THE SECRET LIVES OF OFWS by JET TAGASA

 EILEEN TABIOS Engages 

The Secret Lives of OFWs by Jet Tagasa

(Penguin Random House SEA, 2025)

 

BOOK LINK 

I adored this book before I read a word of it. I adored it because I heard of its concept and fell in love with its ideas, as described well on its back cover as

Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs. You either know one, are related to one, want to be one, or are one. OFWs are so ubiquitous to the Philippines that we think we’re familiar with the kind of lives they lead. We presume we know who they are, what they’re like, or perhaps even what secrets they keep. But do we?

From mananangals to aswangs, engkantos to mambabarangs, oryols to andudunongs, and even the great Bakunawa—The Secret Lives of OFWs follows eight different stories of Filipino migrant workers who happen to be supernaturals. Forced to embark on their own migratory sojourns to seek a better life and provide for their loved ones, these stories delve into the struggles faced by OFWs and their families—and how even feared creatures of Philippine folklore are not spared from the hardships of the diaspora.

Given the horror stories of abuse and suffering too-often experienced by OFWs—including beatings by employers, rapes and even murder—I thought it appropriate for Tagasa to weave in the presence of supernaturals often considered as monsters. “The Domestic Helper,” indeed, is an excellent opening story in this short story collection. Set in Saudi Arabia, the story presents Estrelita working as a maid who is raped by her employer, the rape is later ignored by the rapist’s wife. The story ends with Estrelita unleashing the mananangal in her to kill the couple as well as their baby. She kills them by eating them given the mananangal’s predilection. Later, she escapes to a shelter for abused OFWs. She meets others abused by their employers and ends up comforting one victim to whom she delivers an implicit promise by asking, “Tell me where they live.” Given what the OFWs experienced in this story, it’s a quite satisfactory revenge ending.

I’d expected the collection to be comprised of such revenge stories. But revenge stories by themselves could become stale. Fortunately, Tagasa creates layers so that other themes are presented. For instance, “The Nurse,” set in London, is about an engcanto falling in love with a human, the nurse he’d been sent to punish. “The Balikbayan,” set in Hong Kong, is about Jennie who returns to discover that she is an aswang long-awaited by her ancestral tribe. The latter is particularly poignant when one considers how being an OFW is being an immigrant and, until one returns, one may be unsure of what exactly or all that was left behind.

The collection does end with a revenge story, “The Cook.” It’s a proper concluding tale since the story’s idea for the OFW in this story, Jona, is for her parents to travel from the Philippines to Malta to avenge the death of Jona and her baby. In Malta, they undergo a ritual possible for Andudunos (or The Walking Aswang) to determine the identity of the killer. The story—and the book—ends with the implication of the parents preparing to enact what it will take to capture the killer and wreak justice. The involvement of the OFWs’ parents—and ancestors—is fitting for drawing us full circle back to where OFWs originated. 

Each story also begins with an indicator of where the OFW character is located. For me, the locations’ names, too, have become markers of OFW life: Saudi Arabia, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Dubai, Qatar, Albania, and Malta. In 2023, the estimated number of OFWs was 2.16 million, a 9.8% increase from the previous year. The majority of these OFWs were female (55.6%), with a significant number working in elementary occupations (41.1%).

If some of the details are too violent (e.g., in “The Domestic Helper,” the mananangal OFW eats her employer’s baby in front of the mother before turning to the mother herself), they’re not as horrific as what happens in real life to too-many OFWs around the world. 

Tagasa’s stories are written in an accessible and clear manner. I hope its accessible style makes it a popular read. The Secret Lives of OFWs offers a unique way to draw attention to the plight of OFWs, including the larger picture that keeps getting unresolved by political corruption and oligarchical political families: what happens when a country can’t take care of all of its citizens and even sends them elsewhere? This is a question that should become an old story but hasn’t and doesn’t. I am grateful to Jet Tagasa for her creative way of reminding us of OFWs’ experiences, including their sacrifices.

 

*****

Eileen R. Tabios has released over 70 books of poetry, fiction, essays, visual art and experimental prose from publishers around the world. Recent releases include the novel The Balikbayan Artist; an art monograph Drawing Six Directions; a poetry collection Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography, The Inventor; and a flash fiction collection collaboration with harry k stammer, Getting To One. Other recent books include a first novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times which was subsequently translated by Danton Remoto into Filipino as KalapatingLeon and two French books, PRISES(Double Take) (trans. Fanny Garin) and La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery. Her body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21^st century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the “Flooid” poetry form that’s rooted in a good deed; and the monobon poetry form based on the monostich. She also has edited or conceptualized 16 anthologies of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, including HUMANITY, Hay(na)ku 15, BABAYLAN: An Anthology of Filipina and Filipina American Women Writers, and BLACK LIGHTNING: Poetry in Progress. Translated into 13 languages, she has seen her writing and editing works receive recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.com