The Secret Life of OFWs is Jet Tagasa’s debut literary work, a series of eight short horror stories about OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) set in modern times but rooted in Philippine folklore. Terrifying, disturbing, and tragic, Tagasa’s tales take on a horrifying perspective inspired by reality, prying into humanity’s most innate and primal fears.
Many of Tagasa’s stories feature a common cryptid in Philippine mythology: the aswang, an evil beast that feeds off of humans and often takes on the form of one to disguise its true form. Interestingly, Tagasa does not depict these demonic creatures as the antagonists and instead writes them as the main characters, the Filipino expats. In most of the stories, the aswangs do not have evil intentions and only unleash their violent powers to exact vengeance on those who commit the actual monstrosities – typically the tyrannical man. This is vividly depicted in The Part-timer, based on a tragedy in Hong Kong in 2014 when two Indonesian girls were brutally mutilated and murdered by a British man in a hotel room. In this short story, a young woman is trapped by the killer and transforms into her aswang form to take him down. By taking inspiration from real life events and writing the victim’s stories with a new ending, Tagasa strips the perpetrators of their power and agency and gives them to the powerless. In certain stories, the protagonist is aware of their true nature as a violent beast, but chooses not to do any harm until they must protect themselves, as seen in the first short story, The Domestic Helper, where a young woman escapes from her abusive employers (after killing and feeding on them). Tagasa highlights the plight of many overseas Filipino workers, many of whom work for low wages to support their families back home, only to be taken advantage of. The difference in her fictional version is that these workers can take swift, albeit violent, action to escape their suffering. The plot may start out with the OFW as the victim, but by the end, they have connected with a part of themselves that gives them an indestructible strength both physically and emotionally. Tagasa mentions in the introduction of her book that she initially did not set out with the intention of writing a horror book, but because the real circumstances that inspired her stories were so harrowing, she wanted to change the narrative.
As a horror writer, Tagasa does not shy away from creating truly gory climactic scenes; many of which include the ripping apart of human flesh. In some cases, the reader is discovering the twist along with the protagonist, which only amplifies the visceral reaction. The pacing of the suspense building up to the climax is a vital ingredient for a satisfying short story, and Tagasa delivers on this well for the most part, although some twists are more predictable than others. The Balikbayan, a term referring to a Filipino national who has returned to the Philippines after having lived abroad, tells the tale of its main character, Jenny. It begins when she wakes up sick after a celebratory night after traveling to the Philippines to visit her family’s ancestral village. As she recalls the events leading up to her visit, from nearby locals not recognizing the name of her village to the overly-zealous manner in which they welcome her arrival with her boyfriend Brian, there is a foreboding sense of danger that increases with each paragraph, culminating in the horrific realization of who she is and what she has done.
Tagasa’s short horror stories are not just built on the foundation of fear. Particularly compelling are the stories where the protagonist embraces their true form (usually a terrifying beast) to avenge themselves or a loved one. The Waiter tackles the very real topic of homophobia in the Middle East, where two young men in Dubai find themselves ambushed in the desert, resulting in a violent end for the hunters. Tagasa excels at writing grisly scenes but perhaps is even more adept at capturing the intense feelings of sadness and longing in her characters. Two examples of this are present in The Nurse and The Seafarer, where otherworldly creatures fall in love with human beings yet cannot be with them. In the latter story, Tagasa alternates between newspaper excerpts and third-person narrative to describe the fate of a girl named Eugenia who worked on a luxury yacht owned by a crime boss and was the lone survivor after the mysterious destruction of the boat. As the story progresses, it’s revealed that the real Eugenia had died by suicide and her body taken over by the Bakunawa, a serpentine dragon that feeds off of the loneliness and yearning of those at sea. Through this character, Tagasa explores the forlornness of unrequited love and the pain and rage of losing them forever.
As Jet Tagasa’s first publication, The Secret Life of OFWs is the author’s delivery of a new perspective on the tragedies befalling many overseas Filipino workers, using Philippine folklore to illustrate the atrocities of the real world and rewriting them to give a voice to the oppressed.
