The Global Filipino Magazine TGFM Issue 6 - October 2020

Born to a very poor family, Jonas Dupo, 31, forged his career overseas and put up his own company that benefits students, employees, OFWs, and aspiring authors. Dupo arrived in Oman in 2014 to work as a staff nurse and was assigned to the medical-surgical department looking after patients. Two years after working as a staff nurse, he was promoted as a Regional Nursing Research Focal Point, training nurses, Omanis, and other expatriates to write and publish nursing research papers. In the same institution, he handled almost 30 healthcare institutions and almost 800 staff nurses. He spent exactly five years, 10 months, and 15 days in Oman. Dupo left the Philippines because of love. “I love my family and I want to give the best life for them. I want to help…

For more than three years, Dexter Dalisay has been working as a Quality, Health, Safety and Environmental Engineer at the Emirates Fire Fighting Equipment Factory. One of the few things that he enjoys the most about his work is that he can deal with numbers since his passion goes out to engineering and mathematics. While progressing in his career, Dalisay, 31, also works as a commercial and print ad model for various top brands in the UAE such as Etisalat, Crocs, Lulu Exchange, TGI Friday, to name a few. It is even a greater accomplishment for him to pat of a number of international films, including Twisted Blue a 2018 Hollywood film; Love Check, a 2016 Bollywood film; On Borrowed Time, an Arabic film produced in 2018; Kaarawan, a Filipino…

Engineer Elmer O. Casao always believes that one should strive to be the best version of themselves. Rising through the ranks, the Filipino engineer is now working with the best lawyers in the UAE as legal support for the Dulsco LLC. Casao is the lone Filipino in his team, waving the Philippine national flag a notch in the international arena. His job allows him to provide legal support which includes but not limited to the following: management of legal billing, court orders management, development of document management system, providing support in the request of proposal request, among others. An electrical engineer by profession, almost everyone who is close to him knows he always wanted to become a lawyer, so it is just that he is not working with the brilliant…

People’s luck at gambling is varied: sometimes you win, but most of the time you lose. Architect Anthony Tario Austria is one of the many Filipinos who gambled their careers abroad with no assurance of ‘greener pasture’. Austria, who is currently the managing director of ATA Architects and Design, embarked on a career overseas year 2004 in the Middle East. A graduate o Mapua University, he became a designer in a prestigious architectural firm in Abu Dhabi, with branches in Dubai, Doha, Jeddah, Muscat, Cairo, and Khartoum. “Because of a hard life, I have no choice but to gamble my career abroad. I believe if you’re on a survival, the situation you will find means to reach your goal and work hard for it to attain it,” Austria said. The…

“I ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT IF THEY CAN DO IT, SO CAN YOU.” This has become Maria Charisma Celino’s mantra after learning that she got the highest average among the Caregiver students in the Filipino Institute-Abu Dhabi campus. The Abu Dhabi-based Filipino worker got a 97.7 grade and was hailed top one in Caregiver 1.2 course. “Dati pangarap ko lang ito, dati wala akon bilib sa sarili ko pag dating sa aral aral na yan. Ngayon daig ko pa ang pumasa sa board exams sa tuwa,” she quipped. “I got the highest average (97.7) among CG students in Filipino Institute-Ab Dhabi UAE, pang international pala ang IQ ko, char!” she added. As she was starting, she thought she couldn’t make it. “Then days, weeks passed by heto na yung akala ko…

UAE-based Rowena Castillo Umahon, like any other overseas Filipino worker (OFW), has a fair share of tragedies in life. But through her perseverance and trust in the Lord, she was able to overcome all of it one at a time. Umahon, now working as an administrative staff at a Dubai-based real estate company, recalled her troubles while she arrived in Dubai in 2005. She was a visit visa holder when she set foot in the emirate with sufficient work experience while her stint in the Philippines. “But it seemed that Philippine experience has no bearing at all, and it wasn’t easy for a first-timer like me,” she said. Before her visit visa expired, she worked as a telephone operator in a four-star hotel with a monthly salary of AED800. Her…