How an HR boss saved ‘suicidal’ Filipina in Dubai
Farm girl turned multi-awarded professional shares inspiring journey
Vagelyn Tumbaga-Federico remembers the conversation vividly. It was 2016 and she was on the phone with a distraught Filipina in Dubai after a common friend brought the woman’s plight to her attention.
“I will jump off this building,” Tumbaga-Federico recalls the sobbing woman telling her. The jobless Filipina said only Tumbaga-Federico could talk her out of her plans for suicide.
“I rushed to Deira and met her. She said she was desperate because she hadn’t been able to get a job in months,” Tumbaga-Federico told Gulf News. She helped the woman land a job as laundry assistant at a Dubai hotel. She is now a supervisor there.
The self-confessed farm girl turned multi-awarded HR director in Dubai had been thrust into the limelight after her life’s story was featured in Maalalaa Mo Kaya, the Philippines’ longest-running drama anthology in 2015.
36 days of hell
It was a 180-degree turn for Tumbaga-Federico, who more than a decade ago struggled to find a job in the UAE. She left her home in La Union, Philippines to find her luck in Dubai and help her family.
Tumbaga-Federico struggled to survive here and at first lived in a room that she shared with ten other people. She went out every day, for two months, to apply for jobs until her visa expired and she had to fly to Kish Island where she spent “36 days of hell”. There, she “begged for food and washed dishes for scraps to eat”. One day, she came to her hotel room to find that her close friend had committed suicide.
She eventually found her way back to the UAE where she was first hired as a secretary for a hotel, getting the job during Ramadan. She worked her way up to become the youngest hotel general manager at 28. .
She later negotiated for the job where her heart is: human resource management. It allowed her to “give others a chance”. It became a whirlwind: she was elected as president of the FilHR club in the UAE, invited to give talks at Philippine missions.
A room for her awards
She also won numerous awards, including Most Influential Filipino in the Gulf, 100 Most Influential Global HR Leader, and just last year The People Builder Award where she bested HR directors around the world.
The most memorable award she’s received? When random people say “I have touched and changed their lives, and they did not give up because of my story.”