Single Mom Who Raised 3 Children by Working as HSW for 20 Years Wins Title
DUBAI: A 50-year-old single mom who have raised her three children working as a household service worker (HSW) abroad for the past 20 years, has been hailed, “Mother Queen 2015” at a beauty pageant by members of an organization of HSWs in the UAE.
“Masayang masaya ako (I’m so happy),” was all Gloria Bustamante could say almost teary-eyed when announced that she has won.
Bustamante left her children – Randy, Ricardo and Rachelle – to the care of a kin at their home in Alicia, Isabela when they were 12, eight and six years old respectively. She first went to Singapore where, she said, she arrived with only the clothes on her back. “Butas pa stockings ko (My stockings even had a hole on it),” she said.
During the question-and-answer portion, The Filipino Times editor, Gemma Q. Casas, who was on the panel of judges, asked Bustamante what she thought was her greatest sacrifice as an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW), to which she replied: “Yun ay ang mapahiwalay sa aking mga anak. Yung iniwan ko ang pamilya ko. Hindi sila lumaki sa piling ko. At ngayo’y andito na sila. (That is being separated from my children. I left my kids. They did not grow up with me. And now they are with me.)” Her reply drew a resounding applause from the crowd who were mostly HSWs themselves and relatives of the candidates.
Bustamante who was only able to finish high school, said her husband, Ricardo, abandoned them and married another woman. “Sumama sya sa ibang babae 24 years ago na (He went with another woman 24 years ago today),” she told The Filipino Times.
