TACLOBAN CITY– President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s continuing support for returning overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) strengthens their reintegration into local communities by providing livelihood assistance that help them turn their skills and overseas experience into sustainable income opportunities and rebuild financially secure lives with their families back home.
The Marcos administration’s continuing support for returning OFWs is helping workers rebuild their livelihoods at home, with OWWA Regional Office VIII releasing Balik Pinas, Balik Hanapbuhay checks to 29 beneficiaries in Ormoc City, providing them with resources to establish sources of oncome and become more financially self-reliant.
In Ormoc City, the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration Regional Office VIII (OWWA-8) recently released Balik Pinas, Balik Hanapbuhay (BPBH) livelihood assistance checks to two returning OFW beneficiaries.
The BPBH Program provides livelihood assistance to eligible returning OFWs to help them rebuild their sources of income and establish sustainable livelihood opportunities upon their return to the Philippines.
The assistance serves as a means of support for beneficiaries as they transition from overseas empioyment to livelihood activities in their locai communities. It also provides an opportunity for returning OFWs to utilize their skills, experience, and resources in developing or rebuilding their means of livelihood.
OWWA-8 also recently conducted an Information Technology (IT) Training in Ormoc City designed to equip OFWs and their families with practical digital skills that can help them adapt to an increasingly technology-driven workplace and economy.
The two-day training held this August featured sessions on Virtual Assistance (VA) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Skills, Computer Literacy, and Canva Design Essentials, providing participants with practical knowledge and foundational digital competencies applicable to various employment, freelance, and livelihood opportunities.
The training provides participants with knowledge and skills that can be applied to various employment and livelihood opportunities, including technology-based work, online services, and digital entrepreneurship.
For OFWs returning home, developing digital competencies can help bridge the transition from overseas employment to local income-generating opportunities. It also gives them additional tools to explore alternative sources of income while remaining close to their families.
The Marcos administration’s continuing support for returning OFWs is helping workers rebuild their livelihoods at home. Rather than viewing their return as the end of their economic journey, the program helps returning workers see it as an opportunity to begin anew—this time as entrepreneurs, livelihood partners, and contributors to their communities.
(AHLETTE C. REYES, PIA-LEYTE)
Identifying the true Christ
FALSE Christs have never struggled with confidence. They always arrive fully persuaded of their own brilliance and quite happy for everyone else to agree. Scripture, however, is noticeably less enthusiastic. It repeatedly warns that not everyone claiming divine authority has actually checked in with God first.
Christ wasted no words on the matter. “Many will come in my name,” he said, claiming to be the Messiah and leading many astray (cf. Mt. 24:5). Apparently, self-appointment has always been easier than genuine discipleship.
He sharpened the warning elsewhere: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Mt. 7:15). The fleece may be convincing. The appetite usually gives the game away.
Looking around today, the warning feels remarkably current. Politics has its messiahs. Business has its visionaries. Entertainment manufactures gurus with alarming efficiency. Even religion occasionally produces personalities more interested in gathering followers than leading souls to God.
None of this should surprise us. Human beings have always been susceptible to persuasive voices promising shortcuts, certainty, and effortless success. Every generation imagines it has finally discovered the answer that previous generations somehow overlooked. History politely suggests otherwise.
St. John offered practical advice that has aged rather well: “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits” (1 Jn. 4:1). Not every confident speaker deserves confidence. Not every popular message deserves belief. Discernment remains one of the least fashionable but most necessary Christian virtues.
The Gospel scene at Caesarea Philippi offers an instructive moment. Jesus asks his disciples who people think he is. The answers are respectable enough—John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, another prophet. Close, perhaps, but still guesses assembled from public opinion rather than divine revelation.
Then comes Peter’s answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus immediately points out that this insight did not emerge from clever deduction or successful polling. It came from the Father. Faith saw what observation alone could not.
That remains true today. Reason matters. Study matters. History, theology, and scholarship all have their rightful place. But none of them can replace the gift of faith, through which God gradually reveals his Son to hearts willing to receive him.
Which explains why humility is indispensable. Proud minds often rush toward impressive personalities. Humble hearts are more interested in truth than spectacle. They are willing to listen before speaking and to follow before leading.
A reliable test soon appears. The true Christ never edits the Cross out of the story. He invites us to carry it, not avoid it. False Christs usually prefer a more marketable message: uninterrupted prosperity, permanent comfort, and a life where inconvenience has been quietly discontinued.
The true Christ directs every heart toward the Father. False Christs direct attention toward themselves, their movement, or their supposedly revolutionary method. One calls for repentance and conversion. The other offers affirmation with remarkably few demands attached.
The real Christ is found where he promised to remain: in Sacred Scripture, in the sacraments, above all in the Eucharist, in his Church, and among the poor. Counterfeits usually promise exclusive secrets, private revelations, or membership in the spiritual equivalent of a VIP lounge.
The challenge, then, is not merely to recognize persuasive voices but to recognize the Shepherd’s voice. False prophets will always sound convincing to someone. The Christian task is to stay close enough to Christ that imitation becomes easier to detect.
The Bible’s warning is therefore not an exercise in suspicion but an invitation to fidelity. When we remain rooted in Christ through faith, humility, prayer, and the life of the Church, false messiahs eventually reveal themselves. The true Christ never needs clever marketing. He simply asks us to follow him.