After over five years since inception, The Filipino Times has, by all indications, made its mark.
Mainstream media in the UAE and the Philippines have developed the habit of monitoring TFT for news about Filipinos in the region – big events, elections, town hall meetings at the embassy and consulate, visiting dignitaries from the Philippines as well as issues related to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).
On the other end are OFWs looking to TFT for news reports about developments directly affecting them: visit visa regulations, UAE Cabinet decrees and labor issues, not to mention court rulings.
In other words, TFT has become a source of information for the UAE media industry and the Filipino community, itself.
Nowhere is TFT’s relevance even more validated than in a 2017 agreement between the government’s Emirates News Agency (WAM) and TFT, which was done on invitation of the former. The agreement allows WAM to publish TFT news stories and vice versa, which further amplifies important developments and issues in the community.
Still in media engagements, The Guardian, a UK-based outfit, has referred to TFT regarding a news story it was developing in connection with an OFW who had gone in hiding for years.
In the Philippines, TFT has also tied up with the independent news portal, Rappler which publishes our relevant news stories for its readers.
The TFT, too, has become reference materials for researchers doing a study about OFWs in the UAE, among them Kyoto University in Japan, whose professor has gone to Dubai for a meet-up with our editor for a briefing about salient facts regarding the community.
Our strong online edition, for its part, has become the go-to site for Filipinos back home wanting to know what’s going on to their OFW relatives in the UAE. Filipino journalists assigned to cover labor issues are also known to keep tabs on TFT.
All these milestones in about five years.
