THERE is something about the remarkable resilience of Filipinos. In times of natural disasters, we often hear about the adaptability and resilience of Filipinos, and our ability to bounce back time and again. One can perhaps consider this as an intrinsic characteristic of being a Filipino, coupled with the deep belief that the Almighty will provide.

And of course, there’s grit. Sometimes used interchangeably, they generally refer to how well someone carries on and perseveres amid hardships. Resilience is considered a factor in someone’s well-being, while grit is considered an important trait for athletics, or military success, and of late, the academic ability to withstand challenges, notwithstanding the student’s intelligence quotient.

According to current literature, resilient individuals have the ability to “bounce back” following adversity and despite negative experiences. As such, resilience is an attribute of grit. As lead author Angela Duckworth writes, grit refers to the “perseverance and passion toward long-term goals and describes sustained commitment toward completing a specific endeavor despite episodes of failure, setbacks, and adversity.”

Grit and glory

Overseas, Filipinos still carry these traits with them, adapting to change with added vigor. For some, taking the path of least resistance is the norm. However, for overseas Filipino workers, they will willingly face hardships and adversity for the future of their families back home.

Whenever I meet overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who speak of their hardships and sacrifices, particularly in the Middle East, this all too familiar refrain often echoes in my mind. In “Lean on Me,” Bill Withers wrote: “We all have pain, we all have sorrow. But if we are wise, we know that there’s always tomorrow.”

In Khartoum recently, we met some Filipinos who long to return home one day, but are still working on saving up the capital for their goals — from opening their dream beauty shop to sending their kids to college, to building a home for their families. They believe that their families are worth struggling for.

In the words of one OFW, “Ikaw ang mag-create ng buhay mo.” That singular focus in the minds of OFWs — to meet their goal of providing for their loved ones back home sustains them and provides the impetus for them to carry on, despite setbacks and disappointments.

According to the website of the Philippine embassy in Egypt, there are roughly 3,000 Filipinos working, studying and living in Sudan, mostly in the educational, industrial and household service sectors.

As summed up by Angela Duckworth, “Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

And so we see the OFWs working at their day jobs on one hand, and doing part-time work on the other — from selling fish, to cooking meals for expats, to providing selective massage services, to waitressing for special events, and even sewing face masks at the height of the pandemic.

In my travels abroad, particularly in the Middle East, I saw how Filipinos time and again persevere despite physical and emotional hardships, and most often thrive. Their success has been well documented and recognized, from coffee-table books to presidential awards, as model citizens not only for their contribution to their families, to their respective communities, and to nation-building, as well as to the economies of their host countries.

The resilience and strong community ethic of Filipinos reverberate wherever they may be. To cope, they regularly meet to catch up and celebrate special occasions, or religious festivals within the confines of their compounds, from Santacruzan to Halloween parties.

The safe way

Despite the hardships and challenges faced by OFWs, they still want to work overseas to provide a future for their families. Some workers arrive at destinations without a guarantee of a job, but just a network and the promise of a job opportunity.

As Abraham Maslow’s oftquoted theory of human motivation says, as human beings, their needs would dictate their individual behavior, namely, physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.

And so, given their physiological and safety needs, they will find a way to find work, even in countries that may not have the best conditions and social protection measures.

In the case of Sudan, the government ban against the deployment of Filipino workers given the current conditions there, is still in place. However, some would still find a way to work there, while transiting from another place of work abroad, as some workers have shared. And so their plea is to have a legal and safe option to work overseas.

With the new leadership at the Department of Migrant Workers under Secretary Susan V. Ople, I am confident that we can find the right way of balancing the protection of workers and providing the right opportunities for overseas Filipino workers.