Filipina image part 3

Dear mouse,
Why I got interested in the story? As I have said, a friend got involved with a girl that he met in the internet. This was the second girl to whom he had a serious relationship to the point that he’s willing to go home to the Philippines for good. I thought that he’s crazy because I feel that the first motivation that the girl may have is her chance of being petitioned here in the States since he is a US citizen. Whoever will tell me that it is love at first sight, I am going to ask him/her what sight, when they have not met personally yet. Only in pictures.

He really fell for her that despite the truth that he discovered that she is married but “separated”, he still went home to see her.

He told me the stories that I did not believe.

1. she’s separated and her children are with the husband.
2. the children stayed with the father (when i asked why, my friend told me that because she ‘s working. Is the husband not working too? The mother of the husband takes care of the children. what about the mother of the woman? She’s not working and therefore can take care of the children. How can she manage not to see her children if it were true?)

3. The woman said that she is staying in a dorm so she cannot invite her to her place. At first visit, it is the woman who came to visit him in the hotel where he was staying. He was not introduced to any relative.

4. In his next visit, they stayed in Manila where my friend rented an apartment during his stay. The woman filed a vacation from her office without telling her officemates where she’s going.

Although he was giving her gifts, he refrained from giving her large sum of money.

5. When he came back to the States, he received several phone calls from the woman. She’s desperate to migrate from the Philippines. My friend asked me how it is possible to do it when she’s married?

I advised him that first she has to have her marriage annulled which would take some time. My friend is willing to help her financially in the process.

If she’s going to file the annulment, he planned of going home and wait for the Court decision in the Philippines while they live- in to be together.

The woman did not like the idea. But of course, that was not in her agenda.

Then he received another phone call. She was crying. She said that she met a recruiter who can take her to the United States in a matter of 90 days to work in a hotel. She needed the money in a few days to ensure that she’s included in the first batch. Sounds and smells like a scam.

My friend almost believed her. I had difficulty of convincing my friend that there is no such kind of visa. If ever there is, it is for temporary or seasonal workers which last only for a given period and it is made available only for people living near the US borders. When the visa expired, they are sent home. For H1B, it is a long wait. I waited for a year to get my working visa. That was before 9/11 and there aren’t much demand for computer techs that eat up most of the visa allocations.

I urged him to call the phone number in the scanned letterhead of the recruitment agency. The recruitment exists but nobody picked up the phone. It was just a voice mail.

If he had the money, he could have sent her the amount. Fortunately, he had no amount that big. Close to a hundred thousand dollars.

Rewind. While they were in process of proving their trust to each other, the woman gave him the password for her e-mail.

He did not open the mail even though he had access to it until he noticed that their phone conversations were getting shorter after he failed to assist her in her desire to come thru the recruiter. The lady had a lot of excuses of not being able to communicate with him.

There he found, a forwarded e-mail. It was sent to the woman’s office addy and she forwarded it to her personal e-mail address. It was from a man who was professing his undying love to the woman. The tenor of the letter was that of a relationship which is more than a platonic friendship.

My friend who is a computer geek was able to find the man. Pretending as a girl, he e-mailed him to his friendster account. They became friends in the internet. The man was not hitting on “her”. From their conversations, he learned that the guy has a relationship with his girl friend. One time, my friend asked me for a favor to call someone in the Philippines and pretend that I was him (as a girl). I did not know what’s going on. I scolded him for doing it. Even though the girl may be dishonest, she still deserved privacy in her e-mail. And he’s also fooling the guy. Why don’t he just confront the girl friend?

That he did in her office. He called her. She went ballistic. She cried and accused him of invading her e-mail privacy. She swore that it was not true. The guy, she said is paranoid.

An officemate picked up the phone. She said that the girl was so devastated that she could no longer talk. She certified for her character. Ow?

When I learned about this, I scolded him again. I reprimanded him of calling her office. This should have been settled between them after office hours.

He’s madly in love and he was seeking for the truth. I can understand him. ( I have been there myself and i understand the person).

Weeks after, they reconciled. The woman said that the guy was punished for “the-kiss-and-tell” episode that existed only in his imagination. He was in the same company but in another branch.

My friend avoided discussing about her girl friend whenever we talked over the phone. One day, he called me up. He was very depressed. The woman called it quits without offering any reason. he suffered for so many months.
He called the woman just to know how she is. The woman said that she’s back to her husband.

I suspected that she never was separated from him. Physically maybe because the family was in another province and she was working in the city.

But my friend still loves her. Now he got another girl friend. She’s single but she keeps on hinting about her financial difficulties. She accused him of “hindi marunong dumamay”. Ow?

The Ca t

Filipina Image Part 1
Filipina Image Part 2
Advocacy or COntroversy