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| Eva at the Philippine Consulate, where her group regularly offers health check-ups to OFWs |
She has experienced many hardships in the 23 years that she has been an overseas Filipino worker, from being fed only once a day in Lebanon, to being forced to change religions in Dubai, then being advised to go for a long vacation after contracting typhoid fever.
But through it all, 45-year-old Eva Rasgo Mapa remained
steadfast and focused, determined to endure the hardship for her family’s sake.
She quit school at 22 so she could help provide for her big family, and
continued taking on the role of breadwinner after getting married and having
her own child.
Her arrival in Hong Kong in 2012 opened new doors for her as a community volunteer, doing mostly massage therapy and reflexology on fellow OFWs who do back-breaking works for the most part of the week.
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| Basahin ang detalye! |
Two years later she was named president of World
Medical Support (Womed) Hong Kong, taking over the work done by the group’s
founder Josephine Cajada, of providing free blood pressure and glucose tests to
OFWs who visit the Philippine Consulate General on Sundays.
Week after week her team continued the free service,
even at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and even took on the extra task of
directing OFWs on where to go for the services they need from the consulate and
its attached agencies.
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| Eva provides healing touch to an OFW hurt during taekwondo practice |
She did all these almost as fervently as she
performed the duties of a faithful member of the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of
God), a religion she embraced soon after she arrived in Hong Kong, and which
provided her with the initial training to help heal people with her touch.
Now, after more than two decades of being an exemplary
OFW, Eva has been given due recognition by the Philippine government, which conferred
on her this year’s Bagong Bayani for Community and Social Service, the only one
from Hong Kong to have been accorded the rare honor.
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| The Womed HK team provides free glucose and blood pressure checkups to OFWs on Sundays |
According to
organizers Bagong Bayani Foundation, Inc. (BBFI), DMW and OWWA, the award is conferred
on the country’s outstanding OFWs “who have made significant
efforts in fostering goodwill among peoples of the world, enhancing the image
of the Filipino as a competent, responsible worker and dignified worker,
contributing to the socio-economic development of their communities and the
country as a whole.”
Eva is rightfully honored by the recognition. “Talagang na overwhelmed ako at grateful na
na appreciate naman at na-acknowledge yung contribution ko sa community,”
she said. (I was truly overwhelmed and grateful that my contribution to the
community was appreciated and acknowledged).
Although she is very excited about going home next
month to receive the award from no less than President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.,
she has no illusions that it will help her to finally achieve financial freedom,
as she has yet to finish building her “dream house” in her Aklan hometown.
“Noong mag OFW
ako, hinanda ko na ang sarili ko na tiisin ang lahat para makatulong sa pamilya
ko,” Eva says. And that includes not just putting the final touches to three-million-peso
home, but also providing a secure future for her son, who is now in college.
But if her decades of perseverance, dedication to work
and reputation for having a healing touch are anything to go by, Eva will not
only survive, but thrive, long after she goes home for good.
