“ A True Leader in Heart and in Action” : Roxanne Oddie

Posted by Administrator Monday, 05 July 2010 11:59

It has been a while that Siam Pinoy has featured another great Khun Pinoy. This time around, it was in Chiang Mai that we found somebody whom every Pinoy in Thailand should know of. And this is none other than Kabayan Roxanne Oddie – a leader, a humanitarian, a Pinoy who does not wish to call attention on to herself, but would rather recognize those who, along with her, champion the cause and serve the needs of the Filipino community in the north.

Siam Pinoy interviews Roxanne Oddie, President of AFT-NRC (Association of Filipinos in Thailand – Northern Region Chapter).

SP: From our meetings with some of the members, it seems the community is a mix of people from different fields and profession. How would you describe the Filipino community in Chiang Mai?

Roxanne Oddie: The Filipinos in Chiang Mai are mostly teachers and/or missionaries, a few employees in the entertainment and design/graphic works, and several Filipinas married to Thais and running family businesses. The age range is from mid-20’s to 60’s, and there are informal “sub-groups” resulting from church affiliations. Just like most Filipinos in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand, we Filipinos in Chiang Mai and other nearby provinces also meet in June (Independence Day Celebration) and December (year-end party). There was a Filipino restaurant serving the Filipino community here in Chiang Mai for 25 years, aptly named Mabuhay, of course. It recently closed, but only temporarily. It will come back to be part of the Pinoy community again for a very long time.

SP: As the chosen person to lead your team of officers in terms of activities, projects and events for Pinoys in the north, for the second time now, what are some challenges as well as good experiences you have had?

Roxanne Oddie: Challenges, there have been many. Less than a year after moving into Chiang Mai, I was appointed as Communications Officer of AFT-NRC for 2005 to 2006. I started an aggressive emailing campaign, I personally encoded all the email addresses from the directory and began sending out messages to people I didn’t even know. It was a risk, but it paid off. It made people know that we were reaching out to them, that we wanted them to participate in association activities, and that we wanted to connect with them.

It was also a challenge to connect with kababayans outside of Chiang Mai. AFT-NRC has members in Lampang, Lamphun, Chiang Rai, Tak, Mae Hong Son, Phrae, Phayao, Nan, and other remote areas in the north. When planning group activities, we have to consider the traveling our kababayans have to make in order to participate.

Because there are over two hundred Filipinos in the community here, I am mindful that there are over two hundred individuals with their own ideas, feelings, priorities, and interests. One challenge was finding commonality, and promoting harmony and unity, not uniformity.

As for good experiences, there have been many as well. When I see kababayans get together and genuinely enjoy one another’s company, or forming new friendships; or when there is a kababayan in distress and the group gets together to support; or when we celebrate the personal and career successes of our members, those are good experiences.

When the group from the Philippine Embassy comes to do a Consular Outreach program, our kababayans are able to avail of consular services here in Chiang Mai and that is a very significant way of serving the Filipino community. When some of our foreign friends learn about it, they say they envy us because they say their own embassy normally does not offer such a service for them.

Another good experience I had was when I coordinated with the Philippine Embassy in helping a kababayan in jail here in Chiang Mai. It’s a long story, but in the end we managed to have her released and she was able to board the special PAL flight from Chiang Mai to Manila (this happened during the airport closure in Bangkok), with then Consul General Charles Jose present to send her off. I hope our kababayans don’t go afoul with the law here in the future.

SP: The Habitat for Humanity project in 2009 was a success and the volunteers who participated in it have very positive experiences on how it went and how it was organized. Could you comment on that?

Roxanne Oddie: I was already bent on joining the build long before I knew the volunteering process, and my decision was reinforced when I met kababayan Malvin Pagdanganan who was the architect then assigned as Project Manager when Habitat started construction on the site. I had no idea then that I would in fact be organizing the volunteers for one house, the “Cory House”.

As it turned out, building the Cory House is my favorite among all activities I have initiated. Organizing the volunteers a little over a month before the build was a real challenge, and I was very pleasantly surprised with the overwhelming response.

I was very fortunate to have worked with a very supportive, efficient, and competent partner, Gigi Narrido, who really helped in putting together a system of constantly updating the progress of our appeal for volunteers so that we were able to fill in all the slots in time for the build. We managed to get a total of 32 Filipino volunteers, and we were joined by a few other foreign volunteers who later became our friends.

It was also a pleasure to work with our kababayan Mr. Raul Sarceda who was the Liaison officer for Habitat for Humanity, his decisive and focused coordination system made the work a lot smoother, and he really understood the process and had faith in all of us, which in turn inspired us to put in our best effort. He was the one who approached me with the idea of organizing the Filipino community here to build the Cory House.

The actual build lasted 5 days, from November 16 to 20. On day one, we were joined by a team from the Philippines, including Karen Davila, Fernando Zobel de Ayala, and Balsy Aquino-Cruz and her husband Eldon. In the midst of learning how to put bricks in place, and how to grout and mix cement properly, we had a surprise visit by former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. He stopped by to chat with Balsy and he commented on our “We Built the Cory House” banner. We were one of only a few houses with a banner, and of course we also proudly displayed our Philippine flag.

On the final day when the Cory House was turned over to the new home owners (they are from an indigenous tribe and did not speak English), we all got quite emotional. Everybody was teary-eyed, we builders were humbled by the gratitude of the owners, and they in turn were touched by the bayanihan spirit of the group. The so-called language barrier was no barrier that day, we all understood love and dignity and respect for humanity.

The volunteers really bonded after that experience. We learned that we can all get down and dirty and get the job done, we realized we had the endurance and the patience needed to build a house, we got to know one another in the most unglamorous setting. We sweated together, we got hungry together, we looked after one another. Everybody checked on everybody, it was truly bayanihan spirit actualized.

Nowadays, when a name is mentioned, somebody would ask, “nag-Habitat ba siya?” (did he/she join the Habitat project?), so the build has become a point of reference. It’s now common to hear “ah, yes, kasama natin siya sa Habitat!” (Ah, yes, she/he was with us in the Habitat project!) That activity was a real bonding experience for all involved. Incidentally, most of the current officers of AFT-NRC were also Habitat volunteers.

One last thing, my organizing the Pinoy volunteers for Habitat was also a way of proving a point. I was not an officer of any organization when I did that, and my point is this: One does not need to be in an elected “power position” to do something relevant, anybody who has the will and determination can do it.

SP: The July 1 event, an evening of Filipino Cultural Dances, was well received by audiences, Filipino, Thai and foreign, how were you able to pull it off in just a matter of a little more than a week?

Roxanne Oddie: AFT-NRC held its election of officers on June 12. On June 16, I was notified that the Central Luzon State University Dance Troupe would be coming to Chiang Mai and are willing to perform for the Filipino community on July 1. On June 17 we, newly-elected officers held an emergency meeting to plan the event. By June 18 we scouted for a potential venue, on June 19 we booked a venue, and by June 20 we had tickets. By June 21 we were selling tickets already. And on July 1 we were all ready for the show.

It’s the result of cooperation, decisiveness, implementation, and focus on the goal. The success of the show is due to the tireless effort of my fellow officers. Everybody did their tasks on time, with minimum supervision. They knew exactly what to do and how to get it done. I am very fortunate, again, to have an outstanding team of officers who so selflessly gave of their personal time and resources. We set up a very efficient communication system, we paid attention to details, we made sure to finish the tasks we started.

The show was actually in partnership with Maejo University represented by our kababayan Ms. Diana Jantakad. She took care of the program and the performers, we took care of the preparation and the bulk of the ticket sales. AFT-NRC was quite low key during the show, but that was because we had already done our share of the massive preparatory work by then.

The main objective of AFT-NRC was to promote and showcase Filipino culture here in Chiang Mai, and to celebrate Filipino cultural dance as a form of entertainment. Based on the audience attendance and reaction, we achieved our objective.

SP: Being an officer of a Filipino organization in a foreign land is not an easy, nor a glamorous job. To produce meaningful activities, one has to work hard and make many personal sacrifices. Where do you get your drive and enthusiasm to keep going when hard times come?

Roxanne Oddie: You are so right, being an officer of a Filipino organization here in Thailand is so not a glamorous job, whoever thought otherwise is mistaken. For one thing, I would never dream of printing a name card so I can brandish my “presidency”. I don’t mean any disrespect here, but as far as I’m concerned, the presidency is spelled “R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y”. Labels and titles are meaningless to me, it’s what you do and put in that matters, not what you take out.

So where do I get my drive and enthusiasm? From my dream world! I dream of a Filipino community where there is unity and harmony, where every Filipino wants to help one another. I dream of a community whose members grab every opportunity to excel in their chosen field of expertise, where they strive for their highest ideals.

I have a choice, just like everybody else. I can choose to do nothing but complain and criticize and wish things were better. Or I can strive to do something about issues I am passionate about. I can choose to be indifferent and lazy, or I can choose to be proactive and participatory. I can choose to be a road block, or I can choose to be an enabler. If I cannot help an association, at least I choose not to destroy the existing ones. I guess my choices are obvious.

In good times and in bad, my partner and best friend, my husband Matthew, he stands by me and supports me. He gives me strength, he is my true north. He keeps me grounded, he helps me see things from different perspectives. So aside from my dream world, I get my drive and enthusiasm from my Matthew.

SP: As you start your two-year term the second time around, what is your message to all the Filipinos in the northern region of Thailand?

Roxanne Oddie: I echo our new Ambassador, HE Linglingay Lacanlale: We Filipinos should all be ambassadors of our country. What we do matters, and we should welcome the opportunity to pursue our best potential. An organization offers the structure to do things together, but what we do in our personal and work circumstance will add up to make the community we all belong to. Again, I quote the Ambassador: We should all be the best representative of our country.

Any team leader can only do so much, but with the help of members, much can be achieved. Association presidents come and go, but the community stays. So I call on our kababayans to embrace and be an active participant of the community. Let us all help and reach out to one another.

And with that, Siam Pinoy leaves the idyllic city of Chiang Mai, taking with us a reassuring thought that in the culturally-rich city of the north, the equally rich and diverse Filipino culture will always have a place to thrive and flourish, as long as we have Filipinos there like Roxanne Oddie, President of the AFT-NRC, who tirelessly work for the benefit of the Filipino community.

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