ON FEBRUARY 26, 1986, Oebanda, along with other political prisoners across the country, was released from jail. But the stresses of prison life and her decision to personally attend to her growing brood and make them her topmost priority had put a strain on her marriage. She and her husband eventually parted ways.

	MA. CECILIA FLORES-OEBANDA Photo by Lilen Uy

With four children in tow, including two who had been born in jail, she struggled to make a new life in Manila. She was able to put her kids through school with the help of supportive brothers who had made it good. But the call of service was already in her blood and too strong to ignore. The Ormoc tragedy in 1991, which killed 8,000 people in huge flashfloods and landslides, sparked the first joint activity of the Visayan Forum, which was now drawing more of her time. Tapping a growing circle of contacts among Visayan professionals and students in Metro Manila, they were able to send three planeloads of relief goods and supplies to Ormoc, Leyte.

This was also the time when cases of abused housemaids began being brought to the Forum's attention. Oebanda recounts cases of eight year olds whom they had rescued, their backs and thighs pressed with a hot iron by their employer. There were also cases of rape, those whose bodies were burned with cigarette butts, or sprayed with a fire extinguisher. She say, "I was like an umang, a crab, who had a backpack with me wherever I went, and planted myself wherever there was some vacant place in an office where I could make use of a computer to document these cases."

Today the Visayan Forum now has its own national office in Manila — plus a network of over 70 staff workers, six regional offices, and seven project areas at strategic locations around the highways and ports. Its program provides crisis services to child domestics and exploited adult househelp, such as a telephone hotline, medical and legal assistance, and shelters.

"Our focus is child domestics because of their vulnerability, but our advocacy is for the whole sector," says Oebanda. The Intenational Labor Organization estimates that locally, 2.5 million women work as domestic helpers in private households, constituting 14 percent of total wage earners in the private sector. More than 250,000 are hired overseas legally. The National Statistics Office reports around 300,000 children working as domestic help.

While her current work keeps her busy, Oebanda says she has no bitterness or regret over her years spent in the movement. She muses, "The stages of my life are written and carved in the names of my children — Eric, who is his father's junior; Kip, which is short for "dakip" or capture; Malaya, which means freedom; and Ani, which means harvest because she was born just after Edsa 1."

And through her work among the most silent and neglected by society, Oebanda has added more children to her brood, giving them a name and a face for everybody to see. — Fides Lim