I've been living out of the country for three years now and I can say that I am lucky to be in the position where I am right now. There are some benefits when you are an OFW, one is that you are entitled not to pay travel tax when you leave the Philippines. I can't think of the others.

I left in 2012. I was a fresh graduate back then that will work as an engineer in a manufacturing company. That is why I consider myself a very lucky guy that time - a tons of luck.

Working in a foreign country requires a lot of guts. It is not easy as you think, it might sound a cliche but it how it really is. Mingling with colleagues you didn't even know, they have their own culture, the language barrier and of course, religion. You need to save up so you can send money back home, not to mention you also need to pay bills, rentals and everyday expenses. You also need to save-up for investments, emergency fund or retirement fund.

Lots of sacrifices has to be made if you want to be an OFW, you will spend years away from your family and your friends, you will miss all the great things happening in the Philippines, all the partying, get together, family reunion, birthday celebrations and holidays. All you can do is to go online in Skype or Facebook just to be in there, digitally. 

It just saddened us to see what happens in our beloved and beautiful country. Believe me, there are so many foreigners who want to live in the Philippines, why? Because it feels great there, it is a paradise - for the rich and upper middle-class people. If you belong to the lower-middle class and below, it will be really hard for you. If you see some photos pertaining how its hard to live in the Philippines, don't believe it, it is way more harsher.

One of the issues now in our country is how the Bureau of Customs handle the balikbayan boxes. Now they want to have a random inspection of the boxes and open it for suspected smuggling or check the value of the stuff inside the box if it is above the $500 tax shield. The purpose seems to be acceptable but the main issue there is how they will handle the box. There is a lot of complains that there was missing items, mishandled baggage and torn boxes that even if you report it, no one will bother to put justice on it. Why you have to open the boxes randomly just to check what is inside if you have million-dollar x-ray machines in the port. If they want to utilize it properly, they just need to put everything in the machine and pull out the boxes if they see suspicious things. If the airport authorities can use it for normal passengers, why they can't do it also for the balikbayan boxes. The next issue is that the BOC is known to be the most corrupt agency of the government, crocodiles living under their hood. Smuggling is not new in the Philippines, but we don't see any government actions towards it. They can't chase those big time smugglers that is why now they run after on petty balik-bayan boxes.

It is a pity. really. But as of this writing, the president took actions to the BOC. Now I can say that all of the sharings, comments, videos and messages from facebook bear fruits, for the good cause. The fight is not yet over.