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| President Marcos and First Lady pose with Bagong Bayani awardees and DMW officials |
For the first time since 2011, the biennial Bagong Bayani awards held to honor outstanding overseas Filipino workers, was held at the Malacanang Palace on Thursday, Nov 20, with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and his wife, First Lady Liza A. Marcos, leading the tribute.
In his speech, President Marcos thanked the OFW
awardees, saying “kayo ang pinakamagandang larawan ng kakayahan at kasipagan ng mga
Pilipino.” (You project the best image of the competency and industriousness
of the Filipino).
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| DETAILS HERE |
Marcos promised that in turn, the government through
the Department of Migrant Workers, would continue to elevate protection for
OFWs, streamline its operations, “and ensure that every OFW is treated as the
hero that they are.”
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| HK's Eva Mapa shows her trohy in photo with son Kean |
The new Bagong Bayani awardees include Eva Rasgo
Mapa, a domestic worker in Hong Kong, who has been using her considerable talent
in massage therapy to provide relief to mobility-impaired Filipinos and her own
funds to conduct free blood pressure and blood glucose test to OFWs on her days
off.
Mapa, who heads the OFW group World Medical Support
(Womed) Hong Kong won the community and social service award.
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Also among the awardees was Camille Jesalva-Junio, a
former caregiver in Israel whose courage and presence of mind during a Hamas invasion
in October 2023, made her the first-ever recipient of the Susan “Toots” V. Ople
award.
Camille also won recognition from the Israeli government
for saving the life of her 95-year-old female ward and herself, by offering her
US$370 savings and mobile phone to militants who entered their house in Kibbutz
Nirim in October last year.
The Marcos couple paid special attention to Camille during
a brief chat with the awardees after they were each handed a trophy and a
medal. A misty-eyed First Lady told Camille, “You made me cry,” referring to
the bravery the OFW had shown during the Hamas raid.
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| Camille proudly shows off her trophy |
During their short encounter, Mrs Marcos took note
of the heavily pregnant Camille and jokingly said, “What are you going to call
you baby, Martyr? To which the OFW quickly replied, “Hero.”
The only awardee who was unable to attend the
ceremonies was “best employee” Romaline Dizon Isla, an engineer based in Dubai.
Her mother Evangeline who received the award in her behalf, said Romaline or Roma,
had just started working for a new company and could not yet take time off.
Evangeline, who revealed having been an OFW herself,
said she decided to work as a domestic
helper in Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong so she could send her four children to
college. “I did not want them to become domestic helper and experience the same
hardships that I had to go through,” she said.
The
other awardees were Michael Palic
Conjusta for culture and the arts, Capt.
Rolly Tenorio Lapinig and the 18 Filipino crew of MV MSC Aube F for heroic art(Heroic
Act), and successful reintegration awardees Elaine Vianca G. Figueroa, Ruellyn
S. Ribon, and Alexander Inday Sebastian. Capt. Gaudencio C. Morales who
received the Capt.Gregorio S. Oca Achievement Award, gave the response on
behalf of all the awardees.
The 24-hour tribute to
the new Bagong Bayani group started with a dinner with DMW officials at the
Mall of Asia on Thursday, followed by the breakfast reception at Malacanang,
lunch in Intramuros, and the unveiling of the marker with their names at the Wall
of Honor (Bantayog ng mga Bagong Bayani) on the DMW grounds.
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| Awardees pose by the Wall of Honor where their names are permanently etched |
On top of their trophies, medals and names on a plaque in the Wall of Honour, each awardee was also handed a token financial reward from the DMW. Most importantly, they were attentively served by DMW staff, from getting to and from the events venues to ensuring they had enough to eat throughout the day.
The Bagong Bayani Awards
which was created in line with a presidential decree issued in 1983 by the late
former president Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr., has honored more than 1,700 OFWs since
1989.
