From being an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) to becoming your resident Filipino lawyer. Meet Gypsy Cañete Watanabe-Edaño, a former administrative staff in the United Arab Emirates, who is now an attorney in the Philippines after hurdling the 2022 bar examinations.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Edaño said leaving the “overflowing opportunities” in Abu Dhabi, UAE was one of the most difficult decisions she has made in her life.
“I was not ready to stop working abroad but there was a point in my life wherein, despite the perks of my job and the extra convenient life in the United Arab Emirates, I felt so lost and so empty. I felt that there is something that I need to do – something more meaningful to me and something much bigger than myself. Those were perhaps God’s ways of telling me to let go of my life in the Middle East,” she wrote.
Aside from being an administrative staff, Edaño was also a community leader and a volunteer. She was the Vice-President of the United Cebuanos in Abu Dhabi, a regional cultural group which promotes the culture, tradition, and heritage of the Cebuano people.
In March 2016, she and her group launched the FERC Fuels Philippines, a reintegration program to prepare OFWs in returning home, where she took responsibility of the legal and corporate aspects of the organization.
Additionally, she was the Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Learning and Development of the Bayanihan Council, under the auspices of the Philippine Embassy in the UAE.
Given these community involvements, Edaño was reawakened to pursue law once more. Inspired by her late grandfather, who was also a lawyer, she heeded the call to help the OFW community in a bigger platform.
Greatest challenge
For Edaño, the greatest challenge was time. She was in her fourth year when she left law school in 2012 and joined back in 2020.
“I had to read all over again my textbooks from first year to fourth year plus other reading materials with the target of graduating by July 2022 and of passing the November 2022 Bar Examinations. The time was so short with tons of reading materials to finish. I only had barely 4 hours of sleep daily since I started law school last 2020. I only had one good sleep after the bar examinations,” she told The Filipino Times (TFT) in an online interview.
North stars
Edaño reminded OFWs who wished to pursue something greater to always “remember the goal.”
“All the tears and pains, the setbacks and the redirections served as my north stars to find that depth and meaning that I have been looking for all throughout my life,” she posted.
Moreover, Edaño lived through her faith and worked for her heart’s desire.
“Unexpected people and events will show up to assist and guide you to achieve whatever it is that you are pursuing. He will put things in their proper places and the universe will conspire with you to achieve all your heart’s desires. There is no other best secret in every success, it will always and forever be the Lord. Nothing more, nothing less,” she shared with TFT.
