Resident Editor’s Note
WRITING stories on overseas Filipinos in the country they left is like cooking delicious nilaga (braised beef): let the beef simmer until tender in a pot over an open fire.

The cook adds water sparingly to keep the beef juice mesh with the broth. The cook also adds a log to keep the fire burning at an even temperature.

We have been simmering the meat, so to speak, in this latest packet. The five stories here have been cooking in our editorial pot since our last packet in April.

Two of the stories give a new look at remittances and the impact of the collapse of the global financial system, both by Jeremaiah M. Opiniano. He also gives us a candid take on the A(H1N1) virus while he traveled to and from Rome, Italy.

There’s also a somber assessment of foreign workers in the United States by T. Christian Miller of ProPublica as well as a focus on women in the US by OFWJC reporter Ruben Jeffrey Asuncion.

While simmering the beef, the OFW Journalism Consortium was also asked to add ingredients to two possible sumptuous sources of stories.

One is a potential partnership with the Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Psychology for online professional counseling services for overseas Filipinos and their families. Another is a likely long-term relationship with 88Db.com on OFWs’ electoral participation for and beyond the 2010 presidential elections.

The relations would be just like sharing dishes between neighbors who recently moved in the same street.
Going back to the stories, again, like nilaga cooked on an open fire during fiestas, they are given free.

We just ask you to acknowledge the cook, in this case, the authors, and the house where the stories are being simmered, in this case, the OFW Journalism Consortium.

DENNIS D. ESTOPACE
(editor@ofwjournalism.net)