Whenever I browse through both online and offline Italian dailies I am always on the lookout for a mention of pinoys or anything remotely connected with the Philippines. As a foreigner, I could not help but be curious about how my host country regards pinoys like me.

Four afternoons ago I read with much interest a special feature on one kababayan in Il Passaporto, a multiethnic Italian journal. The title of the article is quite catchy, “Marilou Berain: dalla clandestinità alla presidenza delle donne filippine” (literal translation: from clandestinity to presidency of Filipino women). The official Italian word for illegal migrant is clandestina (or clandestino for men).

According to Il Passaporto, Marilou Berain originally came from Mindoro and has been working here in Italy for the past 11 years. She is now 32 years old. A few weeks ago she was elected as the new president of the Filipino Women’s Council (FWC), a nongovernment organization established in 1991 to promote and protect the rights of Filipino women in Italy.

Marilou was 21 years old when she left the Philippines. From Manila she flew to the Czech Republic. After a week of hiding in a hotel, she traveled by car with some strangers to Italy. She never knew the places they passed by nor the languages they spoke, although she could recall that one of her companions mentioned Denmark in passing. It is impossible for her to remember everything that happened in that long and tortuous journey, but she could not forget that she was never afraid. It was enough for her to know where she was headed – to Rome, to work as a babysitter.

Marilou’s story is a story so familiar to millions of migrant Filipinos but is still worth telling. Born into a poor family, she is the eldest of 8 children. Desiring to save her family from poverty, she went to Manila to work as a tailor for a Japanese multinational company after finishing first year college. In just a short while she became the assistant to the Japanese designer of that company. She loved her work but it constrained her from continuing her studies. An invitation to work in Italy presented her an opportunity that she wanted all along.

Marilou’s plan was very clear – to work in Italy for a maximum of 5 years, make enough money, and return to the Philippines to finish her studies while helping her family at the same time. At first she found it very hard to adjust and communicate. She worked as a babysitter to two Italian children, aged 9 and 3. The parents spoke a little English but the children didn’t. It was the children who eventually taught her the Italian language. She learned to read in Italian through the fairy tales the children were reading.

When Marilou began to speak Italian fluently she also began to look into herself to find something that would stimulate her. That’s when FWC entered her life. FWC has not only given her a lot of opportunities but also a good formation. She participated in a research called “Me, Us and Them: Realities and Illusions of Filipino Domestic Helpers”, which was published for the EQUAL project on “The Image of Migrants in Italy: in the Media, the Civil Society and the Labor Market.” The study made Marilou understand concretely the situation of the Filipinos in Italy. And because of that she organized a course on empowerment for Filipinos. Since then she has been helping many of our kababayans empower themselves and promote and protect their human rights.

Her interests, possibilities and perspective have widened yet up to now she still continues to wok as a babysitter while serving as the president of FWC, because that’s the only way she could support herself and send money to Mindoro for the education of her siblings and to make ends meet for her parents. She has decided to continue her studies in Italy. She feels that an important part of her has evolved in Italy and for these past eleven years many things have changed in her. For now she thinks that her life and her future is in Italy.

Today we celebrate the International Women’s Day and I salute Marilou for being such an extraordinary pinay.