Contrary to common perception, not all overseas Filipino workers acquire financial stability after working abroad. Some come home even poorer than before.
One such OFW is Cristeta Bercasio, 45, of Lanas village in this town.  After working for several years in Hongkong, Dubai and Jordan as domestic helper, she came home and ended up as “agturtor ti pagay,” or as a gleaner of leftover rice stalks in the fields.
Worse, she was separated from her three children for six years whom she left in Sultan Kudarat where her parents and siblings migrated to in 1970s in search of a better life.
According to records of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Bercasio, already living in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat and married with five children, went to Hongkong to work as a domestic helper in 1990-1992; to Dubai, United Arab Emirates from 1994-1996, and to Jordan from 2001-2003. 
As the sole breadwinner, she provided for all the needs of her family. When she finished her contract in Hongkong where she earned HK$2,800 a month, she bought farm lots worth P90,000 in Sultan Kudarat.  But the insurgency problem in the province denied her access to her properties.

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This story was written second of January this year. It was written for a daily paper which did not carry it.
Tears rolled down the cheeks of Venancio Jimenez, 80, as he looked at the photos during World War II at the City Museum here. 
“I remember the hardships we all underwent,” the octogenarian said, recalling the time when, just as the war was nearing its end, a bullet hit his helmet, leaving the him, who was practically a boy at that time, shocked for days.  He also got afflicted with malaria during the war
Some of his “mess kit” during the war – a spoon and a plate — was on display at roving the exhibit, a part of the World War II photographs, memorabilla and artifacts and little known stories behind them
The exhibit titled “The War of Our Fathers…A Tribute to the Filipino Freedom Fighters” was sponsored by the Philippine Veterans Bank, the first stop of which was Dagupan City in time for the 61^st anniversary of the Lingayen Gulf Landing. The exhibit goes around different historical places in the country.
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