At a time when the Bureau of Customs bowed to public pressure after refusing to change its policy toward overseas workers’ balikbayan or gift boxes, other groups like Google Philippines sought to honor the men and women who work abroad to earn better wages for their families.
The song “Miss Ko Na” illustrates the sentiments felt by overseas workers toward the country they left behind. Sure, the grass is greener on the other side, but there is definitely no place like home.
And these sentiments aren’t written as lyrics by the performing bands and artists like Itchyworms, Sponge Cola and Mikey Bustos, though at their own they could have.
The lyrics were crowd-sourced, i.e. they came from submissions by overseas workers and their families as their response to the question posed by Google Philippines: “What do you miss most about the Philippines?”
A simple question that drew a lot of answers, all of which can tug at the heartstrings. “Miss kong kumain ng tapsilog kasama ni Kuya / Miss ko ang salu-salo pag nagluto si Lola.”
“Hindi ko nami-miss/ All the traffic from EDSA/ Hindi ko nami-miss ang paglulusob sa baha/ Hindi ko nami-miss ang pagbo-brownout nang bigla/ Ngunit pag naiisip ko/ Nami-miss ko lang kayo.”
(I miss eating tapsilog with Kuya. I miss everyone eating together when Lola cooks. I don’t miss the EDSA traffic, I don’t miss wading through the floodwaters. I don’t miss sudden brownouts. But when I think of it, I just miss you.)
Note that the lyrics also included those that the overseas workers didn’t miss about the country, like traffic and flooding. While they don’t have to deal with these problems in the places they’re working in—or at least they have less of these—it’s helpful to show just how do overseas workers think about the Philippines. And within the confines of a five-minute song, it tells a lot and does quite an effective job doing so.
Songs performed by artists for a worthy cause have created quite an impact around the world. Those old enough to remember USA for Africa’s “We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas” by Band Aid know how millions of dollars were raised to feed starving families in famine-plagued Ethiopia.
Google Philippines also sought to emulate this by donating P1 for every line submitted for the song to the Blas Ople Center, a non-government organization caring for abused OFWs.
Incidentally, the song was broadcast over YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, on Sept. 1 in time for National Heroes’ Day, a fitting occasion since the overseas workers are considered the country’s modern-day heroes.
The song is just one of many that show just how powerful social media can be as a tool not only to connect people from all over the world, but to mobilize them to support a worthy cause.