A Sacrificial Love: Illuminating Experiences among Senior High

School Students with Overseas Filipino Worker Parents in

Maligaya National High School

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Overseas Employment has always been one of the choices of Filipino Parents.
They tend to seek a higher income for a better living and to give the needs and even
wants of their family, especially for their children. Beyond that, the children left behind to
face a lot of circumstances in their life experiences without the presence of their
parents. The senior high school students are in their adolescence stage where they are
more likely to be needing their parents' guidance and attention. According to Machica
and Montallana (2018), the quality of time and attention between the parents and their
children are very important in maintaining the good relationship that they have.
However, students who have Overseas Worker parents do not have this personal time
and attention with them, since their parents are far from them and serving other people
from their works.

Prior to the pandemic, it became more challenging in every parent-children

relationship that is far from each other due to migration. Filipinos spend more time
interacting with their family members during the periods of lockdown because of
COVID-19 (Cenon et al., 2020). This became their coping mechanism from the
challenges brought by the pandemic that has been a huge difference for every child
who are living without the presence of their parents during this time. According to
Medina (2019), students that have Overseas Filipino Worker parents may experience
some behavioral problems because of the lack of interaction and attention with their
parents. Students today are experiencing life without their parents amidst of pandemic.
 Moreover, many of the students have a hard time in blended learning while their
parents are working abroad. The changes on the behavior and attitude of students can
affect their academic performances, and one of the reason is the lacking of motivation
and encouragement to study, that they want the most from their parents, especially
during pandemic where everyone is seeking for love, care, and attention inside their
home.

The responsibilities and their roles inside their homes also changes. The
responsibility of decision-making and other resources is being passed down to
the caregivers of the children, usually their grandparents (Treleaven and Ngin, 2021).
Because of that, the children left behind to experience the feeling of desertion and
isolation, unhappiness, missing the presence of their parents, and mental
illness that may affect their academic performances and personal
lives(Machica and Montallana, 2018). Students with Overseas Filipino Worker
parents are facing several massive changes on their daily lives. However, OFW
parents are using their material parenting in which they give their children the things that
they want, and the things that they need. In spite of that, material parenting have
disadvantages for some students. Having money sent by their OFW parents may
develop their attitude of being dependent. It may cause them of thinking not to finish
their studies because they already have a parent that provides for their needs to
survive.

The experiences of senior high school students having OFW parents are having
a hard time adjusting to their current situation which is far from the presence of their
parents (Bitancurand Bitancur, 2018). This study will investigate the life benefits and
drawbacks experiences of having a parent who is a migrant working abroad, mainly in
spite of the surge of pandemic. The impact of having parents who work abroad varies
depending on the student. They experience problems in communicating with their
parents, becoming mature despite early age, mental problems, and the
relationship between the parents and the children. The consequences of the
experiences of students that have OFW parents may also involve the feeling
of emotional instability, trust issues, and receiving support from other people or their
relatives. Though, there are students who also strives harder to give back for the hard
work of their parents who are far away from them. The absence of their parents by
working abroad has a positive and negative effect on the students based on their lived
experiences in that situation.
 The purpose of this study is to know the lived experiences of
these students and understand how they cope and manage by themselves,
especially during this ongoing pandemic. The aim of this study is to assist them by
conducting additional research into their situation, and to understand what these
students are going through in their lives. This study will contribute a lot to every parent
and student, with or without parents abroad, to understand the difficulty of the students
who have OFW parents. As a result, the researchers’ plan is to continue this research in
order to give consciousness to everyone that being a student with parents abroad is not
easy and that they need to be assisted and comforted.

Objectives of the study

This study generally aimed to know the lived experiences among senior high
school students with Overseas Filipino worker parents in Maligaya National High
School.

Specifically, it aimed to:

1. Determine the perception of senior high school students with

Overseas Filipino Worker parents.

2. Determine the impact of Long Distance Parenting of OFW parents

its effect to the academic performance of senior high school
students.

3. Identifying the effects of having an OFW parent to the academic

performance of student.
 Significance of the study
This study was conducted to illuminate the experiences of senior high
school students having an Overseas Filipino Worker parents at Maligaya National High
School.

This study is beneficial to the following:

 For students, this study could provide more knowledge and understanding for the
students about their current situation. Also, students who do not have an OFW
parent will gain an understanding of this phenomenon.

 For parents, this study can help the OFW parents of the students to understand
the experiences of their child in their life as a student and a teenager without the
presence of them.

 For guardians, this study will serve as a guide to other family relatives or
guardians of the student on how they will guide and give them support even
without the presence of their parents.

 For teachers, the study can provide a deeper knowledge and understanding to
the teachers of the students with an OFW parent, by educating and counseling
them about the conditions of having OFW parents.

 For the future researchers, by analyzing and researching different articles and
sources for these studies, future researchers can have an easier time studying
this research.

Statement of the problem

 What are the struggles that Senior High School learners with OFW
parents find hard to do without the presence of their parents, especially in
this pandemic?
  How did they cope with their problems without the physical presence of
their parents mostly with the hardships caused by the pandemic?

 How significant do they think is the physical presence of a parent on the

lives of their children, especially in this pandemic?

 How did the separation from their parents affect their growth and
development as a person?

Scope and Delimitation

The aim of this study is to know the lived experiences of senior high
school students that have been separated from their parents who are working abroad
for more than two (2) years and until now that we have a pandemic. The World
Health Organization declared the COVID-19outbreak two (2) years ago on
January 30, 2020. According to Cenon et al. (2020) due to pandemic the
migration of the parents became more challenging in every parent-children
relationship. The feeling of loneliness and hardship worsens as they tend to worry
about each other due to the pandemic and the longtime separation. This study will
focus on the struggles of students towards the parental absence of their Overseas
Filipino Worker parents, and how they handle different issues and changes that they
encounter in life, as a student and teenager. This includes the coping mechanism of
the students that serve as their aid in handling problems by themselves, and how they
limit to their limitations without the proper assistance of their parents, especially in this
new normal situation brought by the pandemic. Also, this study aims to know the
impact of separation on the development of the student as a person, and how the
physical presence of a parent is significant to the lives of these senior high school
students.
This study will have delimitations that the researchers will set as their boundaries in
conducting the research. The researchers are allowed to have their final output only by
the end of the second semester as they should come up with the result of their study, at
that given time. The gathering of data will be done via one-on-one online interview
through Zoom and there would be six (6) participants as the number of their research
respondents that were only limited to senior high school student participants. As it is a
Qualitative Phenomenological Study, this will be done by an interview with open-ended
questions, as the researchers need to gather reliable data based on the experiences of
the students. However, the researchers have set a delimitation that they
should not include the personal information of the participants that are not related
to this study. Lastly, they will not cover the perspective and opinions nor the reason of
the parents of every students respondents on why they decided to work abroad and
have their children left at home.

Conceptual Framework

The researcher’s conceptualized that independent and dependent

variable.

INDEPENDENT VARIABLE DEPENDENT VARIABLE

Experiences of children
Sacrificial love of OFW student under Parents
Parents. Working Abroad.
Figure 1 is the conceptual framework study of the student of Maligaya National High
School 2022.

Definition of Terms

Caregiver - a paid or unpaid person who tends to help them with activities of
daily living.

Coping Mechanism - a psychological adaptation strategy of a person

to manage unpleasant emotions that can be an intentional choice though, in other
circumstances, a person may be unaware that they're using them.

Detrimental Impact – it is something that has a negative or harmful effect on

something else.

Drawback - a characteristic that makes something less acceptable.

Illuminating – it is a process of explaining for the help of clarification about

certain subject.

Industrialized Country - a sovereign state with a high standard of living,

advanced economic infrastructure and advanced technological infrastructure.

Inevitable – it is something that we cannot avoid, it will definitely happen.

Isolation – a process of isolating yourself from other people.

Material Parenting - is the practice of parents using material rewards and

punishments in their interactions with their children.

Overseas Worker - a member of the family who is currently working outside of

the country.

Parental Migration – a situation in which a parent moves away from the place
of their children for at least six months
Personal Disclosure - a method of communication in which one individual
discloses personal information to another.

Remittances - most commonly used nowadays to denote a sum of

money sent by someone working overseas to his or her family back home.

Systematic – it is operating in accordance with a predetermined plan or system.

 CHAPTER 2

Review Related Literature

Overseas Employment of Parents

According to Maculada (2018), the Philippines has one of the largest populations
of Overseas Filipino workers in the world. It also demonstrates that both parents, the
father and the mother, work there to generate a high income and meet their children's
needs, particularly in terms of education. One of the most important tasks a parent must
play nowadays is to be serious while dealing with their millennial student child. Because
it is difficult to send their children to formal education, it is also difficult to keep an eye on
them and provide proper reinforcement due to the vast distance between them. A
growing number of parents from Southeast Asia's low-income countries are joining the
global labor movement in response to labor shortages in the region's wealthier countries
and abroad. As the population of more industrialized countries ages and the demand
for service workers rises, a growing number of these migratory parents are
mothers who leave their homes and children behind to work "temporarily" providing
domestic and care services to others. (Graham and Gordan, 2011).

Family structure, household resources, monthly salary, number of siblings, social

status, gender, age, need, and necessities are the few reasons why a parent needs to
work overseas to provide the fundamentals of raising one’s children. However, there are
so many disadvantages based on how it affects one’s mindset, personality, and attitude
towards another, and risks their education outcomes (Arguillas, 2010).

Parental Migration amidst Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is a big challenge for OFW workers. Maintaining financial
problems and stabilization of one’s mental health is a must since they’re in the middle of
the pandemic and far away from home and family affects them the most. Coping with
 new struggle and struggle makes it harder for them to live their life comfortably
especially if they have family who left behind their country.

(Cleofas et al., 2021). Prior to the pandemic, it became more challenging in

every parent-children relationship that is far from each other’s due to migration. Filipinos
spend more time interacting with their family members during periods of lockdown
because of COVID-19 (Cenon et al., 2020). This emotional labor included getting
acclimated to (sanay) life overseas, compounded by the work needed to labor through
the fear triggered by, butnot limited to, the COVID-19 pandemic (Borja, 2021).

The Shift in Parental Roles and Responsibilities

Migration has become a common practice in many countries, especially in

low and middle income countries. The physical absence of parents in their children's
lives has been a significant factor that affects the health of the children. The
responsibility of decision-making and other resources is being passed down to the
caregivers of the children, usually their grandparents. With that responsibility, the burden
takes a toll on the caregiver's overall physical and mental health. So, not only the
children suffer, but also their caregivers, as the demands in balancing their work and
needs are exhausting them. In the physical absence of parents, financial
and instrumental support are passed down to the children's caregivers. The decision-
making for children's health and overall well-being is shifted without the presence of the
parents. Financial and health burdens are being carried by children and most specifically
their caregivers or other family members (Treleaven and Ngin, 2021).

Parental Migration for their Children

Parents leaving their children to work abroad is acknowledged as a sacrifice for

making their lives better. But there are also negative effects, specifically
psychological effects, in children's lives. The physical presence of parents is
significant in nurturing the emotional and intimate aspects of children's lives. Although
the children understand the reason behind their parent's need to leave, they are still
longing the physical intimacy and support from their parents. Studies show the great
impact of the absence of parents on their children's mental health.
 Conducted studies show that children with overseas parent workers have shown
depressive and anxiety symptoms, creating an unstable mental state.

The lack of physical intimacy and support from overseas worker parents contributes to
an unhealthy mental state, making them prone to having clinical depression and suicidal
tendencies (Manalo, 2019). According to Zhao (2017),longer separation has a
significant impact on many children's psychosocial well-being, particularly emotional
distress, owing to disrupted attachment relationships. Even if migrant parents went home
permanently, these impacts may be difficult to restore.

According to Machica and Montallana (2018), the quality of time and attention
between the parents and their children are very important in maintaining the good
relationship that they have. However, students that have Overseas Filipino Worker
parents do not have this personal time and attention with them since their parents are
far from them and serving other people related to their work. It also states that
students with OFW parents may experience the feeling of desertion and isolation,
unhappiness, missing the presence of their parents, and mental illness that may affect
their academic performances and their personal lives.

Media literacy should be taught by the parents to their children, for them to know the
proper use of it as a student. However, children with parents working abroad had no
chance to be well guided by their parents with the proper use of social media, as they
were separated from them and were only left with their siblings, grandparents, or
other relatives at home. These students are lacking assistance from their parents on
how to deal with social media properly and how to use gadgets as their source of
information in education. Some students said that they were the only ones who taught
themselves on how to use gadgets and social media. With that in mind, it is a
disadvantage for them because, at a young age, they are still not fully aware of
the consequences or negative effects that social media might give. But on the other
hand, social media has a big part in the life and communication of students with their
parents abroad as they were aware of how to make use of it, they can always have a
chat about what happened to their day, what they are doing, and can share every
moment of their lives, even virtually. (Pädagogik et al., 2019).

Parental Migration on Academic Performance of their Children

Children of migrant worker parents attend school for fewer years than children of
non-migrant parents. There are bigger effects for children whose parents migrated
abroad, for children aged 12 to 17.
 This parent’s migration has a negative impact on children's education, which needs
to be investigated further. The underlying reasons explaining the drop-in child schooling
could be a lack of parental supervision, mental suffering for the children left behind,
the substitution of migrant labor, and the higher migration prospects of the children left
behind. For a variety of reasons, the detrimental impact of parental relocation on
children's educational outcomes is greater for older children as they need more
physical parental guidance as they are going through the adolescence stage. (Marchetta
and Sim, 2021).

Arguillas and William (2010) found that separations caused by overseas

employment are either neutral or affect the educational outcomes of the students
positively or negatively. It appears that girls do better in education than boys do, and
the study shows that male students are more affected. However, other studies —
Children’s Schooling and Parental Migration: Empirical Evidence on the “Left Behind”
Generation in Albania, (Giannelli and Mangiavacchi, 2010), show that the effect on
female students is higher, and they are more likely to suffer from depression. The results
also show that parental migration contributes a lot to the educational success of a
student, specifically, those sons or daughters of migrant parents who send a higher
volume of remittances or remit more frequently.

According to Botezat (2014), “home alone” children receive higher school grades
due to them having more time for studying. However, these students are more
likely to experience depression and suffer from health problems, especially when they
are living in rural areas. The positive impact of parental migration on the academic
achievement of a student left at home may come as a surprise, but it is consistent with
findings from other countries. According to Macoursand Vakis (2010), they found out that
parent migration has a positive effect on the student’s cognitive outcomes. Arguillas and
Williams (2010) found pieces of evidence that having a parent who is a migrant
increases the years of schooling of children left home in the Philippines. Yang (2008)
also shows that students from migrant families experience better schooling outcomes.
Still, we cannot ignore the negative effects of having a migrant parent. Other
studies exhibit that missing the main adult caregiver may be harmful to the student’s
achievements. Giannelli and Mangiavacchi (2010) found out that the absence of a parent
affects the child’s school attendance negatively. McKenzie and Rapoport (2011) find that
living in migrant households lowers the probability for the student to finish high school.
Coping Mechanism of Students with the Overseas Employment of their Parents

According to Navarez and Diaz (2017), the increasing number of students

who are experiencing school life without their parents' presence is now a global
phenomenon in today’s generation. In the absence of parents, technical mechanisms
such as cell phones and computers have become the default substitute for
personal parenting, particularly in terms of parental motivation in their children's
academic success. The use of instrumental assistance as a coping method can help
youngsters left behind create strong interpersonal relationships in which they can offer
encouragement and advice. While many children's classroom performance suffers
when their parents are abroad, many were also have discovered to do admirably
performance through various techniques. These children also strive for high grades
because they want their parents to be happy, and it is the only recompense they can
provide to their parents who have made several sacrifices.

Consequences of Parental Absence due to Migration for their Children

The opportunities brought by the overseas work of Filipino parents have resulted
in inevitable consequences on their children who are left behind. While the parents were
seeking great opportunities to provide and sustain their family needs, on the other hand,
their child is seeking the love and assistance that they could have provided if they
stayed at home. In the Philippines, it is usual for Filipino families to encounter financial
problems at times, and overseas work has become their solution to that issue. This
study shows that the migration of the parents in every Filipino family has given a
negative effect on the emotional well-being of a child that was left at home. Parental
absence can widely affect the children in terms of their education, behavior, and good
relationship with their parents. Due to the long separation, children tend to
feel emotional distress and loneliness that causes them to have a bad performance in
school. With that, the authors found out that these children would result to convince
their parents to go back home despite the better financial support that they can give
when they are working abroad. (Peñalba,2020).
 According to Richins and Chaplin (2015), the parents use material things in
expressing their love to their children by providing the things that they need or want.
Overseas Filipino Worker parents also use material parenting to their children to prevent
the loss of attachment, the closeness that they have, and the feeling of loneliness.
Giving them personal needs, such as school-related materials, gadgets, money, and
souvenirs are one of their ways aside from the call and text messages to give them the
attention that usually parents give to their children every day. However, there are also
disadvantages of material parenting, it may affect the student’s behavior rand limitations
in their life inside and outside the school.
 CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY
This chapter presents the process by which the researcher have undertaken to
come up with more reliable findings. This methodology includes Res

Research Design

This research is a Phenomenological Research Design under Qualitative

Research Approach in analyzing the experiences of senior high school students that
have OFW parents. Qualitative research is a type of research that explores and
provides deeper insights into real-world problems that gather non numerical data
of participants’ experiences, perceptions, and behavior. (Tenny et al., 2021).
Phenomenology is a form of qualitative data that is defined as an approach to research
that seeks to describe the essence of a phenomenon by exploring it from the
perspective of those who have experienced it. (Neubauer et al., 2019).

The researchers chose the Qualitative Research Approach as it was appropriate for
knowing and exploring the perspective of senior high school students for having parents
that are working abroad and to collect descriptive data through an online interview.
Phenomenological Research Design was applied to gather the lived experiences of
senior high school students that have OFW parents.

Locale of the Study

This study entitled “A Sacrificial Love: Illuminating Experiences among Senior High
School Students with Overseas Filipino Worker Parents in Maligaya National High
School” will be conducted mainly at Maligaya National High School, located beside
National Highway, Barangay Maligaya, Lambayong, Sultan Kudarat, Philippines. There
are two strand in MNHS where Senior High School students were in, such as students
from; General Academic Strand and Technology Vocational Livelihood that are possible
to have an OFW parents who are still working abroad hence the pandemic.
Respondents of the Study