simple rules para sa mga kabayang nalampasan ng RV 2021(hint: wag mawalan ng pag-asa!)

[clockwise from left, your kabayan, present day; us an hour after the surgery, May 2022; us 24 hours after. Beds being in short supply, we were expected to check out as soon as health allowed. No complaints! ]

A LITTLE OVER a year ago, my heart was beginning to fail me, and I was a poor fit in my new job. Just as urgently, my dreams of resident status in New Zealand were going nowhere, and the prospect of giving up and returning home to the Philippines after more than 10 years was becoming more and more inevitable by the day.

The only thing going for me, or rather the only two things going for me besides the love and support of family and friends were, in order: my work visa, which having held one for two years, availed me of urgently needed health care. The second was an application under the One-Off Resident Visa pathway offered to among others, temporary visa holders who had been in New Zealand for at least three years and had not currently applied under other visa pathways.

I dodged two bullets with those two things going for me Dear Reader. First, having my work visa probably saved my life. Second, my life having been saved, a successful application in the said visa pathway would have preserved the quality of living for the remainder of my life.

I’m not trying to be overly dramatic here, but my heart was both enlarged and infected, a common situation for heart patients with my particular condition. Also, the perfect storm of increasingly strict immigration requirements for both temporary and permanent visa holders and my comfort zone discouraging me from venturing into careers outside my current job all but assured that I ultimately had no choice, after a decade of being an OFW, but to go back home for good.

***** ***** *****

FAST FORWARD TO THE PRESENT DAY. Thirteen months later, after what I was told was an eight-hour procedure to both repair a valve in my heart and an embolism in my lower left leg, I’m nearly 100% recovered. I conceded that leaving my original employer was a mistake, asked for second chance, and got the next best thing: got rehired in a different site by my old boss. Lastly but not leastly, superstitious and legal reasons prevent me from actually spelling out what happened, but I achieved, or rather my immigration adviser and I achieved a breakthrough in our decades-plus-long journey towards migration success. What was that breakthrough? In time I will tell you Precious Reader, just not now.

The inevitable questions have been asked, time and again: How sick were you Noel, how did it get to this point, and how did you recover, if at all? Did you jeopardize your migration journey by switching jobs, why if so, and what happened then? Lastly, why did it take you so long to achieve your migration goal/s, and where are you now on your journey?

I didn’t post this to boast or proclaim how or what happened in what was literally a life-or-death adventure, or to tell you how blessed I am towards a religious epiphany. I WILL tell you that, being in New Zealand, getting the health care and being in the job situation I was, I am one lucky bastard.

I also have a few rules for you, especially the fellow kabayan who feel a bit hopeless now what with the 2021 One-Off Resident Visa scheme done and dusted:

Get an immigration adviser. This is the one thing in your life that you shouldn’t save on. Staying in NZ as a guest worker is a blessing, but staying in New Zealand as a resident is entirely something else. Life may get more comfortable as an OFW here, but becoming a permanent resident is lifechanging. To become a permanent resident, you increase your chances when you avail of the advice and expertise of a licensed immigration adviser. Beyond that, I will say no more.

Get out of your comfort zone. The reason I stayed as a temporary visa holder was because, yes I had a job in New Zealand, but for permanent resident purposes it simply wasn’t enough. And eventually, if you come to this realization kabayan the next step almost always is to upskill or move laterally. You may be earning comfortably now, but for the ultimate goal it may not be enough. If you have to retrain, go back to school or take a pay cut, I know these aren’t comfortable steps, but in the long run you will never regret it.

Always be informed. Yes you may have an adviser but it helps to always be aware about current events and developments, something you may have heard on the news may or may not have a direct effect on on you but it can’t hurt to know about it. For years the Government talked about increasing minimum wages for purposes of work visas but didn’t do much about it until the end of 2021. Knowing about this could help one prepare a real change in the rules, and lastly…

Never give up hope. Not giving it everything, every last bit of effort before giving up, is not only self-defeating and counterproductive, it also demeans and diminishes the hopes and dreams of all those who went before us. Yes kabayan, you say that by definition, it is a “One-Off” pathway, in Filipino usage, what we call a “one-shot deal.” But before February 22 2022, no one thought the NZ government would announce such a massive, historical immigration policy that has allowed at least 30,000 to become residents in less than a year. Besides, new visa pathways are announced every month.

Words from this kabayan (me) should probably be the furthest thing from advice when it comes to migration success. But I’ve also had the least hope, the most failure, and probably the longest time spent in New Zealand as a temporary worker.

And yet, here I am today, still full of hope.

Thanks for reading!