Effective network for distressed Filipinos in Japan, elsewhere

Last Saturday, February 12, I sent this urgent email to certain officials of DFA , DSWD, CFO, the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, Filipinos, and Filipino association representatives in Japan, NGOs, and certain religious. The urgent message was to request that information be disseminated to Filipinos in Japan about existing networks responding to distressed Filipinos (if any) and to relay the urgency to create a strong effective network in case one is not yet in place till now. May I share that urgent email to you all from here on.

 “Last night, just when the 6pm (Friday) mass at St. Ignatius in Yotsuya was about to finish, loud cries were heard from the back.

 After confirming that the crying, or more aptly, wailing woman was Filipino, we approached her. So did some other concerned Filipino women at church that time.

 She was most definitely highly emotionally distressed, rambling on, mostly in Tagalog and occasionally in English, that she was normal, that she could not understand what her powers meant (she showed us her shaking hands as she mentioned her power), about why God did not answer her despite her desperate pleas and cries and so on...

 She agreed to talk to a priest but we learned that a priest had already talked to her before the mass. We were also told by the Japanese church caretakers that after the mass, there was no priest or sister in the vicinity, except for some church volunteers who suggested that she return the next morning to meet the Spanish priest she talked to earlier or other nuns who may come to Jochi Daigaku (Sophia University).

 We stayed with her a while, prayed with her, hugged her and assured her that she just needed to calm down, to breathe deeply, and to allow God to talk to her. She would stop to listen for a while, she even followed us do the breathing exercises, would stop her loud crying when we told her she will not be able to hear God that way but after some seconds, because she was highly distressed, she would resume her emotional outbursts and we realized we were back to square one.

 We felt very inadequate as well. Joygi (an ALT who just arrived by bus from Gumma to visit us in Tsukuba) and I wanted to do more for her but not being expert counselors and also because we were not in our home base, Tsukuba, we felt the best we could do was ask her to return the next day to church for assistance. As we left her inside the church, we prayed, lifting our fears and prayers to God to take care of her.

 For sure, there are other distressed kababayans all throughout Japan and we are sharing our experience and feeling of inadequacy for not being able to help her more so we can learn from you all how to better care for them when again we encounter kababayans in need someday.

 More importantly, we are also writing you all with the hope and prayer that we can all draw up a nationwide suppport network especially for the distressed. (or if there are existing networks, please let us know the contact persons, the contact details and let us help to disseminate this information to as many kababayans in Japan we can reach out to.

 Specifically, if anyone of us meets a distressed kababayan, who can we call to help and support her in Tokyo, in Kanagawa, in Kyoto, other areas? Is there a 24-hour hotline that we can call with staff who can respond to the urgent real needs of distressed Filipinos in Japan?

 Perhaps we can also meet again, after the assembly for P.Noy, to discuss more concrete plans to build that tadhana, not the building, but the sustainable, genuine network and the community that will provide refuge and strength and pride to all Filipinos here in japan.

 We hope our (proposed and present ) care network will be able to provide the much-needed lifeline for the desperate and hopeless among our kababayans here in Japan.

 Looking forward to your response and to a future consultation, consolidation meeting with you all. We can host you in Tsukuba or at Toyo university or we can join you where many more can join us to solidify our community of care and support here in Japan.”

 We have had positive feedback from several partners but we are looking forward to the urgent response especially from the Philippine Embassy officials so our distressed Filipino kababayans in Japan ( and elsewhere in the world) can be appropriately attended to immediately.

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Email: [email protected]