Invisible to incandescent: Filipino domestic workers seize the stage to become stars for a day

On a humid Sunday afternoon on March 22, hundreds of migrant workers poured into a cavernous auditorium in Bukit Merah Central.

They were there for “OFW (Overseas Filipino Workers) Got Talent”, a modestly funded but fiercely cherished event that, for a few hours, elevated the lives of Filipino domestic workers in Singapore from invisible to incandescent.

For many of the contestants, the stage was not just a platform for showcasing their talents in singing, dancing and acting. It was an escape.

There are at least 80,000 Filipino maids in Singapore. Many carry the invisible scars that come with a migrant’s life. They are homesick all the time. Most of them have not seen their families in years.

It does not get any easier at work. The hours are long, and some can barely make ends meet on their salaries, with debts to pay and money to be sent back home each month.

But on that particular Sunday, all those worries dissipated, if only briefly.

The event, started by domestic helper Joy Cardoza and now in its fourth year, is funded largely by contestants’ nominal registration fees, with additional support from Filipino businesses in Singapore.

Renting the venue alone costs about $3,000. But the returns – for those organising the event, the audience and especially the contestants – far exceed the expense.

Channelling grief into winning song

Ms Farrah Villarta, 44, stepped onto the stage with a voice honed by years of hardship. She joined the contest, she said, as a way to keep moving forward.

“I joined because I went through all sorts of misfortunes in recent years: fire, earthquake and floods,” she said. “So I’m starting all over, still fighting.”

She spent a decade paying for her mother’s house in the Philippines, only to see it gutted by fire in 2024.

When her family finally moved into a new home she built after years of squirrelling away every dollar she could spare, an earthquake in 2025 reduced it to rubble.

“It’s very difficult because I thought I finally had a home I could go back to,” she said. “But now, I have to start all over again.”

Ms Villarta, a single mother of two, has worked in Singapore for 14 years. Her employers, a British couple, sat in the audience that afternoon, cheering her on.

Since starting work in Singapore, she said she has entered eight talent shows and won four, including one with a $1,400 prize, which helped tide her children, now 19 and 24, over. She did not triumph at the latest edition of OFW Got Talent, but it matters little to her.

“What’s important to me is that my children and my family are alive,” she said. “I stay positive. I keep on fighting.”

When she sings, she channels her grief into something else entirely.

“When I’m on stage, I’m nervous,” she said. “But I just think I’m performing and entertaining people.”

For health, for self-esteem

Backstage, Ms Maria Eldena Loreno, 31, tightened the straps on her roller skates and adjusted a pair of butterfly wings lit with LEDs. It was her first time competing.

“I’m 101 per cent nervous,” she said. “But I think I can get through this.”

Moments later, she nearly fell – the carpeted stage slowing down the wheels on her skates – and one of her wings came loose.

She steadied herself and finished her routine. She was rewarded with rambunctious applause.

“I wanted to show people that there’s more to us than just being maids,” she said after her performance.

Skating, she added, had become her refuge. “When I’m skating, I forget about my problems... When I skate, I’m free,” she said.

For Ms Yhen Toquero, 37, the journey to the stage began with a quieter struggle.

“I was neglecting myself. I was getting fat,” she said. “I told myself that maybe I can regain my self-confidence if I exercise and be sexy.”

She began running distances of 5km to 10km. Over time, she shed nearly 9kg. Now 47kg, she said she feels renewed.

Ms Toquero, who has worked in Singapore for 13 years and is employed by a Brazilian and Swiss couple, said joining talent contests has helped to motivate her.

“I want to be healthier,” she said.

Rage released

There were playful jabs at the madcap politics back home, but there were also moments of raw emotion.

In one skit, performers sketched out the fault lines of a migrant life: the years-long separation and alienation from their children, the broken marriages, an illness that wipes out their savings and the desperate longing to go home, overruled by the push to stay because of the incessant, insistent, paralysing need to send money back home.

There was suppressed sobbing in the audience, drowned out by howling laughter that was essentially a release of the rage, desperation and hope domestic workers feel.

Ms Cardoza said the idea for OFW Got Talent came after noticing a friend slip into anxiety.

“I wanted something we could do the whole day, like a fiesta, something beyond just going out on Sundays to spend,” she said.

“I am very, very happy to hear them screaming and enjoying themselves,” Ms Cardoza said of the audience. “I’m giving them one day in a year when they can forget about their problems.”

Those who came to see the show said they were there to blow off steam.

For those on stage, it was an opportunity to find pride and reclaim a sense of self that long hours and demanding employers can erode.

While the burdens did not disappear for everyone, they were at least shared, transformed and – for a few hours – made lighter.