — as a people uprooted from our country. If not “representation,” the media paints the opportunity of being a part of the Filipino diaspora as a “bright opportunity” to everyone when in fact: it is not always the “actual” scenario for every OFWs. Some children of OFW parents even lamented online that being an OFW is actually more of a victimizing experience for them, or a trap to the systemic abuse that our status quo has again and again punished us, even if it’s not our entirely fault for the way that it is at all. 

(5) Hence, the problem now lies more on the structural problem of the media in communicating the voices of the Filipino diaspora in such a way that will properly address the political and racially-charged inequities, systemic abuse, and the misconception that both the nation, the state, and the media itself made about them. This problem is just one of the many causes that entraps a Filipino diaspora in the foreign country because as long as the media is not free from the idealization, and most importantly, sensationalism of the OFWs: they would also never be free from our broken state system that holds them back from going home to their families.

(6) Despite the issues surrounding the media's interaction with the Filipino diaspora, we should still acknowledge the positive contributions it brings to the said community, particularly through broadcast media. As San Juan stated for his second assertion in the aforementioned text, “Indigenous food, dances, and music can be acquired as commodities whose presence temporarily heals the trauma of removal; family reunification can resolve the psychic damage of loss of status or alienation.”

(7) Based on the stories of both my mother and aunt (who were once both OFWs), their oasis, solace, and source of comfort during the 20 years they went overseas were the local TV Channels like, The Filipino Channel, a.k.a. TFC, by ABS-CBN) that broadcasts local programs, shows, and various music and variety shows on their dormitory’s televisions. Because amidst the many foreign channels mostly offered to their TVs, they chose to always turn on our local channels to  never feel too far away from “home.” Gloc-9 even shared on Toni Talks that his father, who is also an OFW, will buy all of his merch even if he doesn’t have a lot of money because he quote what his father said that “When I have a lot of this (Gloc 9’s merch), it feels like I’m home.”

(8) Proven also by a dissertation made by Ethel Marie P. Regis' study about TFC through the perspective of the Filipino diaspora, her explanation of TFC extended San Juan’s second thesis because she explained that “TFC can be a tool for offering new representations, claiming media space, parking critical dialogue, and community action… the TV programs from the Philippines sustain immigrant viewers [because] viewers are [more] drawn to ethnic specific programs [that] best caters to their needs and desires.”

(9) This is why the “arts” are still important, even for OFWs, because the arts (especially of media) somehow gives them the key to a temporary escape from the harsh, brutal realities of life. Their antidote to cope with their everyday lives abroad as they hustle their bodies out just to give something for their families that they have left behind, in exchange of a good life and bright future for them, in the Philippines. After all, migration is a result of the cancerous systemic inequalities and not just a result of their “ambition.” Migration has become an almost requisite nowadays for survival to keep themselves and their families alive and make it to another day. 

(10) Since we have always seen how documentary films, movies and teleseryes in general (i.e., The Flor Contemplacion Story; Anak; Milan; Hello, Love, Goodbye, etc.) provide an alternative space for the Filipino diaspora to be represented through multiple forms of media, as it is now easier to somehow believe or accept that these efforts are beneficial for the betterment of the OFWs abroad. This is because it provides them the right amount of fulfilment to have a part of their displaced individuality represented within the realm of spectacle.

(11) But I also believe that this is not enough, as there is more than what lies beneath the surface; there are much deeper problems that cannot only be resolved through representation. It is sad to see that until now the third assertion of San Juan about the Filipino diaspora still holds true until today: “Alienation in the host country is what unites Filipinos, a shared history of colonial and racial subordination, marginalization, and struggles for cultural survival through hybrid forms of resistance and political rebellion.”

(12) What’s even sadder is the fact that the OFWs are our country’s “most valuable export” and yet this documentary showed to us that even our own authorities cannot effectively implement their own policies to our fellow countrymen from abroad. Yes, there are laws covering or protecting our OFWs such as the act amending the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Workers Act of 1995 (RA 10022), the establishment of Overseas Workers Welfare Association or OWWA (RA 10801), and the establishment of Department of Migrant Workers act (RA 11641). 

(13) But still, the OFWs are still not safe from being vulnerable to such problems and abuse like contract substitution, unpaid and delayed salaries by their abusive contractors, exploitation, poor living conditions, and as shown in the film, illegal termination. All because there is a lack in the proper execution and processing of care and support for our OFWs in the foreign lands. What a poetically ironic situation to say the least. 

(14) Until then, as long as there are no proper review and revision of such policies, like the “14-day-rule” in Hong Kong and many unjust laws and regulations more that we are yet to know or learn about, for both local and foreign governments for our OFWs, all that is left for them to do is to continue singing the same broken melody of oppression that they voice out all together as they continuously hold and keep their marginalized voices to themselves as the years go on with their lives, in the foreign land.

(15) Even if it is stated in San Juan’s text that they are not obsessed with returning to our homeland, the Philippines: that does not mean that they absolutely do not think of coming back home. In actuality, that is the ultimate dream. It is the same theme that they continue, and even incessantly, sing as they spend more of their time serving at their employer’s house — watching the planes go across outside their windows every now and then. 

(16) At last, Sunday Beauty Queen does more than highlight the experiences of OFWs: it challenges us to fill in the narrative gaps about our people; it demands us to finally showcase the “real” lives behind our OFWs, and; it invites us to continuously expose and deconstruct the structures that continues to marginalize and build harmful myths to our people. Because when we learn to do just those and build authentic, emotional frames within systemic, policy failures, we tell a more rounder story that demands and pushes for a “real” change. After all, a documentary that ends with applause is already an expected one, as always — but the one that ends with action, like Sunday Beauty Queen, is what our status quo needs nowadays.